"The Ukulele Duo" - original song by Sara
Well, I was over the moon with how far Sara came in one evening. By the time we made that video it was after 9pm, Sara's dad and grandad (my uncle) were tired and ready for bed, and I figured it was time for me to pack up my ukes and go home.
But Sara was not done with me or my ukes yet. Within minutes of finishing the video, she had learned to play the song twice as fast ... and to sing along with her playing! So, of course I felt we probably ought to make a new video.
But even that was not enough for Sara. "Can we write a song together?" she asked. "Sure," I said, "What do you want to write about?" "Two people playing ukuleles together," said Sara, and proceeded to sing those words to a series of C's and Am's (which I'd just taught her so she'd have access to more songs), and then added a little flourish on the A string at the end.
Then she suggested she would play the "Lion Sleeps Tonight" chords (C-F-C-G7) three times while I played the
"Christmas Train Blues" 12-bar blues progression simultaneously (C7-C7-C7-C7, F7-F7-C7-C7, G7-G7-F7-C7). I thought this would sound like mush together, but hey, she's the songwriter, so we tried it ... and you know, I think it sounds pretty cool! Then she added a little ending and, Tada! ... young Sara, who had been playing uke all of maybe 2-3 hours, has written her first song!
Before making video, while she was writing the song, we captured it in her iPhone so we'd have a record of it. To save the recording, the iPhone asks for a title ... and she handed me the phone to type one in. "What do you want to call it?" I asked. And Sara says, "The Ukulele Duo". I kid you not ... the entire song and Season-202-fitting title all came from her ... all I did was ask a few open questions, and she created this: