Are ukulele players more dedicated?

Saw an article today about Fender trying to increase retention of guitar players. From the article - "But novice players often stop playing and don’t pick it up again.

“As an industry, we do not have a problem attracting new entrants,” Fender CEO Andy Mooney said in a presentation in New York City recently. The “bad news is we have a retention challenge.”

According to Fender, the majority of first-time guitar buyers — 90% — abandon the instrument within the first year."
My question - what are ukulele's first year retention numbers? Anyone have an idea?

No stats but after 40 years working as a classroom and studio music teacher, I suspect people are about the same as far as commitment to musical hobbies whether it be guitar, ukulele, piano, voice, etc. Once they figure out how much work is involved in becoming good at making music, they move on to the next hobby.

That may be because the guitar is somewhat hard, so most new players quit. The ukulele is much easier, so I can see why it is easier to stick with.

I quit guitar (long ago) partly because it hurt the fingers. It was much more difficult to become proficient at than the ukulele.

I also suspect that most guitar players start much younger than most ukulele players. The younger you are, the easier it is to move on to another activity. Not so true if you pick up an instrument when you retire.

Omg I am one of those who gave up the guitar after about two years everyone's experiences are different of course, but my reason for stopping had a lot to do with the reason I started in the first place... My friends and I wanted to start a girl group (we wanted to be the spice girls but punk rock haha) but then it never really got together and our drummer quit before we had even had a practice session so I don't think my heart was ever really in it to begin with.

Now, let's gather around the campfire as I tell the story of all the instruments I've ever played!!
The violin I've stuck with since childhood but I will 100% say that is due to my parents enforcing my lessons and practice schedule. And then in university I kept playing even tho I said many times as a child that I would quit after I moved out. It was such a part of my routine that it felt weird not to practice even if I didn't necessarily look forward to it haha (can you have stockholm syndrome with an instrument???!!)

With the viola, I started it after having played the violin for a while, but the difficulty of leaning to read a whole.new clef when I wasn't that good at reading music to begin with (did a lot by ear and never learned any theory, :uhoh was too big of a hurdle for me to overcome with my limited self discipline

Finally we get to the ukulele! Even though my interest kind of started on a whim (seeing Zooey Deschanel play the uke in her SNL opening) it was the first instrument I really considered and thought about before choosing to learn. There have been other instruments I have impulsively wanted to play (the harp! The auto harp! The accordion!), the ukulele stayed in my thoughts for a while. That combined with the relative affordability of an entry level model, plus the leg up with having some prior experience playing guitar convinced me to try it out. Having played for almost a year now, I think the ukulele is my ride or die!! :shaka:

I think Peter hit the nail on the head when he mentioned so many people quite so many instruments because they find out how much work is involved in learning. Guitar is more popular then ukulele but harder to learn so I can see how those numbers of 90% are possible.

That being said the 6 people who had an interest in learning ukulele because I played all quite after a little while. Maybe it was me, I shouldn’t have yelled at them and rapped their knuckles at every mistake

gochugogi said:

No stats but after 40 years working as a classroom and studio music teacher, I suspect people are about the same as far as commitment to musical hobbies whether it be guitar, ukulele, piano, voice, etc. Once they figure out how much work is involved in becoming good at making music, they move on to the next hobby.

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In my opinion, it's the ukulele groups that keep people interested in the ukulele. I look forward to several jam sessions a week - lots of laughing. Sitting alone in the house and playing the uke by myself just isn't the same.

I have tried piano, recorder and guitar before the ukulele stuck! For me personally the size, sound and community have been useful in making it stick.

To build on several points already raised, it is easier and cheaper to get into ukulele than most other instruments and once started you find a very welcoming and forgiving attitude toward beginners or those, like myself, who aren't great players. My perception is that with most other instruments you have reach a higher level of competency before you can participate in group play on a regular basis.

Comparatively, the Ukulele is so much easier, only 4 strings, much smaller, cheaper and shorter scale. You can learn a dozen chords an play almost anything. And, as mentioned before, the clubs, groups and socializing are what kept me going and how I learned. We have a great club in Sun City, with free mentoring a couple times a month in the winter season and weekly jams. Even in the summer, we have 30-40 people every week, in the high winter season, there can be 100! I also play with a couple other groups and enjoy playing Ubass with them more than anything.

Jerryc41 said:

In my opinion, it's the ukulele groups that keep people interested in the ukulele. I look forward to several jam sessions a week - lots of laughing. Sitting alone in the house and playing the uke by myself just isn't the same.

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I agree. Having people to play with & learn from really encouraged me when I first began playing. You can be a beginner/intermediate ukulele player forever, and always have fun at group jams. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve not seen many monthly guitar jam groups that anyone can show up to & join in.

Jerryc41 said:

In my opinion, it's the ukulele groups that keep people interested in the ukulele. I look forward to several jam sessions a week - lots of laughing. Sitting alone in the house and playing the uke by myself just isn't the same.

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RafterGirl said:

I agree. Having people to play with & learn from really encouraged me when I first began playing. You can be a beginner/intermediate ukulele player forever, and always have fun at group jams. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve not seen many monthly guitar jam groups that anyone can show up to & join in.

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I agree with that. I enjoy getting together in my strum-a-long group. They give me something to work on. Also busking, open mic, and coffee shop gigs keep my interest level high. But that's just me. I know what keeps me playing the uke year after year, but I have introduced a dozen people to the ukulele and none of them stayed with it for more than a few weeks. I think that perhaps we are a small group of like minded people here. I'll bet the retention rate of people who play the ukulele isn't any higher than anything else.

I struggled on-and-off with guitar for many years but never really felt like I was making progress. I gave it up totally about 10 years ago and sold off all my gear. It took retirement for me to finally realize that I really wanted to play a melodic instrument (I was, and still am, playing West African percussion). A friend suggested trying a ukulele and now my wife has to nag me to put it down! I think the time restraints imposed by work had a big impact on my decision to abandon the guitar.

Since playing basic ukulele is easier than playing basic guitar, it seems like more would stick with it....or at least stick with it longer than guitar. As already stated, there's always going to be people who quit because they don't want to put in the effort. I'm not one who will say "learning the ukulele is easy". It really depends on the person as well as the time put into it. It does take some work to play even basic stuff still.

I almost quit guitar in the early stages, but stuck with it and accomplished what I wanted to (good rhythm player). So it was an easy transition for me when I picked up uke. Right this moment, I don't even own a guitar.

Here's another thought: With the new generations coming up with youtube and such, which are saturated with ukuleles, I wonder if there will be more young people take up the ukulele than the guitar. If more people do take it up, then even with all of the drop-outs you'd still end up with more uke players than guitar players...just a numbers thing. I do remember seeing some articles online about more ukes being sold than guitars...but I'm not sure of any hard facts there, and maybe it depends on the year and location.

RafterGirl said:

I agree. Having people to play with & learn from really encouraged me when I first began playing. You can be a beginner/intermediate ukulele player forever, and always have fun at group jams. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve not seen many monthly guitar jam groups that anyone can show up to & join in.

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One of the instructors at a uke fest: "Get twenty ukuleles together, and you have a party,. Get twenty guitar players together, and you have a fight."

Jerryc41 said:

In my opinion, it's the ukulele groups that keep people interested in the ukulele. I look forward to several jam sessions a week - lots of laughing. Sitting alone in the house and playing the uke by myself just isn't the same.

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That group thing seems to be a mainland thing and is rare here in the islands. But then the ukulele is more integrated into the overall culture of Hawaii and is omnipresent to say the least.

My experience has been slightly different.
I first picked up the ukulele for my 6th grade class because the teacher, Mrs Wong,
wanted to teach everyone how to play and sing (so we could entertain other classes).
So I learned what she taught us but I can't remember getting all excited about it
at the time. It was another part of class work... however, I did like the then current
Rock-n-Roll songs being played on the radio (1960) in Honolulu and with this new
music-making skill of playing the ukulele, I was able to replicate what I was hearing
on the radio... after a while.
The 'after a while' meant I had to learn several chords in several keys because what
I heard on the radio was not always (or ever?) in the Key of C I had a Guitar Chord
Wheel that basically taught me what chords went with what key and how to transpose
from key to key.
I also learned barre chords by using the key of C chord forms with the barre. Then I
figured out what key I was in and learned the first position chords for that key.
anyway, I played for my Church during Holiday Season when we went Caroling, and
also for Youth Group since we did not have pianos and piano players
I never really played in a ukulele song circle, that is with other players. Usually I was
'IT' and that was fine.
In college again I was the one who brought my uke on the school bus as we went
from place to place. I entertained fellow students at various events, but still no
ukulele group.

not until 2003 when, a few months after SUPA (Seattle Ukulele Players' Association -
seattleukulele.org), was formed.

since then I was a regular at SUPA's monthly gatherings... until about 7 years ago
STRUM (Seattle's Totally-Relaxed Ukulele Musicians) was formed.

Now we meet weekly at the Kona Kitchen Restaurant, Seattle, Wednesday evenings
from 6-8p. But we got our start at the Hiram Chittenden Locks in Ballard, where
we return every Summer, June through August, to play outdoors and revisit our roots.

All that to say, 1) with enough motivation, playing on one's own can be enough to
keep the music alive. the key being enough motivation.
2) playing the ukulele in community with like-minded ukulele players is truly a joy
and a motivational impetus that is hard to beat.

Keep it fun and play with others!

keep uke'in',

I'd say the uke is more forgiving than the guitar, in many ways. Four strings, small, fun by default, affordable, more quite. Easier to pick up too, so maybe many will be like "easy come, easy go". But quitting totally? Think the uke has an advantage there. You always get it to sound like something

Another aspect to be considered is that the ukulele community's goals are less lofty. Many people here are completely content with strumming cowboy chords and singing, and they don't seem to have any aspirations to move up the neck. Most guitarists I know have the rather more difficult goal of mastering their entire fret board. The harder goal perhaps sets the stage for higher attrition.

By the time an adult has taken up a ukulele they have given up on a lot of desires that drive people to learn guitar (look cool, boost ego, serenade romantic interests (uke works for that but is a strong filter for the love interest), become a rock star), they are doing it cause they like it and they don’t care what people think.. that is probably why when 20 ukulele players meet there is a party!