Greetings! Probably should have posted here first rather than the Beginners forum but I was just so darned excited to share a thing I'd learned and wow, what a great lot of feedback that has generated, thank you all.
I live with my family on Vancouver Island (in Canada) on a smallholding in the Cowichan Valley. I'm new to ukulele, but used to play violin when I was younger, and piano (which I still play now and then) then picked up mandolin (since they're tuned the same as violin). I have no particular competence on any of these instruments. I have a thumb tendon issue that is exacerbated by using a pick and chords flummoxed me on the mandolin, but I really like the idea of playing a stringed instrument without a bow. A friend introduced me to ukulele, and I am delighted at how much easier it is to play than the mandolin! I can see that there is a lot of room for improvement (obviously, I'm a total uke noob), but unlike the mandolin or violin, achieving some competence on the ukulele doesn't feel as overwhelming to me, and I am loving picking up my uke and playing, and practicing exercises, and just trying to get to know the instrument better.
I have to say, learning ukulele with standard notation bends my brain a lot, especially with reentrant tuning. I'm constantly converting from violin to ukulele, lol. It's weird to have to relearn how to read notation. Thank goodness for tabs!
I picked up two starter ukes, both Kala KA-20s, one's a tenor, one's a concert; I've had the tenor restrung as low g, then restrung again to use fluorocarbon strings, plus I had a friend do setup on the tenor (although funny story: when I had the fluorocarbons put on, the nut came loose, so I had to do some luthiering myself, with guidance from my luthier friend, fixing that and seating the low g fluorocarbon better in the nut). I'll have to attend to the concert, too, restringing with fluorocarbons and getting someone to deal with setup, because now that I have the tenor singing beautifully, I find the concert less easy to make sing.
Thanks everyone for such a great resource, I really appreciate the wealth of information here, and the experiences shared by the membership. I'm so happy to be here!