Never practice on stage

My nephew got married this weekend. At the rehearsal dinner a family friend thought it would be a good idea to get my mom to sing a song at the reception. He is an accomplished guitar player, teaches most any instrument out there and said he owned a uke. I proposed “Five Foot Two” and me and him to accompany on ukes. He responded “That’s C, E7, A7 D7, G7, C, right?” Cool- this will be a walk in the park.

We got up on stage and I handed him a uke. He pulls out a pick (thank god it was my monkey pod uke) and starts playing an F chord. Me- “I thought we were doing it in C”. Him- “this is a C”. Me- “that’s an F”. Him- “that’s a C on the guitar”. Me- “Just go for it, I’ll try to follow”. Luckily the mic wasn’t turned up too much and there was an open bar. We all had a fun time and we got my mom to sign at her grandson’s wedding



Bottom line- never practice on stage.

unless you're drunk

Congrats to the newly weds! And also to you who come prepared for just about anything.

I can relate. I still get confused about transposing guitar shapes to ukulele. When you have spent 25 years thinking a particular fingering is a "D" chord and now have to think of it as a "G" chord, your brain can get kind of muddled.

When trying to transpose from guitar/baritone uke to C tuned uke, I always move a fourth in the WRONG direction. Never fails.

Icelander53 said:

unless you're drunk

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and so is everyone else....

Congrats to your nephew's wedding.

From the photo, I see a great moment. There must be a lot of fun and joy. Nice capture. A very interesting story and experience you would hard to forget.

Oh, was the whole song went up a few keys then?

Way to go. It's all about having fun, keeping challenged and connecting with people. Sounds like you did all three!!

Everybody will have loved it anyway. I'm always surprised how people overlook, forget and don't even notice all the fluffs I make when I'm playing.
I played guitar (badly) for years before moving to mandolin and banjo and finally uke (would that be evolution or devolution ), so I know the guitar shapes too. I find that if a song is pitched wrong for me to sing on the uke, I can do an instant transpose job by just playing the chords as though they had the guitar names - this shifts everything a fourth and it's never failed to work yet.

Ukuleleblues said:

Way to go. It's all about having fun, keeping challenged and connecting with people. Sounds like you did all three!!

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Couldn't agree more.

trickcyclist said:

Everybody will have loved it anyway. I'm always surprised how people overlook, forget and don't even notice all the fluffs I make when I'm playing.
I played guitar (badly) for years before moving to mandolin and banjo and finally uke (would that be evolution or devolution ), so I know the guitar shapes too. I find that if a song is pitched wrong for me to sing on the uke, I can do an instant transpose job by just playing the chords as though they had the guitar names - this shifts everything a fourth and it's never failed to work yet.

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Yes! People not usually notice the details that player has done or missed. No matter how, the goal always is to make people enjoyed and had fun.