Tuesday, May 3, 2011

my new instrument of choice: the ukulele!



When I was home over Easter my brother had a new toy: a ukulele. He showed me how to play part of Beirut's Postcards from Italy, and it was pretty easy to pick up. I knew then that I needed to get a ukulele of my own. On Saturday, Erick and I walked over to Picks and Sticks on Locke Street. They had a pretty good selection, and we opted for a BeaverCreek ukulele. The model we were looking at came in a whole bunch of colours (including natural wood), and I chose white! It's tres cute, and quite affordable (around $40). Our method for learning has been going like this: I learn a song and show Erick, then Erick learns another song and shows me, and so on.

So, if you're like me and found learning guitar a little intimidating and frustrating, try a ukulele! Only 4 strings! Only 12 frets! Good times.

Some useful tips:
1. if you have an iphone/ipad, the Cleartune app is very handy for tuning (something you need to do a lot since the strings stretch out as you play).
2. this guy's tutorials are hilarious and useful.

And for your viewing pleasure (or amusement, I'm no pro), here's a video (unedited) of yours truly showing off what I've learned over the past few days. Please excuse the angry face I make when I play. And the strumming patterns are most definitely not correct. But that's OK!

7 comments:

Meg and Terri said...

You've inspired me! I've always wanted to learn to play the ukulele. Also, didn't know they were so affordable!

Chloe Lees said...

Ooh! I bought a ukulele probably almost exactly a year ago and I love it!
www.ukulelehunt.com is a great website too for chords and tutorials.
David Bowie songs seems to be especially fun to play ;)

Hollie said...

You are so cute, and so GOOD. Teach me! My friend Carl just got a ukelele and I want one so badly now.

Kate Hunter said...

Merci! It is really easy once you learn a few chords! We should start a ukulele group.

Go ukuleles!

nikki said...

that was lovely

Kate Hunter said...

ha, thanks Nikki!

Unknown said...

haha this is awesome kate
at first first i thought your little uke was like my little white guitar,it kind of looks like your uke's older brother...named Mafia :)
yay for learning!

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