My dad started playing the ukulele in the last year or so. He’s been finding it fun, having played guitar himself since he was a teen. He showed me the uke when my husband and I visited in September, and I thought it was a great little instrument.
He sent me one for a belated birthday present, and I’ve been having great fun with it since. Well, not right away. I was a bit intimidated by it at first. Silly, perhaps, since it is not that intimidating to look at. But after working on guitar for a while without much progress, I wondered if I would be able to do anything with the new instrument.
I was able to tune it up by myself, but I didn’t really get into trying anything fun with it until after my dad and I got together over Zoom. During that, he showed me some songs and chords and it started to click. Afterwards, I looked up some other songs that I knew better and I’m not doing too badly.
I think it’s because the uke is so small. I can more easily move my fingers along the fretboard, and even strumming feels easier. I’m hoping that I can work on the uke a bit, and then be able to apply what I’m learning there over to the guitar. Though I know I need to practice chording and transitions if I ever want them to be fast and smooth. I’ll keep up with both, but I am very excited to have this ukulele to play with.