You Can Uku too!

( This is not me or anyone I know, thank goodness. But I do have all of those colorful sound tubes, just not the jazzy outfit! Hint, hint, my birthday is the 27th of July!)


I don't know how many of you on the blog know that I teach music. Well, Jan taught music, I teach about music. I don't have a lot of instruments for the kids to play together on (except for the dreaded recorders, aka musical instruments of torture) and the kids think when you say "play" that you mean "PLAY!" not "play". So, I teach about music and its theory and concepts and occasionally pull out the boom whackers and the ukulele and let them "PLAY!"




Like this week. With the sun and the rain and the snow and inside recess and no way to secrete excess energy, I have decided against teaching and erred on the side of playing. But, boom whackers and children having no play time equals injuries and the music room is not a game of football, so I pulled out the sea turtle ukulele and a cute little cd/uke book and have been strumming blisters into my fingertips.


I learned something this week too. Did you know that it is easier (for me at least) to tune my ukulele against another ukulele than against say, a keyboard or piano? I have struggled with tuning my uke for years, even taking it into a music store to have a courtesy tuning done. I can tune 3 strings right, but never the 4th. Its silly, but an out of tune uke is awful to listen too.


I think I found the perfect memento for our family vacations, if not this one, then certainly, the last one. I think Dan and I should get matching tats of this-it would look amazing as a sleeve, doncha think?



When I got the job here at Antelope, I spent some time in the local Riverton Music and bought a book by an Australian named Mike. It came with a cd, but I hadn't listened to it, I had played some familiar songs-he only uses 3 chords and they are the easiest ones to play so I felt I had gotten my money's worth. However, after taking my other uke in to be tuned (not my sea turtle, which I prefer-not just because it is prettier but it sounds better and its strings don't hurt me as much to strum) I pulled out Mike and decided that I would play with the cd so maybe Abby would stop pretending I was killing a cat and be a good girl. (THAT was creative writing! I don't know how to un-run-on that sentence, not just any Joe can do that!) I played the familiar songs and then learned some new ones. My fingers were killing me so I stopped for the day. Abby was relieved.

Knowing that practice makes calluses, the next day I again pulled out my uke and my cd and song book. I picked up my practice at the new song-toward the end of the track selection-and played to the end of the book. I was ready to give up my practice for the day (my pointer finger on my left hand actually had a blister on it!) when I noticed I had 3 extra tracks on my cd left. Hunh? I said out loud and before I could stop the cd, Mike told me he was going to help me tune my ukulele. And guess what? He sure did! I thought my cute turtle uke was relegated to decoration status, but nope! Mike came to the rescue! I had two sour strings which tuned right up and have stayed tuned for a week now! The kids at school have learned about "My Horse Bill" and to "Ging Gang Gooli" and I have about lost my voice, but not my mind.

I told John about my discovery and I still can't believe I hadn't thought earlier to Google for an audio file to tune my uke. After all, even Elder Hales (whose hand John and I shook after he spoke to us at Stake Conference) uses Wikipedia to learn about stuff. How cool is that? The G.A.'s are on-line!

But, now I know, and so do you! Happy playing!

P.S. I tried to find a picture of Dan on the Ukulele in Hawaii, but I don't have one. I also tried to add music to my post, but apparently I can't. But know that I am listening to "Pearly Shells" and other luau songs as I edit.