Everyone has their faults and as I sit listening to Eddie Vedder’s ukulele album I feel taunted by him, playing so well and so freely without a care in the world. What has that got to do with having faults I hear you cry?! Well in the meantime I sit staring at a screen listening to a computer playing the g string over and over and over again trying to tune my very own ukulele. You see, my fault, the one that Eddie Vedder so carelessly rubs in my face is that I’m really not good at being bad at things. I have sat trying to tune my fresh out the box ukulele for the past hour and I am getting nowhere. Whenever one string sounds perfect it knocks the others out of sync and means I have to start again. I really do not like this having to work at things angle to life. I like to be good at things, I like to immediately know and understand how to do things and this tuning business has knocked the wind out of me. I think the challenge I have set myself to play the wonderful little bundle of strings is going to be a slow and frustrating ride. I need to discover how to deal with the learning process a bit more; learn to enjoy it as opposed to getting ready to throw my ukulele out of the window. Of course I could never actually do such a scandalous thing and I know this for certain as I look to my side and see it sitting next to me. I realise how perfect and awesome it is and I’ve decided I need to spend a little more time getting to know my new friend before I judge us as incompatible. We need to get comfortable with each other, work out the kinks in our friendship and maybe we can go on to have a wonderful musical love affair in the future. For the moment however I glare at my new Uke, dubbed the “uke-hayley” (thanks Caitlin!) and wonder how compatible we really are. I mean, he looks good but I’ve never been the shallow type, I just have to see past the wonderful colours and beautifully cared for neck and body and see what we can give to each other. I will keep you posted on the outcome of my new love affair and hope to be truly besotted with my new friend before long. Now to go back to listening to the persistent strum of the g-string as I try to imitate the sound on my own uke… we could be here for a while I feel.
I will leave you with this quote from none other than Krusty the Klown!
"A ukulele is a thinking man's violin!"
And my new friend and future lover:
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