My Foray into Ukuleles
Since I can remember, I have always sung and growing up I learned a few different instruments. I played the piano, flute and dabbled with the ocarina. As my art practice became more prevalent in my adult life, I found music falling by the wayside. I would refer to myself as a musician, but a rusty one.
Well the ukulele has been the WD40, to my rusty musicianship! I never thought I’d be a string player. I attempted to teach myself guitar once as a child, but back then we didn’t have YouTube. I just had a how to book and my own sheer will power. Which didn’t last long as the guitar I’d borrowed, had three out of the six strings being metal. Google informs me this is normal, but let me tell you, as a child those hurt! I recall working out the riff to a Puddle of a Mudd song by ear and called it there.
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| My beautiful Sakura Flight travel concert ukulele. |
A couple of years ago, when I started to work towards sharing workshops in the community, I was inspired by the late Becky Dixon, who offered sensory storytelling as Beanstalk Arts. I decided I wanted to include music and decided what I needed was an instrument that was a) transportable and b) I could play whilst singing at the same time. Of course this instantly ruled out the three instruments I knew how to play!
I began wandering the realm of instruments and narrowed my options down to either a lap harp or the ukulele. As it happened a friend of mine had a spare soprano ukulele in their attic that they gave me. And so it came to be, the universe had decided, I would indeed become a ukulele player.
I started teaching myself with a series of tutorials offered by Andy Guitar on YouTube. I continued learning songs and new chords. If I got confused on a chord I would once more wander to YouTube and check with Bernadette Teaches Music. Since then I researched finding other ukuleles and through the ‘Got a Ukulele’ blog, discovered the Southern Ukulele Store. Whilst I haven't been in person yet, their online store has a wonderful selection, and lovely staff who also helped me find an online tutor. Thus I’ve begun lessons with the incredible Julia Traser, where she is helping me learn beyond YouTube and build up a stronger musical foundation. I’ve been working on scales this past week, using my childhood nemesis - the metronome (if you know, you know!)
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| My little music zone in the house. Three ukuleles, a keyboard from the 90's and a flute! |
Since learning the ukulele, I realised that I had really missed music, it has always been a part of me. I've never stopped singing and often make up songs on a whim. While I hadn’t considered it as such before, being a musician is absolutely part of my sensory arts practice now. Playing ukulele offers a plethora of sensory opportunity: The feeling of the strings under your finger tips, the vibrations from the ukulele into your chest, the release of endorphins and the joy of singing whilst you create music. In fact when I went to the Sensory Lexiconary earlier this year (see my first blog post), Joanna Grace asked us to bring a sensory item to introduce ourselves. My item was a ukulele.
I now aim to play my ukulele every day when possible, aiming for just 5 minutes at minimum. I even share music in the nursery I work at! The children love ad libbing Wheels on the Bus, to date we’ve improvised Spiderman (he gets the bus a lot apparently) and an entire menagerie of animals. I’ll be honest, to have the children playing and singing along with me, is such a pleasure. Take a peek at a video of my music playing from nursery! You can bet once I get my workshops off the ground it will absolutely include the sensory joys of live music!
Sources:
Andy Guitar YouTube Profile
Bernadette Teaches Music YouTube Profile
Beanstalk Arts Website
Beanstalk Arts Instagram
Got A Ukulele Blog - Ukulele Stores
Southern Ukulele Store
National Library of Medicine (2023) The transformative power of music: Insights into neuroplasticity, health, and disease, Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10765015/
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