Introduce yourself

Hello, I’m John, from south Cumbria. I bought a cheap Mahalo day of the dead uke for my grandson last Xmas that I saw on Amazon, had a go, and now I have six, better sounding ukes of my own. I’m 61 and just watched various teachers on fb and reddit for a couple of months,and although I was learning to make chords and strum a little, it wasn’t enough, so researched teachers and Matt was the one I thought would help best. And I was right, in the couple of months on the beginner course I’ve improved noticeably and now have more fun than exasperation, still at a very early stage though. When I realised how much fun the uke can be (it can even hold off depressive episodes sometimes!) I decided I didn’t want to get annoyed at a possible stop-go progress and to take it as it comes. I like how if I need to take a break from life and the course, I could just go back a lesson or two and jump straight back to where I’d left off.

I’ve got to the point on the course where things are coming together and Matt said to look online for music to play to sharpen the new skills. I’ve come across music I’d never hear otherwise from Sha Na Na’s Those Magic Changes, to recently Sia, with Snowman, both much fun with my new Matt given skills!

And the one year old other grandson can’t keep away from the Flight travel I have, his strumming technique is already impressive, and he’ll be signed up in due course.

I usually practice on a Risa solid body uke so that I don’t bother the semi detached neighbours too much, while I really like my Flight Diana soundwave concert and Enya Feather which sounds cool with an unwound low g.

That’s about all really, other than to say that everyone I’ve encountered in the ukulele community so far are really nice supportive folk and I’m really glad I stumbled across that day of the dead uke.

Cheers, John.