One More Time, with Feeling

One of my co-staff on the farm trip I wrote about brought two ukuleles along. “Why do you have two ukuleles?” I asked. She explained that she had bought one not too long ago, and then a friend gave her another as a gift. “I’m going to try and sell the first one,” she said.

“I’ll buy it,” I said immediately—surprising, I think, both of us.

…

Jazz saxophone. Acoustic guitar sing-along. Piano. Pop country, as I’ve already described. Lush, slightly electronic soundscapes. Smart, gorgeous lyrics. These all kill me, as Holden Caulfield would say. But it seems like the public discussion of music has been reserved for the hipsters and the afficionados… so I’ve parked my inexperienced ears onto Pandora.com, and sat this dance—if I may mix my metaphors—out. Better to leave music to the experts.

My passivity was also reinforced because of my experience as a kid with piano; after two years and very little practice, I still didn’t know how to read notes, and was stuck playing songs like “The Turkey in the Straw.” I quit.

What I didn’t realize until a ukulele crossed my path is that I really wanted to try again, but that I was afraid, and embarrassed. (Which might be the reason people sit out all sorts of dances.)

…

This is what I like about the ukulele, an instrument I never gave second thought to until I owned one of my own: it’s small and portable. It’s quirky. It’s less intimidating, and easier to learn, than a guitar. Like guitar, though, it’s easy to sing along with—my dream, more or less.

This is what I like about my ukulele, specifically: I bought it on a whim. I bought it on a farm. I wrapped it in a blanket until I bought a blue ukulele case in a Hawaiian store in San Diego. The ukulele brand is “Ohana”, which reminds me of what Stitch says from Lilo and Stitch: “Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind, or forgotten.”

…

I sound… well, I sound terrible. I know there is music inside these strings, but I haven’t found it yet. Still, I am learning, slowly.

And as I learn to do things like read music I understand how very much I’ve wanted to, all along.

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