I Bought an Ukulele

My cheap camera doesn't really do it justice.
Also, it's not pronounced "you-kulele" but "oo-kulele," hence the "an" and not "a."

Maybe I've given up on many of my "how to enjoy Hawaii" plans, but I had to follow through on at least one of them.  On Saturday, after a wonderful morning at the Temple,* I got back on the 55 bus and continued my magical mystery tour of the North Shore until I ended up in Haleiwa, home of the Ukulele store (among other things**).  I almost didn't go, thinking I would be "practical" and not spend a ridiculous amount of time on the bus to go buy something I didn't absolutely need, but then I thought, I'm going to buy a musical instrument to develop a new talent; it's not like I'm going to buy something stupid.  Also, waiting for the bus, I met these two guys from California who were visiting the island, and one of them had an ukulele in his bag and he said that although they were "trendy" (darn you Zooey Deschanel!), they were fun to have and easy to play.  So it was Fate.  Off I went to The Ukulele Site.

The guys at the store were incredibly nice.  There were even two who didn't even work there who helped me pick out an ukulele and who showed me how to play some chords.  So my mission was accomplished:  I bought a concert-sized Cordoba ukulele!  It was reasonably priced, and as a bonus, it came with a "gig-bag," though I will probably buy a real case at some point because I don't think the canvas bag will travel on a plane very well.

My dad was excited about my purchase; I think because he wants me to learn the Hukilau song.  My mom couldn't seem to wrap her head around it.  She was like, "that's so odd that you would buy such an instrument," because the ukulele is humorous to her somehow.  I was like, "would you think it was weird if I told you I bought a guitar?"  She said no, so I told her to think of it as a guitar, only smaller and with only four strings.

Even though the price was reasonable for a musical instrument, it was still a decent amount of money, but that's a good thing, because it motivates me to practice daily (though I did make a promise to my roommate that I'd limit my playing to normal awake hours).  I already have the C-Am-F-G7 chord progression pretty much down, which means I can play about 83% of the songs.  G7 is hard, but it's slowly getting into my muscle memory.  The next big one to tackle will be Em.  Now that's a man's chord.  I'm already starting to get some fun calluses on my fingers that I can show off to people to let them know that I'm a legit ukuleleist.

I don't presume that I'm any good, or that I will be any good anytime soon, but I have a goal (because I'm all about the goals, you know) to play in public in the year 2013.  So we'll see how that goes.



*Okay, the monthly temple visit is another goal that I'm actually keeping up with.
**Like the really famous Shave Ice place and the less-famous but apparently better Shave Ice place.  I did not go to either Shave Ice place as both had very long lines, and I was on an ukulele-buying mission.  Also, all the bus-waiting and walking around left me super sunburned, and also with an unsatisfied craving for Shave Ice.