The Uke

Ok so we're preparing for lift off - Melle is having her hair cut and pretty much emptied her wardrobe onto the bed in spare room, I'm buying little tools and glue/filler like it's going out of fashion and Homer's in for a service and MoT.  But I thought I'd talk a little bit about my mental preparation and how I think learning to play the Ukelele has been an important aspect of this.  Maybe a strange thing to write about on a travel blog but I think it's an important element of the journey and hopefully a bit more interesting?  

About six months ago Melle came home and mentioned that someone at her work was selling a Ukelele.  Yes, I thought immediately, this is exactly what I need.  You see I've always thought of myself as 'sporty' probably because from a very young age whenever I did sport I got positive feedback whereas whenever I did anything musical I didn't really.  I mean I liked listening to music and was in a number of choirs and, in my teens and I tried to learn the guitar too.  But I probably set myself too high targets - eg I wanted to play lead on the electric guitar (and of course chose a Fender Stratocaster copy which was not easy) but I didn't really want to practice playing, just be in a band and play all the songs on the radio.  Anyway it didn't come naturally - I wasn't the greatest straight away, I didn't have the best voice and my fingers hurt (from playing chords on an electric guitar) and so I thought 'I'm not musical'.  Well I'm a bit older now and along with thinking about a change of work and a season in the Alps I also read a lot about learning being key to a positive outlook and staying young in your thinking.  So what better way to approach the new life journey than learning to do something I didn't think I'd ever do.  Hey presto the Ukelele.

And as we were planning a few weeks travelling around France in Homer in the summer of 2022 I thought I'd start learning then.  I found a You Tube Channel which suggested you could learn to play in 10 lessons and off I went.  In France I practiced pretty much every day, about 30 mins was enough before my fingers hurt too much and although Melle was very supportive I didn't always get positive feedback eg a neighbour came round one evening to ask me to stop as her children couldn't get to sleep!!  I also quickly realised how difficult it was / is to learn and change chords with one hand and adopt an unfamiliar strumming pattern with the other - never mind singing at the same time, which was almost impossible.  But I persevered and, as I say Melle was very supportive, so by the end of the holiday I could just about play one or two actual songs as long as they only had three or four basic chords and as long as the strumming pattern was simple and stayed constant through the song.  But if I tried to sing along I just went to pot and it all went badly wrong.

I have to say though that I didn't know how I was going to be able to progress.  The you tube lessons were proving a bit too advanced and I was really struggling with the singing element - ie when the words started and stopped and sometimes even what they were.  But I'd heard about the Ukelele groups in pubs where apparently you can just go along and join in.  And although slightly nervous I thought 'what's the worst that can happen' and on facebook they'd encouraged me to come along as an absolute beginner.  So one Sunday night in early Sept I went and joined The Belle Vukes in what is now the Coleham Tap (formerly the Crown).  And this was a game changer because they have someone on a kind of beat box and a group leader and someone on bass guitar and pretty much everyone else knows the songs so you just join in and the strumming rhythm comes naturally.  And the songs/words are on a screen in front of you with chord changes included so you can follow along (or just sing or listen if you want to).  And probably the most important thing is that if you get anything wrong (which happens all the time - even now) nobody notices and nobody minds because it's drowned out by the rest of the group.  I've been going most Sundays since and along with my own practice, including with Felix who has also taken up the Uke, it has really helped me progress.  I can now play songs and sing along too - which is amazing to me as I never thought I'd be able to do this.  There's still a lot to learn and I'm really not much more than a beginner but it has opened my mind in such a positive way and made me realise that a lot of what I think I know may not be quite right.  And hopefully you can see from the 'On the Road Again' you tube link below how I’ve also started to play songs that resonate with the travelling too.

For a bit of balance I thought I should share that Melle and I also decided to invest in learning some French in preparation for our adventure.  We paid for lessons on the Babbel App and I've been dedicating about 20 mins a day to completing a lesson pretty much every day since early September. My previous experience of trying to learn languages, again back in my youth, was similar to music and given I given my Ukelele progress I was keen to change that around too.  So far I'm not sure how much has actually stuck - which obviously has been hampered by not being in France and putting anything into real life practice.  I sense maybe learning, understanding and confidently speaking French might be a little more difficult than the Ukelele.  We'll see, watch this space - given the success with the Uke I'm determined to break this one too.  Maybe I'll play French songs on the Uke by the time I return!!!

On the Road Again - You Tube Video