Since this quarantine has taken place, I decided to take up learning an instrument. I have no idea where this idea really came from, but I’ve only ever learned to play the recorder as we all did in elementary school and I decided it was time to try something new. I was listening to an acoustic song that I love and I began browsing online for ukuleles. I looked up to see if the chords were posted for the song online and there they were. I figured this would be the easiest and most convenient instrument I could learn, seeing as it only has four strings and is only three feet long. 

After looking around on various websites and comparing prices to quality and reviews, I decided to order a Kala ukulele on Amazon. I chose this brand in particular because they have great reviews, and it would ship the quickest! I was too excited to begin my new hobby, I decided it was worth a little extra money. In total, the ukulele cost me around $60-$65. It came with a bag to keep the ukulele in, and a booklet teaching you about the chords and strings. Luckily I had a guitar pick from a concert that I went to before, so I could use that. I will say that I was disappointed in what the ukulele came with. There was no tuner, no strap, no pick, just the ukulele really. Kala has an app that you can download that is supposed to help tune your ukulele, but it did not work whatsoever in my experience. I ended up downloading a different app to tune it. Once I got past this little hiccup, I began my “trial” session of the Kala app, where they teach you how to play different chords and also various popular songs. After a week, you have to pay to have these features but there was really no need to. As helpful as it was, I found the same information on Youtube for free. 

Speaking of Youtube, it has been my best friend while learning a new instrument! No matter what question I have about the ukulele, there is an answer explained on Youtube. I used this to my advantage to learn my first song, whatever would be easy to get me started. I chose “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz, because there are five chords in that song and that seemed do-able to me. After learning each chord individually, I started to learn how to switch between chords. I thought that was really all there was to it, until I realized my strumming sounded horrendous. Thank you again, Youtube, for helping me learn how to properly strum along to this song on my ukulele. 

I’ve always struggled with keeping a beat, for example I can tap my foot to the drums of a song but I cannot do that and also sing the lyrics. For some reason, it’s impossible for my brain to complete the two actions at once. I was nervous this would be my biggest struggle with learning a new instrument, because the whole point of it was to learn one of my favorite songs. However, the more I practiced the chords to “I’m Yours”, the easier I found it to sing along. Switching notes became something I didn’t have to think about, it was just repetition. Then, I was able to sing along. I am a horrible singer, but something about this is satisfying to me to know that I can do it if I wanted to. I actually taught myself a song! My next goal is to learn the song that was the reason I bought the ukulele, “Crazier Things” by Chelsea Cutler. This song is a bit more complicated than the one I learned, so it may take me awhile but thanks to the quarantine I have all the time in the world. If you’ve always wanted to do something, try it now! It’s the perfect time to pick up a new hobby and you never know how good you may become!