Sunday, January 04, 2009

Take this as a warning... (prepare to be uked)

It's not my fault. It's all the fault of Dan over at All That Comes With It. "Buy a uke" he said. "They're only £15" he said. (Actually it was £17.50, but that's his fault too for creating a world-wide inflationary fad for uke plinking.)

It was purchased this afternoon on a whim as we meandered home from Tesco. I went for a pink one in honour of Lucy's new-found enthusiasm for this new-found instrument (see comment on Dan's post today) and because Oliver still loves anything pink.

I haven't learned to play anything on it yet, but Oliver was straight in there. On our trip to the airport viewing park this afternoon he stayed in the car, first persuading Hayley to unwrap and hand over my new, un-played instrument, then strumming merrily away while Lucy and I braved the freezing weather to watch close-up the technological miracle that is a jumbo jet taking off.

I now feel obliged to join the uke euphoria and post a tune sometime. But how can I compete with this performance by the little man. Not only does he have a stylish beanie and nonchalant demeanour but he even takes time, mid-song and rock-star like, to wave to his fan in the next car (a baby that was waving to him). Judge for yourself.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hurrah!! A convert!

Anonymous said...

after your back-n-forth text messages, i got my pink flying-vee uke out and had a blast! you got it in tune yet?

Steve said...

Another pink one! And Flying V!!!

I think the downside of me buying the cheapest uke in the shop is that it is never going to be entirely in tune for all chords. I can get it in tune fine until I want to play the D major chord. Still, it's not bad for that price.

The shop where I bought it recommended a slightly pricier model that they'll be getting in soon, at which time they'll give me a call.

Anonymous said...

I had to tighten the tuning pegs with a screwdriver (there's a screw through each of the machinehead buttons) which helped. Also tuning a tone higher seems to keep it steadier.

Steve said...

It's not so much the steadiness of the tuning, more that the action is so high that playing G on the 3rd fret of the 2nd string is sharp compared to the open 4th string.

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