Sunday Reflections: What the ukulele taught me about reluctant readers

As a child, I studied Suzuki method classical piano. I was technically proficient and was able to feel what the seemingly ancient pieces needed, pulling my own emotions out into my fingers and onto the keys. I was pretty good. But I disliked practicing, and once I progressed enough that it stopped being easy, my interest lagged. My fingernails grew long, only for my piano teacher to clip them once a week as I sat next to her on the bench. I’d be overcome as an audience member by the power and beauty of group performances, but I always played alone. I tried auditioning for the jazz band but was completely incapable of improvisation, so rigid was the training and so crippling was my own shyness. I tried buying my own sheet music for my teacher to help me with, but she was unable to connect with Queen or Tori Amos, and without her guidance and encouragement, my enthusiasm lagged. I was a reluctant musician. Eventually, it became clear to both of us that the only time I sat down to play were my weekly lessons. I quit when I was sixteen or seventeen.

Many years later, on a lark, my husband (who plays the trumpet) and I decided to learn this bit from The Jerk. 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqtmXnQZ6Qk]

This meant that one of us would need to learn the ukulele, and that person was me.

We went out that night to buy one. It was inexpensive enough that it didn’t feel like a “real” instrument to me, which allowed me to just have fun. I dug into the song, and quickly learned that it was arranged and performed in the movie by, no surprise, a ukulele jazz master. It might be a novelty song, but learning it would be a far cry from the sweet simplicity of the clip.

From Guitar Instructor

Filed under: Music, Reluctant Readers, Sunday Reflections