It has now been a month since I started the ukulele and this marks my midterm evaluation. Since my last update on my ukulele playing, I have surpassed my initial goals that were seen on my musical growth plan and have memorized two more songs these being “You’re Beautiful” and “Hallelujah”. As noted in my musical growth plan I also chose to attempt my extension goal of being able to sing the song lyrics as I play the ukulele. The only song I have attempted for this so far is “Riptide” and I can honestly say it has now become easier for me to sing and play then for me to do each alone. When learning to sing while strumming you cannot attempt to match the strums to certain lyrics, now I know most ukulele videos attempt to teach this way however it makes it easier for the musician to instead adjust the tune of the lyrics to the pace of the strumming. My singing now comes across as more spoken poetry and it is pretty much impossible to match my pauses and starts with anyone who wants to sing along BUT to me, it is beautiful and makes my voice sound unique.

Along with completing my extension goal and learning two more songs I have also become proficient at holding a steady almost mistake-less strumming pattern throughout a song. This accomplishment has given me fluidity in playing and has also allowed me to worry more about my singing and proper chord techniques versus just trying to keep in rhythm. The technique is another point I should make about my musical journey. Upon our first-in-class practice session, I became aware that I have been playing the ukulele wrong this whole time, playing it too low on my body and with my left hand (chord hand) wrapped the wrong way around the neck of the ukulele. This was a shock to me and has honestly put a huge damper on my confidence and practicing since now including with just learning songs I now have to re-learn to hold the instrument. I have perplexing thoughts about relearning how to hold my instrument since I have practiced the way I have for so long and don’t feel any wish to hold it any other way. However, there is no use being stubborn about it and now I have had to add to my musical growth plan “relearning to hold the ukulele properly”.