A surprising introduction to joy...

My direct personal connection to ukuleles (or is it ukeleles?) started on a cold Sunday afternoon in January. Winter in Iowa can be a little foreboding as in, what do you do when it is cold and gray and dark. It is that time of year when Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD) sets in and the season is everyday. My wife and I had a "slap the bull" moment and being inspired by a Dolphin strumming daughter we decided to learn to play the ukulele. The part I will loosely call "learning" I will share later in another post.

"Forget about your worries and your strife."

I got a Kala concert uke and and named it "Baloo", I soon realized I was in for a bit of a reality check;

• My daughter made playing look easy.
• Learning to strum and sing at the same time is (really) hard.
• It is even harder to play along with someone.
• My pointer finger hurt... most of the time.
• Dang... its fun!

It really helped that we made a few "rules" of the house:

• It is OK to make mistakes.
• How ever I like to play is OK, i.e. there are no mistakes.

"You just can't strum and stay sad!"

Now here is the really surprising thing I learned. You just can't strum and stay sad! With the bright and happy sound emanating from your own hand, good luck with keeping a grip on that dark and gloomy outlook. (Not to mention the endorphin production stimulated my use of small motor muscles - ouch too scientific, not romatic).

As Baloo says "Forget about your worries and your strife, yeah man."