Learning a New Skill: Ukulele

Dayita is a freelance dancer and an editor for The Clean Copy. She has recently been occupied with brewing kombucha and learning to play the ukulele. Dayita joined the teacher training programme in October 2018.

Photo © Maureen Gonsalves

As I write this, I am about six weeks into learning to play the ukulele. I grew up playing the piano, going through a series of examinations and eventually abandoning the practice. Unfortunately, this incredible passion was reduced to little more than playing simply to pass exams, and I had become a bundle of stress in the 15 years I had engaged with it. I last played the piano regularly in 2011. Since then, I have dabbled in, but never fully returned to, music. This year, I decided to revisit my musical roots, but this time, through a much smaller instrument—the ukulele. I wish I could say that because I have been in the teacher training programme for almost two years now that my approach to playing the ukulele has been patient and slow, and that I’ve used myself well throughout. But this piece is not about my successes. It is, perhaps, a series of observations (some might even say a confession) about the past six weeks. Of myself and of learning a new skill. End-gaining. On day one I wondered why I couldn’t make chord changes quickly enough to play a song. I dove into the deep end and practised chord progressions by learning songs that I enjoy listening to and singing. With my background in piano, some aspects—tuning, understanding chords, and rhythm—came easily to me. But others—organising my fingers on the fretboard and strumming—were not as simple. I was impatient with myself and wanted perfection immediately. Complicating everything. That same day, I had already combined singing (my not-so-secret true love) with playing, and in doing so, fallen into my old habit of over-committing and doing more than I needed to. Pulling down and gripping. As I had no sense of where my fingers were on the fretboard, I kept looking down to see what I was doing, thus compromising my primary neck–head–back relationship. I also noticed that I was holding onto the ukulele for dear life, as if it was going to fly away. In addition to these aspects, I have noticed improvements. Every week, I have taught myself one simple song, with a few chord changes, and memorised these and other chords. Going into week seven, I am finding fluency in the songs that I have been practising. I am able to keep a more or less regular tempo and make changes more quickly and smoothly than before. All this while lessening my grip on the little ukulele and allowing myself, when I can, to trust and just play. Despite many instances of poor use, unlike when I played the piano in my teens, I now have the space to observe them—at least some of them. I can also stop, take some time away from playing, and come back once I have let go of the need to be ‘right’. Before I joined the training programme, I would have knotted myself up over not succeeding straight away. But now, I’m less afraid of failing (evident in the fact that I started sending recordings of my playing/singing to friends in the very first week—something I did not dare do even after many years of playing the piano). So while I might not be able to change instances of bad use or end-gaining in the moments of observation, there is some awareness for next time. My biggest takeaway from this initial step into the musical unknown has been that if I enjoy what I’m doing and stop worrying about being ‘correct’, there is a good chance that I won’t pull down, stiffen, try too hard, or do any of the other AT taboos. And this time, I am not playing for an examination or any other startle pattern–inducing event. It’s a whole new study in being open and alive to the moment.