Ukulele shopping

Kamoa Grand Concert ukulele

I really should be practicing right now instead of drooling over ukuleles on the Internet. Did you know there are four sizes of ukulele?  The soprano, concert, tenor and baritone.  This "grand concert" made by Kamoa is slightly smaller than the tenor, and slightly larger than the concert model, which is what I have now.  The Kamoa is made of solid wood and comes in hot red, pineapple gold and brown mahogany. Of course you also need a flashy matching case to carry it around.

I had a frustrating lesson yesterday.  That happens and we shouldn't compare ourselves to the progress of others, but the student ahead of me was one of Emily's favorites: an 8-year-old classical guitarist who writes her own compositions.  Emily gushed about how inspirational that is for the teacher, and she hoped I could listen to the child play sometime.  Then of course I was ashamed for being jealous of a talented little girl!

Emily initially said I could learn to play that devilish Bach Prelude in "3-4 months."  I thought to myself that 3-4 years was more realistic, and as she watched me struggling yesterday just to hold a simple 5th fret bar chord, I could feel her mentally revising up that first optimistic estimate. 

The good workman never blames his tools, but some mechanical things might be impeding my progress.  My uke still has the original factory strings, and Emily says they are dull and worn out.  And it's also hard to learn finger-picking technique with that pesky numb fingertip on my right hand.  I just had a third acupuncture treatment, and if someone tells you acupuncture is painless, they are lying.  But it seems that some feeling is returning, so it might have been worth it.  (Oh, poor me. As John pointed out, the brilliant Jose Feliciano had no trouble playing blind.)

So the action plan is a trip to Dusty Strings next week to have my strings replaced, and while I'm there, I might just have a look at that new Kamoa Grand.