I went to the meeting of the Seattle Ukulele Players Association on Sunday afternoon. When they're not performing or having ukulele parties, they meet to play at Phinney Ridge Community Center.
Since we often go to concerts or the opera on Sunday afternoons, I haven't been to a meeting since October 2013, right after I bought my first ukulele. At the time I was in a nervous daze and overwhelmed by that many ukulele players in one place strumming and singing so loudly! But it was fun, and a nice lady shared her music with me while I pretended to play along.
At home when I'm dinking (John would say, plinking) around practicing, I like to finger-pick more than strum, so I figured attending another mass strumming gathering would be Good For Me.
Well, this time I was better prepared with my own nifty little folding music stand and two hefty binders (!) containing the club's sheet music that I purchased at a copy shop in the U District. When a gentleman walked in without any music (he was vacationing in Seattle with his ukulele) it was my turn to repay the favor and share. He was nice and we talked about our granddaughters.
Don't get me wrong, I like men of my generation and most are pretty sweet, but they seem to have this congenital need to go into "expert mode" around the ladies. They can't help themselves, I suppose. They were the same way back in high school. So he showed off his fancy electric ukulele with the built-in tuner (kind of slick, actually) told me about the many strumming circles he attends at senior centers back home in Florida, and also dropped hints about the original compositions he writes. You might wonder was there time to play, with all this chatting? Yes, and he even had time to give me some strumming tips :-)
But that's neither here nor there. How did it go? This time I could strum right along on any song (no matter how fast, slow or hokey) if it contained any combination of chords C-F-G-G7-A-A7, D-D7 (the easy ones.) Of course after the warm-up phase, the harder songs were requested and played. Like weird tempo Hawaiian music with diabolical, obscure chords such as the F# diminished minor.
Oh well. In a big group, the strong carry the weak.
Here's a YouTube video of SUPA playing one of my favorites at the Seattle Folklife Festival. Maybe someday I'll perform on the big stage?
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