FriendBurst Blog

“That’s why it’s so good to know how to read music!” the grumpy conductor of the ukulele circle barked, “If we’re going to be using these books, we should do the music as it is in the book!”

The dozen or so septuagenarian ukulele players smiled nervously and looked at one another sheepishly, feeling quite scolded.  They held their ukuleles and prepared to do the song for a 3rd time.

“But I’ve been singing this song since I was a little kid!” said one eighty-something year-old, who had been singing quite enthusiastically the last go around.  Appealing rebelliously to the long-haired Hawaiian man with the microphone at the front of the room, “that’s how I’ve always sung it!”

“Bill, can you read music?” the conductor quearied.

“Well, yeah,” replied Bill, “Sort of..”

“There is no SORT OF Bill!  You can either read music or you can’t.  I’m not really sure myself how this song goes, but I know that what you’re singing are not the notes that are on this page!”

“Well, I.. uh…”  Bill mumbled something inaudible under his breath.

“Let’s do it again!  We’ll try it slower this time!”

Wow.  Someone woke up on the wrong side of the hammock this morning!

When I had entered the room ten minutes prior, I was enchanted by the sound I was hearing.  As you know, I love the subtle, bright, cheerful sound of an ukulele. As I discovered today, get 20 of them together, all playing in time, as in a ukulele circle, and it’s indescribably beautiful.  Even the simple, one downstrum per quarter note, 4/4 time songs these old uke players at the Senior Center were performing sounded like an orchestra to my ears.

I have known that an ukulele circle met at a nearby senior center every Wednesday, but due to my school schedule, today during Spring Break was my first chance to go.  Despite mister prickle puss conductor, despite him blatantly passing me over when it was my turn to pick a song (I dunno, maybe it’s a hazing thing) despite the fact that I was by far, the youngest person in the room (which at 40, ain’t such a bad thing), I will definitely be going back next week.

Why?  It’s like traveling back into the history of music first hand.  Today, I heard sung and got to play along ukulele standards like Aloha Oe, Blue Hawaii, Ukulele Lady and the really fun Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue.  I have seen the printed music for these songs dozens of times, and like Bill, I “sort of” know how to read music, but hearing them and playing along first hand with folks who knew these songs when they were new, that’s quite an opportunity!  I mean, half these folks will be dead in ten years!

When someone picked “Daydream Believer” near the end of the 90 minutes, I really let loose.  Yeah, it was a #1 hit three years before I was even born, but at least it was a #1 and I knew it!

I’m tentatively thinking that for next week, I am going to print up the lyrics and chords to last week’s Internet meme-song,  Rebecca Black’s “Friday”, ask them to sing it with me.  I dunno.  Twenty silver haired ukulele players singing Friday, that might get a few views on YouTube.  This week, as it was my first time, I didn’t want to be too blatant and intrusive with the video camera, so I barely have any footage of this gathering to share with you.

The, something even more interesting happened.  As you will see in the video below, this senior center I’m talking about is right on the edge of Puget Sound.  The beach at Edmonds, WA, is an absolutely amazing place, and when I got out of the uke circle, the sun was shining, the wind was mild and the thermometer felt like it was pushing 60 degrees.
Ah, Springtime!  A partly cloudy day in the high 50’s (F) is objectively not THAT awesome.  If it falls in June in our climate, it would be cold.  Bright sunshine, blue water and having to take your jacket off outdoors feels like a Godsend in late March.  The five months of cold, dark, rainy weather is coming to an end!  Yay!!! Weather is subjective.  Today was the most beautiful day of the year so far, and it’s only going to get better.

Y’know, during this long, dark winter, I’ve given a lot of thought about moving back to San Diego, where I lived during most of my 20‘s.  I have family there, and more family is talking about moving there.  In San Diego, you have a lot more glorious days than today in Seattle, all year around… but there really is no Springtime in San Diego. Endless Summers have nothing to contrast themselves against.

So, I wasn’t going to go getting right back on the bus to head home from the beach.  I got down onto the sand, settled in, and started playing my ukulele.  I’ve been on a bit of a Beatles kick lately, and so I found a suitably nautical song from the book I’d brought with me and started playing.

Since I kinda fucked it up at the end of the first verse, this normally wouldn’t make my YouTube channel, but something remarkable happened. I had a bit of an encounter.  I don’t know where it is going to lead, but it was certainly interesting.  Be sure to watch to the end; its a two minute video.  I get the videographical tables turned on me.

As I often do, I had a little difficulty transitioning from the first to the second verse, as I paused, I get interrupted with a guy above me on the walkway asking, “Excuse me, sir!?!”

As you might be able to discern from my tone, when this guy leaned over the sea wall and asked, “How much longer are you going to be playing down here?” I thought he was complaining about my music. I thought I was disturbing his peaceful enjoyment of this bucolic scene.  My fragile little musician ego was about to be crushed… as it turns out, he wants ME to be part of his documentary.

Like I said, we’ll see where it goes, but I’m the one who MAKES documentaries (sort of), being PART of one, well, that’s a first.