Long before I had an electric ukulele and a band and a second album off at the CD manufacturer, before I had any of the stuff, I would find a quiet place — wherever I was in the world — and learn how to play singer songwriter tunes that just seemed to work on the ukulele. I would play the same tune over and over and over, for days, weeks at a time, and every now and then, I’d post a low-res video to share with my friends who thought it was cool that I’d picked up the uke.
Now, I play in front of people and worry about getting it right because it’s live for a crowd — or, in a few still surprising to me cases — live for TV cameras, but I used to just play while no one listened or watched. I used to have terrible nerves on the rare occasions I was on the stage; now I have them only part of the time and usually, they pass if things are going well. Now, I have band practice once a week and I keep my uke by my desk to play when I need a break from writing stories or technical documentation or elaborate Visio diagrams of future web sites. During that break I play band songs — I always need the practice.
I adore playing with The Castaways, it’s beyond excellent, and if you’d told me that I’d be part of a local act that can pack a room, well, yeah, I’d have laughed and said that was pretty funny and also, not happening. I’d have been wrong. But I still play, from time to time, just to play. Jazz classics (I Wish You Love) and sometimes, that one sensitive track by the rock star (Baby, I Love Your Way), or dumb pop songs that are catchy (yes, I’ve played Taylor Swift, forgive me). And if that lines up with the open mic days at the Seattle Ukulele Player’s Association, well, I bring some sheet music, and I get up in front of 40, 50 people, and I play. Alone.
God knows where I got the nerve to do that. It’s still scary to stand up and play solo, though I don’t let the fact that I’m afraid stop me. This year, I played Billy Joel’s Vienna Waits for You. Here it is, in low-res glory, recorded on my couch in one flawed take. I like this song a lot, it’s good on the ukulele, and doing this reminded me that man, oh man, oh man, I do love to play the uke. And that if you do the thing you fall in love with, who knows what’s going to happen?