Well...I've Taken on a New Adventure...

So, I've always wanted to learn how to play a stringed instrument. I bought a guitar at one point in time several years ago but was daunted by what seemed to be a pretty steep learning curve. I sold it on Ebay for what I paid for it about two months after I bought it, so it wasn't really any loss. But I've still always had a desire to learn how to do it...so I figured I'd maybe give it a try again.

I took this desire and combined it with my love of all things tropical...including a place I've never been to but WILL go to one day...Hawai'i. I ordered a ukulele off of Ebay about a week ago from a guy that actually owns his own uke shop IN Hawai'i. It got here today, and it is really cool!!! It's so much smaller than I had imagined that it would be.

The nice thing about the uke is that it only has 4 strings, and most of the chords that are done with it use all 4 strings. From what I can tell, that makes it one of the easier stringed instruments to learn how to play. It came with a chord finder book that lists over 1000 chords and how to hold your hands to play them and a book and CD to help you learn how to play. The guy that sold it to me, Mike, also recommended a DVD that he sells at his Ebay store that will help me quite a bit, so I will be ordering that soon. The package came with a hardsided case to protect the instrument and a pitch pipe to help tune it. Also, as an added bonus for the package, Mike put high end strings on it that normally would add over $25 to the cost free of charge. He also oiled the frets and tuned everything all up.

All in all I'm pretty happy with it. I learned two chords tonight and was just strumming it quite a bit and I like how it sounds. Hopefully I can get a bit better at it...