As we were discussing in "Isn't it just a Little Guitar?", there is a lot of transferable information that a player can take with them from the guitar to the ukulele. But the next time someone "belittles" the ukulele by questioning its validity as a real musical instrument, just hand them a ukulele and let them try to make it sound good! Let there be no mistake, the ukulele may be small and unassuming looking but it is not an easy instrument to master!

A lot of guitar players can keep you entertained with fancy fingerwork all over the neck of their guitar - but hand them a uke and see how good they sound. The first thing a guitarist will do when picking up a uke is to pull out a stiff pick and starting strumming power chords near the bridge while simultaneously muttering something about the instrument not staying in tune.

I think of the ukulele as being similar to the harmonica in its level of difficulty. You can pretty quickly learn a few tunes and be satisfied at that stage, or you may dig deeper and find where the magic personality is hiding.

In all of its simplicities and complexities, the ukulele may be one of the most challenging instruments to master! Working with a limited melody range means frequent transposing and arranging. Working with just four strings forces the player to work harder on chord shapes, voicings, passing tones and the approach to finding good tone between flesh and wood.

As a lifelong guitar player who switched to ukulele in early 2004, I am amazed at the rapid repertoire of songs I have been eager to learn on the uke that I never was interested in learning on the guitar. I love playing many styles of music on the ukulele that I never gave a second thought to as a guitarist. The ukulele has opened my ears and my heart to decades worth of wonderful melodies that I may otherwise have never enjoyed!

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