Twenty years ago we bought this small ukulele in Lahaina at a craft fair as we were getting ready to depart for home. Fairy thought it was cute and maybe I could learn to play it. I had my doubts, but agreed since it was so cute. Sure enough, once at home, I tried to play it for a couple of weeks, barely learned a few chords, and then gave up; I just couldn’t do it. But it wasn’t just an ukulele, it was also a teacher which in Hawaiian is translated “ke kumu,” and it just bided its time until I would allow it to teach me that, yes, I could play the ukulele.
Eight years later, in 2012, we went on a cruise to French Polynesia aboard the Aranui 3, and I attended a brief ukulele class aboard ship. That rekindled an interest, and when I returned home, Ke Kumu got busy once again. With the help of “The Daily Ukulele,” a ukulele songbook with 365 songs complete with chord fingering charts, I was able to learn the chords, strumming, and picking, and started having fun playing.
I have played nearly every day since, though I have moved on to larger “tenor” ukuleles that fit my hands better. Now Ke Kumu lives with my daughter in Oregon, waiting once more for its time to teach someone else who thinks that they can’t, that indeed, yes they can learn to play the ukulele.
#kekumu #ukulele
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