I'm in the second half of my 50th decade and have been playing piano since I was three. I never really saw myself playing anything else. Then last summer my grandson began pestering me to buy him an electric guitar. I felt he needed something smaller to start learning on, so in August, 2006 I bought him a concert ukulele. I'd never touched a ukulele before and didn't know squat about them, but since the time the uke arrived, I found I couldn't take my hands off it. Because I didn't want to hog the instrument I bought for him, I then purchased one for myself. My blistered fingers and I are happy as they can be. I plan to retire in 2010, then devote the majority of my time making music for anyone who wants to listen.NOTES ON THE MUSIC:
Blinders is a keyboard piece that's probably over-produced, but I like it. Hope you do, too! Kudos to Cakewalk Sonar's fantastic V-Vocal technology, which fixed my off-key singing on this number and raised my vocal rating from absolutely lethal to mind-numbingly bad but survivable.
Dr. Jekyll is the first song I ever wrote for ukulele.
Feel the Beet is the first song on which I used ukuleles. If originality consists in the ability to conceal your sources, this has to be the most original song I've ever written. I took as my starting point the opening chord structure of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, although I doubt even Beethoven would recognize it.
The Irish Beaver's Lament attempts to answer the age-old question, "What would happen if a donkey dug a pit too close to a construction project owned and operated by a beaver of Irish descent?" It features my cigar-box ukulele built from a kit from Papas' Boxes and a box I found in a cigar store in Richmond, Virginia. And if that's not enough entertainment value in one song, I also play the spoons, which I learned especially for this song and which -- through the magic of a heavily edited wave file -- you get to hear at no additional cost! (I should warn you that this song, although it contains no bad language, might contain certain lines that could be subject to being misunderstood. Because of that it may not be the best choice for background music at the grandkid's next birthday party!)