I had my last group ukulele class this week with Kevin Carroll and I have to say, I’m a convert.

See, what happened was…about a year ago I got a ukulele because EVERY. ONE. IN FOLK MUSIC. HAS ONE. It’s a little cliché but they’re fun, right? Except that it sat there because I had some conflicting information on it (note: uke is not just like playing guitar upside down…someone told me that and my brain got confused) and then just didn’t pick it up that much except to plunk.

Kevin, my friend and Austin’s premier edUKEcator, was offering a 6 week group class and I figured a little group peer pressure would get me on the road to learning it a little better.

What I found out, thanks to Kevin’s devotion to the instrument, is that it’s NOT just a tiny guitar or a toy or the thing they play when they need Hawaiian music in a movie scene (although it is very Hawaiian, which is cool). It’s a really unique, adaptable instrument that is above all really fun to play.

We covered pop tunes, folk tunes, we learned a blues shuffle (uke blues yay!), and started getting into 20’s and 30’s tunes…those songs that Flapper Girls would dance to back then.

I have to miss the last class because I’ll be traveling, but Kevin sent me away with the assignment to play the uke on stage soon and record it. I will do it. Who wants to be a Flapper Girl?