Playing Ukulele Quotes

I watched a lot of YouTube videos of cute geeky girls playing '80s cover tunes on ukuleles. Technically, this wasn't part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.

I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.

Does Zeus have a perfect tan? Can he play the ukulele? I think not!

I love crafting. Knitting, decoupage, scrapbooking, any "lady-ish" art form, I'm a fan. For about six months each. Then I shove all the supplies in a closet, alongside the skeletons of long dead New Year's resolutions, like saber fencing, playing the ukulele, and Japanese brush painting.

I watched a lot of YouTube videos of cute geeky girls playing ’80s cover tunes on ukuleles. Technically, this wasn’t part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.

Princess Elowyn whirls at the center of a circle of Larks. Her skin is a glittering gold, her hair the deep green of ivy. Beside her, a human boy plays the fiddle. Two more mortals accompany him less skillfully, but more joyfully, on ukuleles.

I watched a lot of YouTube videos of cute geeky girls playing ’80s cover tunes on ukuleles.

Technically, this wasn’t part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.

The seeing-eye dog was giving a lecture called A Corpse Ate Death. There was an avant-garde orchestra accompanying ihs lecture. Dogs barked along, and small children played answering machines, recorders, trombones, triangles, and ukuleles.

We all have stories like that, stories we rely on to establish our charm in the beginning of relationships. I tell one about wanting to play the ukulele in the school orchestra. They asked me what instrument I wanted to play, and I said the ukulele, and they said, but there’s no ukulele in the school orchestra, and I said, then what can I play that’s like the ukulele, and they said the viola. That story doesn’t sound so charming on the page, but I tell it very well.

The eyes from Burma, from Tonkin, watch these women at their hundred perseverances—stare out of blued orbits, through headaches no Alasils can ease. Italian P/Ws curse underneath the mail sacks that are puffing, echo-clanking in now each hour, in seasonal swell, clogging the snowy trainloads like mushrooms, as if the trains have been all night underground, passing through the country of the dead. If these Eyeties sing now and then you can bet it’s not “Giovinezza” but something probably from Rigoletto or La Bohème—indeed the Post Office is considering issuing a list of Nonacceptable Songs, with ukulele chords as an aid to ready identification. Their cheer and songfulness, this lot, is genuine up to a point—but as the days pile up, as this orgy of Christmas greeting grows daily beyond healthy limits, with no containment in sight before Boxing Day, they settle, themselves, for being more professionally Italian, rolling the odd eye at the lady evacuees, finding techniques of balancing the sack with one hand whilst the other goes playing “dead”—cioé, conditionally alive—where the crowds thicken most feminine, directionless . . . well, most promising. Life has to go on. Both kinds of prisoner recognize that, but there’s no mano morto for the Englishmen back from CBI, no leap from dead to living at mere permission from a likely haunch or thigh—no play, for God’s sake, about life-and-death! They want no more adventures: only the old dutch fussing over the old stove or warming the old bed, cricketers in the wintertime, they want the semi-detached Sunday dead-leaf somnolence of a dried garden.

At the ukulele workshop that summer. He lectured on the four-note chord in the context of timelessness, and described himself then as a Quaternionist. We had quickly discovered our common love of the instrument,” Miles recalled,“ and discussed the widespread contempt in which ukulele players are held— traceable, we concluded, to the uke’s all-but-exclusive employment as a producer of chords—single, timeless events apprehended all at once instead of serially. Notes of a linear melody, up and down a staff, being a record of pitch versus time, to play a melody is to introduce the element of time, and hence of mortality. Our perceived reluctance to leave the timelessness of the struck chord has earned ukulele players our reputation as feckless, clownlike children who will not grow up.

In 1951, when I was four years old, my grandfather gave me an official Arthur Godfrey ukulele, complete with an authentic chord-maker attachment so I could sing and play along with my records. The attachment was hooked to the fret board, and by pressing one button or another I could make a particular chord. Eventually my curiosity got the best of me and I started peeking under the chord maker to see how the strings were being manipulated. As soon as I realized how the chords were made, I got rid of the attachment and made my own chords. It was my first big career move. The radio, my ukulele, record player, and record collection were my cohorts and confidants. Music was already the center of my life. Later that year, my mother enrolled me for piano lessons at the local conservatory.

Malcolm Lowry Late of the Bowery His prose was flowery And often glowery He lived, nightly, and drank, daily, And died playing the ukulele

Sergeant Perez began singing, “My dog has fleas.” As far as I know, Perez doesn’t play the ukulele or guitar, but I guess he knows someone who does. Guitarists and uke players sing that song to help them tune their instruments. Perez sings it to annoy me. “My dog has fleas,” he sang again. Being off-key didn’t help his song. “Your wife has crabs,” I sang, hitting the tune just right. Maybe that’s why Perez flipped me the bird. He was jealous of my singing.

Then he held up his ukulele. “Now I am off to play a good old piece of jazz.

Me Time Zone It’s okay to be a “me-time mom.” ~Author Unknown The day has ended yet only just begun for I have two lives — one that hides behind the sun You may not see my secret life — the one lurking in the dark, the one that eagerly awaits its time to spark Daytime me puts the other me aside Daytime me doesn’t get to hide Daytime me washes all the clothes Daytime me kisses the injured toes I am a teacher, a maid and a cook I hand out the cuddles and the disconcerting looks I referee the arguments, the teasing and the fights I fasten the helmets to go ride the bikes Nighttime me relaxes in the chair Nighttime me reads books without a care Nighttime me watches comedy shows Nighttime me eats the treats that I chose I sometimes wonder whether I used to be bored when I had just one life and hardly any chores I want to do all the things that I did before but how do I fit them in now there’s so much more? I read books, played piano and swam I cycled and socialised and ran I wrote poetry, played video games and went to bars I knew popular culture and all the famous stars Now my me time has become so small sometimes I feel it’s hardly there at all When the children will not settle but the sun has gone away I throw my arms in the air, for daytime me has to stay. I count to ten and breathe in deep Why oh why won’t they go to sleep? Me time is a ship that has sailed past How could I be so foolish to think that it would last I tuck their hair behind their ears and then I begin to feel the tears Am I crying for my me time? That seems a little mad Surely it’s something else that’s making me sad Crying for my me time does seem a little daft As I leave the children’s room I begin to laugh. I’m trying to put me time into a time slot I precariously balance it on the top. But I realise my me time comes in different forms to be enjoyed even while daytime storms I read a book whilst I make the tea I play ukulele whilst the children dance with me I swim in the sea with the children under my wings I run around the park between pushing them on swings And there are famous stars that I know, even if they come from the children’s favourite show Yes the ultimate me time is when I’m on my own but me time can also be enjoyed when you’re not alone My me time is a state of mind When I’m in the me time zone who knows what I’ll find? — Anneliese Rose Beeson —

It seems blasphemous that my mother's death even existed in the same reality as those moments that subsequently came to define my youth; taking the long way home from Nixon's Corner so I could listen to Kid A twice, or poring over the lurid covers of horror paperbacks in a newly discovered corner of Foyle Street library. How is my mother's passing even part of the same universe that gave me the simple pleasures of ice cream after swimming lessons in William Street baths, or scenting the sun cream on girls' skin as they daubed polish on their outstretched, nonchalant nails. My life wasn't over from that point on. I'd laugh and cry and scream about borrowed jumpers, school fights, bomb scares, playing Zelda, teenage bands, primary-school crushes and yet more ice cream after yet more swimming lessons. I'd just be doing it without her. To some extent, I'd be doing it without a memory of her. The most dramatic moment of my life wasn't scored by wailing sirens, weeping angels or sad little ukuleles, nimbly plucked on lonely hillsides. Mammy's death was mostly signalled by tea, sandwiches, and an odd little boy in corduroy trousers, announcing it with a smile across his face.

I met Tyler roughly a year after his minimalist decision to leave social media. He was clearly excited by how his life had changed during this period. He started volunteering near his home, he exercises regularly, he’s reading three to four books a month, he began to learn to play the ukulele, and he told me that now that his phone is no longer glued to his hand, he’s closer than he has ever been with his wife and kids.

in Napa County. I eventually lost focus on the dome project and ended up busking with another friend on the streets of Berkeley—he played accordion, I played violin and ukulele and struck ironic poses. It was successful. I realized that at that time I was more interested in irony than utopia.

On the bus to St. Louis, a man with a ukulele stood in the aisle and offered to play requests. Someone shouted out, “Freebird,” and the man sat back down, visibly angered