A little disclaimer: This isn’t intended to be a how-to guide or anything. I’m still a hardcore newbie. I just wanted to share my experience and some of the resources that have helped me along so far.

My Musical Journey

I think I’ve probably told this story before, but I’m gonna tell it again. When I was in 5th grade and had to choose an instrument to play for orchestra, I chose the upright bass. My brother played, and he was awesome and I wanted to be just like him. After a couple years of lugging it around though, I decided to quit. I loved music, but it was hard. I was a shy kid. Art came naturally to me so I chose that instead.

About twelve years ago I bought an acoustic guitar and a “Guitar for Dummies” book with the intention of teaching myself how to play. I didn’t even last long enough for calluses to form on my fingers. I bought an electric guitar thinking that would somehow make the process easier, but I honestly don’t remember ever playing it. I ended up selling it, but I held on to the acoustic.

Three kids later, my oldest is playing the piano and making awesome progress. He’s such an inspiration to me! I bought a ukulele for my middle child, thinking it would be good for him to learn an instrument too. I figured I’d pick up my old guitar, start teaching myself to play again, and use what I learn to help Rhett along.

We did that for a little while, but it turns out Rhett didn’t actually want to learn how to play the ukulele… I decided not to force it, and found myself with this cool little instrument all to myself! And it was great timing, because I was getting pretty frustrated with the guitar. It’s hard to make your hand move around the fretboard, and to build up enough strength and dexterity to actually be able to make the notes and chords ring out properly. And it’s hard to suck at something… It’s hard to push past the initial stage of, “Hey, I’m really bad at this!” It’s hard to keep in mind that if you keep practicing a little every day, you’ll make steady improvement. You can’t suck forever!

I ended up taking a little break from the guitar and switching to the ukulele. It’s great to have both because the skills you learn transfer over easily. Everything I learned on the guitar, I could use on the ukulele. The tuning and chord shapes are different, but you can still use them. For example, the chord shape for the A chord on the guitar is the D chord on the ukulele. But your hand is doing the same basic thing. If you put a capo on the 5th fret of your guitar, you can play it like a ukulele with two extra strings. I’ve experimented with that a bit, and it’s fun. I personally like the sound of a guitar better, but the ukulele is just less painful to play.

The strings on the ukulele are nylon, so they’re easier on the fingers. It’s smaller and easier to hold, and there are two less strings to worry about so it’s a little easier to learn (in my opinion).

Resources for Learning Guitar and Ukulele

When I first picked up the guitar again, I decided to use the Yousician app to help me learn. It takes a gamified approach, so that was a fun way to get me past the painful callus-building period. It was like playing Guitar Hero, but with a real guitar! It was fun at first but after a while, I felt like I wasn’t actually learning much. I couldn’t play anything unless I had the app in front of me, and that bothered me. I do think it helps a lot with building strength in your fretting hand and practicing chord changes though.

Next I used JustinGuitar.com. That helped me get a little farther, because it’s more like having an online instructor. He teaches you how to practice in order to make steady improvements, and a lot of his content is free so that’s a plus if you’re on a budget.

Strumming and rhythm definitely haven’t come naturally to me, and the way it’s taught on JustinGuitar didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I couldn’t make both hands work together to make music. Keeping time is hard… I was also struggling with my hand cramping up or giving out entirely trying to change chords.

That’s about the time I switched over to the ukulele and found the Kala app. I blew through their learning path pretty quickly, but it was great because it’s basically all chords and strumming! And they teach it in a fun way that makes sense, at least to me. Chords on the ukulele feel a lot more manageable, even the bar chords. I was hoping playing the ukulele for a while would help me slowly build up strength in my fingers and hands so I could make my way back over to the guitar.

And that’s about where I’m at now. I picked up the guitar again yesterday and it wasn’t too bad. Right now I’m using Fender Play to help me learn both the guitar and ukulele. I’ve got a few tab books as well. I tend to get bored easily so it’s nice to change things up to help me stick with it. I’m sure I’ll venture back to JustinGuitar at some point too.

Learning is Fun!

Learning an instrument as an adult has been super slow and humbling, but also very rewarding. I can play Happy Birthday and Silent Night on the ukulele now while I sing along! I definitely won’t be sharing that though… I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I’m having a lot of fun and I’m making steady progress. That’s what matters right?