Ukulele update

Ten days ago my original, little, red, plastic ukulele turned six months old. To celebrate I got it out and played a few of the first tunes I learned on it (Pokarekare Ana, Hoki Mai, It's A Heartache). It was heavy, hard to balance in my hands, required tonnes of pressure on the strings to avoid buzzing, sounded muted and distorted, and went out of tune every few minutes. After briefly celebrating its birthday I was incredibly glad to return to my beautiful new Stagg concert.

I've had the Stagg for one month and five days now. It's wonderful to play a proper wooden instrument that has some sustain and resonates cleanly, with nice tight pegs so that tuning is more than just an exercise in frustration. It's wonderful to be able to balance its small weight with almost no tension in my fretting hand, and it's wonderful to have so much soundboard under my right forearm, so I can play standing up without the instrument slipping down my front all the time.

Notwithstanding all the wonderfulness, I have had to adapt to the larger concert instrument after learning for five months on a soprano. The adjustment has been trickier than I was expecting; the instrument isn't that much bigger, but surprisingly requires quite a bit more precision in chord fingering. The fretboard seems to be wider (I haven't actually compared them directly), and it's easier to just barely slip off the string and come up with a muted sound. The finer frets, as well as making it possible to use a lot less finger pressure, also demand more in terms of accurate finger placement. No longer can I just slug my finger in there anywhere between one fret and the next; it's got to be very close to halfway or I get that unholy buzzing sound.

The adjustment has been good for me, cos it's forced me to learn more precise habits. Things which are good for you... aren't always fun. I feel like I've achieved little in the past month; just this week I seem to be making progress again. My B♭ chord now comes out right more often than wrong, and I'm getting better at applying constant pressure throughout a bar rather than pre-emptively loosening my grip ahead of a chord change. (This isn't a problem when strumming because the Stagg has enough sustain to disguise the fact that I've effectively lifted my fingers. When fingerpicking, however, this habit is disastrous - you get awful muted notes at the end of each bar.)

I miss the soprano size in ways unrelated to the simple physical difficulty of the switch. The soprano uke is a gorgeous little instrument with its own unique sound, and I'd really like to own another at some point. (I mean, a proper wooden one. You know.) Also, sometimes it feels like the sound of my Stagg is almost too clean and bright - almost a little bit nasal. My next uke, I hope, will sound more round and mellow. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get this in a soprano.

Not that I have any intention of replacing my Stagg - no, not replacing... merely supplementing. Clearly I am already in the grip of Ukulele Acquisition Syndrome, a terrible affliction arising from the relative cheapness of quality ukes. A guitar collection is a vastly expensive and decadent thing to have; a uke collection, depending on composition, is probably worth roughly one nice guitar. Win!