Winter workshops!!!

The amazing Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra have just announced this year's season of the Winter Workshops (PDF).

Doing a workshop was never in question. In just over six months of playing, I've only been to one formal lesson, and that one lesson probably trebled my range of skills. The opportunity to learn some more without the expense of private tuition is something I've been absolutely gasping for.

No, the question was which workshop to enrol for, as they're running two series this year - a beginner and an intermediate series. The beginner series sounds like it's for total beginners, starting out with how to tune a uke. It runs for five one-hour sessions. The intermediate series is closer to my level - it covers a few topics with which I'm already somewhat familiar (finger picking, bar chords) and a few I really want to learn about (triple strum, improvising). They plan to cover all this in only three one-hour sessions.

The pre-req for the intermediate workshop series is to "be able to play at least six chords (including E), and..." - but the rest doesn't matter, because I can't finger a fricking E chord to save my life. (I don't seriously believe that it's possible for normal human beings to finger an E chord. These people who can do it, they must sacrifice every night to the God of the E Chord or something.)

As I've never played in a group, have no musical background, have not been playing long, and don't quite meet the intermediate pre-reqs, I have therefore registered for the beginner workshop series, starting July 25. Five sessions rather than three means that much extra practice and time with other players. There's certain to be plenty there that I don't already know; hopefully the extreme basics won't take too long to cover. And maybe I can persuade one of the tutors to just show me that triple strum on the quiet.

Aside: my hobbies fund (which I may as well rename to "ukulele fund", cos that's all it gets used for) has never yet made it into the black since I started work.