{"id":10863,"date":"2013-08-17T18:19:51","date_gmt":"2013-08-17T22:19:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=10863"},"modified":"2013-08-17T18:19:51","modified_gmt":"2013-08-17T22:19:51","slug":"what-i-learned-or-tried-to-learn-anyway-at-ukefest-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2013\/08\/17\/what-i-learned-or-tried-to-learn-anyway-at-ukefest-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"What I learned (or tried to learn, anyway) at UkeFest 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sorry for the silence here, folks. Blame the ukulele.<\/p>\n<p>For pretty much every waking moment of Saturday through Tuesday, and for most of Wednesday, I took part in UkeFest 2013 over at the Strathmore Music Center in Maryland. <\/p>\n<p>There were multiple tracks of programming, so it was of course impossible for me  to attend everything, but in the classes I got to, Marcy Marxer taught us how to play &#8220;Rockin&#8217; the Uke&#8221; a la Roy Smeck, Gerald Ross showed us chorded melodies and how to &#8220;take it&#8221; during a jam, Lil&#8217; Rev (with whom I&#8217;m posing below) shared roll strokes, triples, fans, and zig-zag strums, Stu Fuchs went through rockabilly fingering, Cathy Fink took us through the best way to practice so that we&#8217;d actually get better &#8230; and much, much more.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/IMG_4292.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/IMG_4292-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_4292\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10866\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/IMG_4292-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/IMG_4292-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/IMG_4292-1024x1024.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now when I say that these instructors taught me all these things, that&#8217;s not to say I actually <em>learned<\/em> any of them on the spot. (So don&#8217;t go expecting miracles the next time you see me with a uke.) Because while I understood on an intellectual level everything I was shown, I didn&#8217;t necessarily have the dexterity to perform many of the complicated moves. <\/p>\n<p>But that&#8217;s OK. I didn&#8217;t expect I&#8217;d always be able to keep up. But I&#8217;m not disappointed, because I know that will come, as muscle memory slowly starts to take over from  my natural fumbling.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to see more of what this year was like, head on over to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/8293436@N04\/sets\/72157635097952309\/\">Flickr<\/a> to check out more UkeFest photos.<\/p>\n<p>Can&#8217;t wait until UkeFest 2014!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sorry for the silence here, folks. Blame the ukulele. For pretty much every waking moment of Saturday through Tuesday, and for most of Wednesday, I took part in UkeFest 2013 over at the Strathmore Music Center in Maryland. There were multiple tracks of programming, so it was of course impossible for me to attend everything, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[326,175],"class_list":["post-10863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ukefest","tag-ukulele"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}