About six months ago Jude Kaiser was looking for a hobby. So one day while rummaging through a closet in his Brunswick home he found a ukulele he had purchased as a souvenir while on a vacation in Hawaii 10 years ago. He thought to himself, “It might be a good time to try and learn how to play this thing.”
“It was really easy to pick up and it’s got a really nice sound to it,” he said Sunday while waiting for the Tech Valley Ukulele Meetup in Troy to get underway. “I also play the guitar, but sometimes this is a little more fun.”
Kaiser was among 10 ukulele players who attended the tutoring session, hosted by instructor Mark Menard. The “ukers,” as Menard calls them, ranged widely in age and skill level.
“That is pretty common for this class,” Menard said, noting the youngest uker was 11 years old and the newest had purchased a ukulele just last week.
The 11-year-old, Keiler MacNeal, has been playing the four-string version of the instrument since September and has found it to be very exciting.
“I have tried the recorder and the drums but I like this the best,” he said. “I usually practice once a day. Me and my dad just like to fool around sometimes.”
Keiler’s father, Douglas MacNeal, was also in attendance Sunday and spoke to the joy he gets from playing the instrument.
“It’s really just a lot of fun,” he said. “I picked it up in December, around Christmastime, and I’ve been able to learn fairly quickly.”
MacNeal said he originally heard about the Tech Valley Meetup in November and attended a few sessions just to watch.
“I kind of just watched from the back and I thought how much fun it looked like everyone was having,” he said.
The joy the ukers get from playing their instruments was evident as Menard and his pupils shared many laughs and thoroughly seemed to enjoy each other’s company. Menard regularly offers constructive criticism to the ukers, who appear grateful for his instruction.
“We have a lot of fun together, it’s pretty lighthearted as you can see,” Menard said.
The first session was in November and ever since then the group has been meeting every Sunday, with a rotating cast of ukers.
“I see a lot of the same faces, but a lot of time we get some new people,” Menard said. “It’s nice seeing new faces and getting new players in every now and then.”
There is no “set in stone” way of thinking in the music world about the ukulele, according to Menard. “It’s really all over the place,” he said. “Some people see it as a viable instrument and some think of it as kind of like a joke. Obviously myself and the people here take it pretty seriously.”
Kurt Siegel, a member of the Electric City Ukulele Club, served as an assistant instructor Sunday, and led the class for brief periods of time.
“I’ve been playing for around three years,” said the Schenectady resident, who had performed earlier Sunday at the Schenectady Green Market. “It is really almost therapeutic for me to be able to make music and enjoy the way it sounds.”
Categories: -News-, Schenectady County
