My Dog Has Fleas...

Not really, bless his heart! But I do have a new ukelele thanks to a good friend who just returned from an extended visit to Hawaii to take care of her mother. I have been wanting a ukelele to hang on the wall at our beach house, and she found the cutest one! It is a beautiful honey colored wood with natural colored wood palm tree cutouts on it. As I said, I really planned to display it on the wall, but I couldn't resist taking it out and trying to play it. The first hurdle was to tune it. I dug deep back into my memory banks and remembered that the strings of a ukelele are tuned to the familiar "my dog has fleas" melody. Let's just say, it's been a while since I had to match pitch! I could hum the tune, but for the life of me, I could not tighten or loosen the strings to match what I was humming. There were times I couldn't even tell whether the instrument was sharp or flat...but I could tell it was W-A-Y off! Once I got it reasonably tuned, I did a quick search of the Internet to find a chord chart. I felt like I was well on my way to playing Home on the Range, I've Been Working on the Railroad, or In the Good Ole Summertime...WRONG! Not only had I lost all ability I once had to make my fingers go where I wanted them, I discovered that I would have to cut my nails. That's a deal breaker. So, I guess it's back to plan A. The uke goes on the wall, awaiting a wandering minstrel who may come by for a visit.