Ukulele

By Ann Louise Wolf, Easton Elementary School

Today, a minor miracle occurred. 

A student flat out DEMANDED to try again and make better choices at his behavior by doing the entire lesson over again not later, but right then. This student is four years old. What on earth could cause such a feat of transformative determination? Why, the opportunity to play a ukulele for about twenty seconds.

This ukulele is not particularly remarkable, as ukuleles go. It's pretty cheap, practically a toy, and barely stays in tune. It looks exactly identical to all the other ukuleles in ArtistCorps' inventory: a soprano ukulele with a black fret board and a body and head the solid brown that is the precise the color of a Hershey bar when you leave it in the sun. It gets carried around in a black zipper-case of rip-stop nylon with absolutely no padding. It has exactly the same amount of crash-protection as an off-brand wind breaker. In fact, the only thing the case is good for is guarding against spills and curious fingers. That, and it provides a handle. Self-respecting musicians everywhere would turn up their noses and roll their eyes when offered this ukulele, even if they were uke fans to begin with.

Yet, to thirty pre-kindergarteners, this ukulele might as well be a Stradivarius violin. They're devastated if it gets left behind by accident. They reach out to it if it comes even vaguely within reach. They watch us play it and they sing along with it every day, but it never dims in its magic. 

The secret is this: the ukulele, being a soprano uke, is tiny. It's so tiny that it's small enough for their little four-year old hands to hold and their four-year old bodies to wrap around. With our help, they are (if they earn it), allowed to hold and strum the ukulele after our lessons. Many of them sing the songs we sing with them. Some of them invent their own songs on the spot. A few regularly inform us that they have asked their parents for ukuleles of their own. 

The intoxicating thrill of musicianship is so powerful, that a warning of losing ukulele privileges will usually cause immediate focus and engagement in distracted children. Those who do lose their chance to play are told that they can try again tomorrow, and they wander off, usually much improved the next day. And today, one little boy who for weeks had to be begged or scolded into coming over for his session with us, refused to leave when his session was over. No, he said, he needed to try again. Right away. That little four year old boy, who just a couple weeks ago could barely be convinced to participate in any way, voluntarily sat through the entire lesson a second time and participated fully and enthusiastically. 

All so he could get his turn to play the ukulele. Just like us.