Breaking up Is Hard to Do: Leaving a Ukulele Band
In my time with the group, I had felt what holds musicians together. I had not only helped make music, I was the music.
For three years, off and on, I hid inside a band of real musicians called the St. Alban's Ukulele Orchestra. Not to be confused with the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, the St. Alban's band has its moments.
There are trained musicians in the group, people with degrees in music, instrumental and voice. Some of the musicians play more than one instrument. They bring their other instruments to practice the way parents bring small children to St. Alban's, the Anglican chapel on the Louisiana State University campus.
"Ed," she said, "Has anyone told you about sharps and flats?"
Playing with these welcoming, sharing people, I was, again, the child who in grammar school opted out of band because the teacher told me my Uncle C.W.'s saxophone needed a reed. I was intimidated by the size and complexity of the sax. I didn't like the way it tasted, either.
I left that first band practice at L.S. Rugg School never to return, never to play in a group again until I was in my 60s.
I flirted with the guitar, memorizing "Autumn Leaves." I played it, note for note, for my future wife who said, "Hmmm, what you're playing sounds familiar."
'Unusual Sense of Rhythm'
"What do you mean sounds familiar?" I said in a hurt tone. "It's 'Autumn Leaves,' picked note for note in first position."
"Ed," she said, "Has anyone told you about sharps and flats?"
I never got what you'd call "good at the guitar." I have a decent voice. I learned to play chords and do some simple picking, but I have an unusual sense of rhythm that has been called 5/8 time.
Hiding inside the St. Alban's Ukulele Orchestra, I played softly but sang loud. I relaxed and enjoyed being part of a music-making ensemble. Occasionally, I would look across the circle of real musicians to see that other players' fingers weren't in the same position as mine. A change of chords had occurred without my knowing.
I was easily the weakest link, but there were a few other players hiding in the bushes of approximate musicianship. We knew who we were. We exchanged secret glances and fleeting grins across the low hedge of music stands.
My favorite songs were cowboy songs in which lonely men huddled around campfires singing songs of Christmas in harmony with lowing cattle. The St. Alban's Ukulele Orchestra's renditions of "In the Bleak Midwinter" and the Ukrainian "Song of Peace" let me feel music deeply for the first time as a musician.
We played gigs at assisted living apartments and nursing homes, the big library, the farmers' market and other churches. We played a religious retreat once where the organizers set us up so far from the lunch tables no one knew we were there. We laughed, played for ourselves and called it an unscheduled practice.
My highest and lowest moment in the band came at the farmers' market when a little boy walked up to me, smiling in admiration. He stood there the entire song until his mother fetched him, thanked me and led him away.
When I told the St. Alban's group that I was taking a break, the way losing candidates for president say they're suspending their campaigns, it felt like breaking up with someone dear to me. That's overly dramatic because people come and go from the orchestra all the time. Still.
Being Part of the Music
Spinning out of musical orbit for the second time in my life, this was different. I had felt what holds musicians together. I had not only helped make music, I was the music. It was happening all around me; Mike's drums, Cathy's banjo ukulele, Mary's xylophone, Larry's bass, everyone else together and headed to the same place.
When we played concerts, the applause affirmed our effort. I loved concerts. Unlike practice, there was no, "Let's try that again."
When we played concerts, the applause affirmed our effort. I loved concerts. Unlike practice, there was no, "Let's try that again." We just played, musical brothers and sisters, right to the end.
I'm playing now with a couple of other people who felt the need for EMI, extra musical instruction. Maybe I will be pulled back to the St. Alban's bunch by the gravity of the ukulele. Watch the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain on YouTube. You will see that the child-like uke is capable of greatness and humor at the same time.
If you get a chance to hear a ukulele band, you should go. If it awakens something in you, lets you think that you might be a musician regardless of age, maybe the band will take you in the way St. Alban's took me in.
The ukulele is easy to learn. It takes practice and talent to be good. It is forgiving. It makes you smile.
