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I was confused. I thought you meant you had been playing the new one for a couple of months. Thanks for clarifying. Anyway, please let us know if anything changes in the next few weeks.
Hi Linda,
Here are my thoughts:
Do Ukes get more mellow as you play? – Some people say they do and some people say they don’t I don’t really know.
Is it possible that it is just new strings needing to be worked in? – That’s possible, but that should happen in a week or 2, particularly if you are playing every day.
Also, there can be a lot of variation in instruments of the same model. It could also be that you got a dud. I really don’t know, though.
I think last year’s resolution was to relax and enjoy my playing, which I think I achieved. I also wrote my first composition, which was fun.
This year, I want to work on playing with others. I will do more musical stuff with my wife and take every other opportunity to play with others. Unfortunately, there won’t be many such opportunities because I’m a total recluse, but I’ll do what I can.
Spruce tops have been an acquired taste for me. When I first started playing, I strongly disliked them. I thought they were too brash-sounding. As I developed a bit of finesse in my playing I changed my mind. I still don’t own one, but I do own a softwood-topped ukulele. Anyway, It’s not something I’d stress about too much. I’m sure either the Acacia or the Mahogany would work fine.
I have limited experience with Islander ukes, but I remember liking them when I tried them, and I’ve heard good things.
As for mahogany vs acacia, the mahogany version is likely to have a very mellow, very dark sound with a muted high-end. It can be nice when strumming, and it is forgiving of mistakes (which is why I was drawn to it early on in my playing), but it is not ideally suited to the sort of fingerstyle playing that they mostly teach here. The Acacia is still a hardwood, which means it won’t be anywhere near as bright as a spruce-top uke for instance, but it will be less mellow than mahogany. FWIW, I have 2 acacia ukes, and that’s what I’d get in this instance.
Hi Jay,
When I was in the same position as you (with a similar budget) I got one of these and I’m pretty happy with it. It is Southeast Asian acacia rather than Koa, though, so be aware. https://www.aiersiguitar.com/?p=5290
Otherwise, I’d go with somewhere that sets the uke up for you. It’s way more important than I realised at first. Uke Republic is a good option, as are Mim’s Ukes, and the Ukulele Site.
Good luck!
Robin
I don’t think you’d classify me as beginner-intermediate anymore, but it can take me a long time to play it up the standard I want. I haven’t counted, but lets say 30 hours or so?
@Kirpuff – I love hammer cat!
Hi Jay,
Welcome to the site. I’ll let Andrew answer your questions about the lessons. You are totally allowed to mention names, though.
Robin
@cinichol – I found it helped to learn the C and G strings separately from the other bits for that section. It helped me make sense of the progression.
@cinichol – I memorise it, but a peculiarity of my brain is that I find it relatively easy to memorise music (not lyrics, though) and relatively difficult to sight read, so by the time I can play it smoothly while reading the tab, I have memorised it anyway. I know that this isn’t the case for everyone, though, and there are people who read the tabs while they are playing for these competitions. Andrew will tell you that it is infinitely better to memorise (actually, he would say “memorize” because he is American ;)), but I know don’t think you have to.