Addictive things, these ukes

It's World Play Your Ukulele Day today, so I thought I should at least do a little practice. It's very different strumming at home from in the club - I can hear what I'm doing, and go "aargh" when I notice I've half-deadened a string I wasn't meant to be touching. (F-chord, I'm looking at you.)

Also, in club, we get handed a new song and expected to play it, at full speed or near enough. So I read through, realise that at least half the chords I have no idea how to play and half the rest I can't possibly get fast enough, make a mental note of the ones I can play, and join in on those. At home, I'm starting off by pulling the sheet out of the songbook and writing down the fingering for every chord in that song. Then I play through them, in order, taking as long as I need for each change, and maybe several tries as I work out where each finger has to shift from and to. I've more or less decided that while playing a D by bridging three strings is certainly nice and easy, especially when changing between that and Am, I'm probably better off playing it "properly" with three fingers under most circumstances.

So, I sat down with the uke at about 20:30, got interrupted by a "take your tablets" alarm at 21:30, decided I'd carry on playing just a little bit more, then realised it was 22:30, but there's just this one song I want to try out.... and at 23:00 finally decided my fingers hurt quite enough, thank you. But that last song, I'd been singing, and playing every chord.

I'd better take those tablets.