The beginnings...
A brief history:
My first three years of Specialist Classroom Music teaching consisted of a wholesome diet of singing, playing tuned and untuned percussion, Boomwhackers, and, of course, the ubiquitous recorder.
And it was good.
As both an eternal optimist and (probably autistic) task-master, I felt comfortable in how I was moulding my students into mini-musicians, half an hour at a time - whether THEY were comfortable or not is an entirely different question. Furthermore, I would have happily kept the status quo until my retirement, if it hadn't been for the rainy day in January when I stumbled across a TV documentary entitled "The Mighty Uke" (I'll let you research that for yourself).
I was hooked in an instant. That hour and fifteen minutes has literally changed my life - and hopefully a least a few of the many hundreds of students who have since been on the receiving end of my Ukulele evangelism.
(I recently heard of a past student who, having taken her ukulele on a holiday cruise, was asked by other passengers to busk. She made more than a bit of pocket money on the trip...)
The final result - and by 'final' I really mean 'but-wait-there's-more...' - is a program that gives EVERY student (and teacher!) access to level-specific, sequential resources to assist the learning of Music through this wonderful, 4-stringed tool. In my classroom (and a growing number of others'), the Ukulele is being integrated as the new 'main' instrument for learning Music!
What does it look like in my Music Room? Stay tuned...
