STRUMMING MY FOUR-STRING
Couple wants to create a ukulele-playing community one jam session at a time
Ukulele music is like a sunny day Ukulele music will chase the blues away when it is gloomy and gray.
“Try to watch my fingers,” Banjo Judy Muldawer says. It’s a gloomy and gray Saturday afternoon earlier this month. Muldawer, singing and strumming a ukulele as her husband, Michael, plays guitar at her side, is leading 16 persons — male and female, of varying levels of ability and ranging in age from 5 to 80-something — in a ukulele jam session at the Juan Tabo Library. Some people only have one ukulele Some people might have two ukuleles Other people like to have a lot of ukuleles ...
The jam session is part of the Muldawers’ latest effort to put the sheer joy of music — hearing it, singing along with it, playing it with others — into the lives of people in and around Albuquerque. Judy believes people who have never mastered a musical instrument, but who enjoy singing, can learn to play a ukulele. And this is what I have to say to you. There’s nothing like a wall of ukuleles To brighten up anybody’s room.
“Newcomers, what do you think? It’s fun, isn’t it?” Judy says. “My friend Barbara Johnson wrote this song.” Some people like to decorate a room with flowers But their beauty only lasts a matter of hours. A ukulele’s beauty will never fade away And as you’re walking by, you can take one down to play.
“Our goal is to create a ukulele-playing community,” Judy tells a visitor before the start of the Saturday jam. “A ukulele is an easy instrument to play and to sing with. You don’t have to get crazy and play a lot of chords. It’s portable. You can take it on a plane. And they are not expensive. You can buy a really good ukulele for less than $100. I’m trying to get the whole state involved.” There’s nothing like a wall of ukuleles To brighten up anybody’s room To brighten up anybody’s room
Uking it up
Ukuleles are the small, four-stringed instruments usually associated with Hawaiian music or with Tiny Tim, the 1960s-era musician known for playing the ukulele while singing songs such as “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” in a high, quavering voice.
“It seems like such a cool instrument, seems like fun,” said Jean Sena, 63, who is retired after working as an industrial radiographer at Sandia National Laboratories. Sena stopped by the Saturday jam session at Juan Tabo Library to see if she might want to get involved with the group. She decided to give it a go.
“It was just such a diverse group and everyone was having so much fun,” she said. “There were so many people playing that even if I was horrible, no one would notice.”
Banjo Judy and Michael lead the Juan Tabo Library jam sessions the first Saturday of each month. They are free and everyone is welcome.
The same is true of the jam sessions the Muldawers lead on the third Thursday evening of each month at the Apple Mountain Music Store, 10301 Comanche NE. But Judy says the Apple Mountain Music sessions are tailored for more advanced players.
“It’s a smaller group that has gotten its beginner skills down a little bit and want to go on to a higher level,” Judy said. “We play a lot more songs at Apple Mountain.”
People attending either of the jam sessions may email Judy ahead of time at banjojudy@gmail.com to get a list of songs for the session and directions for downloading the lyrics and chord directions.
Ukuleles to go
You don’t even have to own or go out and buy a ukulele to get in on the jam sessions. Working through the Albuquerque Public Library Foundation, Judy and Michael donated 10 ukulele sets to the Juan Tabo Library so that folks with valid adult library cards can check a ukulele out for three weeks, just as they would a book. Each set includes a ukulele, a carrying case, an instructional DVD, a string tuner and a songbook.
Sena checked out one of those ukulele sets. So did Su Hudson, 49, a teacher at the Public Academy for Performing Arts (PAPA). Like Sena, Hudson was attending her first Banjo Judy ukulele jam session at the Juan Tabo Library this month.
But with her checkedout ukulele, Hudson got a head start playing the instrument and singing songs with her extended family over the Thanksgiving holiday.
“I don’t have a background in music outside of high school guitar lessons, but I love the sound of the ukulele and the challenge of learning a new string instrument,” she said.
“It’s particularly fun with family. Over Thanksgiving, we had great time with it. It’s less intrusive than the guitar, and the old songs — ‘You Are My Sunshine’ — sound great on it. I did ask for a ukulele for
Christmas. If I get one under my Christmas tree, I will definitely continue playing with Banjo Judy and Michael.”
Banjo in the closet
Judy and Michael, both in their 70s, have two children and two grandchildren. They grew up in Philadelphia and met there in 1964 because — to make a long story short — their mothers played bridge together.
Neither started out as musicians, although Michael dabbled with guitar in the 1960s and bought a banjo he never played. In 1970, they moved to Albuquerque so Michael could launch his psychiatric practice. Judy started her own computer business. Michael is retired now and Judy mostly so.
Neither of them can read music. But, about 15 years ago, Michael blew out his knee playing tennis and decided he needed a new pastime. He turned again to the guitar, but this time it took. In fact, he was enjoying the guitar so much Judy decided to get in on the fun. She took Michael’s old banjo out of a closet and learned to play it — really, really well.
However, when Michael started performing old Tin Pan Alley tunes, songs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries such as “Singing in the Rain” and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” Judy had a difficult time singing along over the boisterous sounds of the banjo. She turned to the more restrained ukulele and became skilled on it as well.
Now, they do a performance called Tin Pan Alley Tales and Tunes about six times a month at area assisted-living homes, retirement centers and Alzheimer-treatment facilities.
“We love people singing along with us,” Judy said.
And they love playing music together with people at the jam sessions.
“I play really difficult chords,” Judy said. “I don’t just play within the first three frets like most beginners do. But it all sounds fine together. As long as we are all in the same key, we can play together no matter if we are a beginner or how advanced we are.”
Child’s play
Charlotte Graham, a 5-yearold kindergarten student, was at the Juan Tabo Library with her father, returning books, when Charlotte’s dad noticed the sign about the ukulele jam. Charlotte had been taking ukulele lessons until her family’s move from one house to another and the birth of a baby brother interrupted that routine. When he saw the sign, Charlotte’s dad, Luke, called her mother at the family home.
“He told me to bring Charlotte’s ukulele to the library,” Jen Graham, 35, said.
Minutes later, Charlotte, her mom next to her, was the youngest member of the jam session, working away at the strings on her instrument. Charlotte and her mom left before the session ended.
“She doesn’t have the attention span to sit through the whole thing,” Jen Graham said. “But I bet we’ll take her again. We’ll probably stay for the first couple of songs and then we can take home a song for her to work on. As she gets better, gets older, we can stay a little longer.”
Jen said her daughter was not the least bit concerned about being decades younger than other jam session members.
“She considers herself a lot older and maturer than a kindergartner,” Jen said. “She’s really independent.”
Old hands
Ira Rimson, 82, and Steve Moskal, 71, were among the older and more accomplished ukulele players at the jam session. Both started playing the ukulele in Hawaii, Rimson 50 years ago when he was a U.S. Navy aviator stationed there and Moskal a few years ago while vacationing in Ohau.
It was Rimson who
introduced Judy to the ukulele. “Now she plays it much better than I do,” he said. “It’s got four strings and I’ve got four fingers. It’s easier than a guitar and it’s fun to get together with people and play.”
Moskal retired to Albuquerque in 2007 after a career as a head librarian in a Chicago suburb. This month’s Juan Tabo jam session was his second with Judy and Michael.
“I played blues guitar for years because, in the Chicago area, you have to,” he said. “But arthritis necessitated getting into a four-stringed instrument. I play just for fun, hundreds of songs from the ’20s and ’30s. I like going back and finding unusual stuff. I am going to hang with Judy for a while and do as much as I can while I’ve still got the hand power to do it.”
Margaret Trousdale, 61, purchased a ukulele but had not even touched it before seeing notices for Judy and Michael’s jam sessions. That prodded her into action. She has attended a few of the jams now.
“Judy just told us where the C chord is and a few others, and I said, ‘I can do this,’” said Trousdale, who retired to Albuquerque more than a year ago following a career as an inner-city public school teacher in Los Angeles County. “It’s so much fun. It transports me into another reality. That is what it’s all about. It takes you out of your normal space and problems and reality.”
Three chords
“We don’t expect you to just go home and forget your ukulele until the first Saturday of next month,” Judy is saying as the Juan Tabo jam session nears its end. “We expect you to go home and play your ukulele.
“Now, we’re going to do ‘Home on the Range.’ I think it’s the oldest song we do, written in 1872. It has just three chords.” Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam Where the deer and the antelope play Where seldom is heard a discouraging word And the skies are not cloudy all day.