Thursday, August 20, 2009

New Ukulele!

A few days ago I went out shopping for a new ukulele. My old purple one just wasn't cutting it anymore. It was great to see if I liked playing and for $30 bucks it wasn't a bad deal. But now I knew I did like it and I did need a new one.
We found a store we liked that had good instruments for good prices and there it was. My Oscar Schmidt OU-3 concert uke.

The case was a used one which the clerk threw in for free, it mostly fits.

Ah, the abalone inlay...

Side view

Back view

My old uke was a soprano which is one size down from a concert. Concert ukes have a slightly deeper sound, but there's not a huge difference other than that I don't think.

Concert and soprano


Inside the case was a felt pick. Apparently most people just use their fingers, but if they do use a pick it's traditionally felt.

I really need a better background for my images.


I've sort of dropped clarinet temporarily. But being the type of person that doesn't usually keep up with goals like that, 1 out of 2 is a big achievement.
Maybe a new goal will be to learn a new instrument every summer. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Well, I'm off to obsess practice some more.

Thanks for reading,

Dorothy



Thursday, August 6, 2009

Improv Everywhere!

I'm part of a local group that does, well, improv everywhere, much like the original group from New York.

We recently did a mission for some random runners just going for their weekly run. We made a finish line and everyone had signs cheering them on. It was really neat, and we brightened a few people's days as well as confused many.

So next up we have a Where's Waldo thingy where one guy will dress up as the "real" Waldo, and the rest of us will be decoy Waldos holding signs to encourage the participants (AKA random bystanders) to find the real one.

It's really cool, because it adds something new, something weird and unexpected to their day. Even though our group is fairly small, everyone seems really excited about it, and for this mission I think we'll have enough people to pull it off.

That's my post for the day, I'll try to think of some more soon (and write them down so I don't forget!).

~Dot