David Wieland

r ransom wrote:Also, how many hours/weeks until it's time to attempt this?
..

Having a song or piece that you want to play is helpful as a motivating goal, but it's important to recognize that it will be reached only by diligent effort. In learning a piece on a string instrument, that effort involves learning where to place your fretting fingers, how to efficiently move them, and how to strum and/or pick rhythmically with the other hand.

Has anyone ever been able to do that within minutes of first trying? I doubt it. That's why we start simply with something that is musical but not technically demanding. With practice, you gain ease and confidence -- fluency -- and that gives a base for expanding your "vocabulary" and repertoire. Attempting a new song or piece can be done anytime, but developing a base first will reduce the initial frustration. Even an adult beginning uke player can quickly have fun with video lessons from Madeline (https://www.madelinelpots.com/ukulele-tutorials/). Fun fact: Jerry Garcia recorded "There Ain't No Bugs on Me". I'll bet you could nail that within a week, and you can make up verses forever.

M Ljin wrote:...
Actually you could use this online tool for making a tone for reference too: https://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/

This method needs you to try to match the tone of whatever you are referencing whether it be another string or the tone generator. Or you could even tune to a song you know if you know the key of it.

There are many tuner apps that show up in a web search and that are even simpler to use than a general tone generator. But most, if not all, use a web connection, unlike a clip-on.

r ransom wrote:...But now I can't see my fingers on the stem....which is probably also good.

Being able to see your fingers on the fretboard is helpful when you're learning a chord shape but not after muscle memory can take over. It does require bending over the instrument a little, but that should be only a temporary position -- that doesn't apply at all to blind players.
  (The "stem" is normally called the neck, ending with the head, where the tuners are mounted. The strings run to -- or sometimes over -- the bridge glued to the body.)

r ransom wrote:...
- ukulele is louder than I expected
- i wonder if I could make one quieter. Previous encounters with music were damaged by not being allowed to practice as it disturbed others.
...

I was surprised at first by the volume that a small instrument could produce, though I shouldn't have been, considering how loud a violin can be. But a uke can be played softly if that's what the player wants. As for disturbing others when you practice, the gentle sounds of a uke don't bother most people, and they surely wouldn't bother your animals.

A strap isn't strictly necessary, and I still haven't gotten around to installing the one I bought years ago. Iz didn't use one, but his enormous belly probably helped support his instrument.

r ransom wrote:Oh...it's the name of a song!  Okay.  That makes things fall into place.  Thank you

Well, sort of. But that advice isn't very useful if you don't have a strong sense of pitch and want to tune to standard pitch. Decent clip-on tuners have gotten so cheap that I can't think of any reason not to use one. Snark is a widely used one, I also like my D'Addario micro, and Amazon lists one with good reviews (https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B078WVSS2K/ref=sspa_mw_detail_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9kZXRhaWw) for under $10CAD.
Playing in tune is usually better than the other way, eh.

r ransom wrote:I hope this will pass, but a sleepless night bread an increasingly strong desire to buy and learn to play a ukulele, or other similar string instrument.  That's all I can think about, playing music for my goose who loves song time.
...
And yet, there is a drive in me to identify the skills I am worst at in this world and test myself against them.

Ukulele are supposedly affordable, make a variety of music, and easy to learn.  Now, could I do this for under $50CAD?  Or hopefully, someone will talk me out of it?

I would never try to talk someone out of playing an instrument. I took up guitar at 19, and as a kid sometimes played a comb (a really poor man's kazoo). The benefits of playing music are endless and don't require high skill to bring some pleasure. Enthusiasm, which you're expressing, is the most essential thing, because that supports the persistence that builds skill.

The ukulele is the lowest cost string instrument I know of and an excellent choice. (I play occasionally, though acoustic guitar is my daily instrument.) Decent instruments might be at least $100 CAD from a music store or online, but used ones are available for much less. I just checked Kijiji and found an unused one (with a case) in Ottawa for $50! A couple of others are $20 and $40.

Douglas Campbell wrote:And in my climate, most consumer vehicles older than 15 y rust out including, sadly, my previous Honda CRV.

I presume that you're referring to salt-facilitated rust. I'm in rural Ottawa and don't have any ocean spray, so road salt is the only rust promoter here. My 17 year-old Hyundai Elantra has non-rusting plastic for some of the most rust-prone body parts, but the main thing that has kept it practically free of rust is annual rustproofing oil spray.

craig howard wrote: I vote for a manual transmission.
No matter what vehicle you get.
My dream truck would be an old 4x4 S10 with a TDI engine conversion.
But we won't find one on a salesroom floor.

I drove mostly cars and trucks with manual transmissions (called standard then) until automatics became dominant. I was comfortable with the technique and appreciated the better fuel economy. But things change, and the fuel efficiency difference has definitely shrunk. There's also the matter of needing both feet to be in good condition to be able to operate a manual.

I asked duck.ai if manual is more efficient than automatic, and the answer included this consideration of driving conditions:

City Driving: Manual transmissions can be more fuel-efficient in stop-and-go situations as the driver can shift gears according to speed conditions.
Highway Driving: Automatics may perform better due to smoother gear shifts and reduced driver fatigue, leading to more sustained fuel efficiency over long distances.

As some others have said, reliability is a top consideration. I won't consider a full EV for that reason and for a number of others, especially since I live in a cold climate (rural Ottawa, Canada). A hybrid, such as my brother's Prius, is a possibility if my current vehicles become expensive to maintain, but just for the fuel economy. The cheapest option, and the one with the lowest overall environmental impact, is to buy a well-maintained -- and preferably low-mileage -- used vehicle known for reliability.

I once owned a Reliant, which made a mockery of its name, but I'm still driving a 2009 Hyundai Elantra that I bought with low mileage in 2010. My wife's 2012 Touring (small station wagon) version seems just as reliable and, with a trailer hitch, gives us the ability to haul almost everything we need. Having parts readily available at reasonable cost makes long-term maintenance practical and minimizes the impact on the environment and my bank account. Barring a serious collision, I expect to be driving these vehicles for at least another decade.

Christopher Weeks wrote:I’ve sliced out 74 sheets of aluminum so far but haven’t started figuring out how to flatten them yet.

It won't make the sheet perfectly flat, but the quickest, simplest way to uncurl it is to pull it over an edge while bending it away from the curl, as the video shows.