Uke Players: Avoid the Annoyed

Since I find myself endlessly fascinating, let me talk about myself for just a moment, won't you?

When I'm not strumming on the old ukulele, I have the hobby of being a very mediocre woodworker.

“Mediocre” is not part of the official name for the hobby, it's a certain something I supply naturally with my lack of experience, knowledge and skills.

Last week, I set out to make one of the more exciting woodworking structures, what we in the hobby refer to as a “bench.”

Turns out a bench can be much trickier than you'd think. There are lots of dadoes and dovetails and rebates and fillisters.

There are places screws can go and, believe me, places screws can't go.

And in the process, I made an interesting discovery.

I had stopped thinking of the project as “a place to sit” and was thinking of it as “problems to be solved.”

How to fit that bit to that other bit?

What if I fiddle this thing over there a little?

Why can't I just whack everything with a hammer?

I wound up with bench that was not too lopsided, and I'd had a ton of fun and learned a lot about my tools and wood in the process.

When we play uke, it's easy to focus in on the end result and get annoyed when the end result feels far away.

But make the process itself the goal and every time you sit down to practice, you will only have success.