One Day Left

I didn't put a coat of finish on my uke this morning because I didn't want the glop to still be sticking to my hands when I went for my last lesson with Byron today.

For my previous two lessons, Byron picked me up from Mike's shop, but I'm not at the shop anymore, so I'm much closer to Byron's office at the university. It is only a short bus ride from where I'm staying, but after getting scolded for playing uke on the bus yesterday, I decided to walk. It's taken me two weeks but--a day before I leave--I'm finally learning my way around Honolulu. Like lower Manhattan, few of the streets here run straight for any distance, and the ones that do change names several times. Asking a local for help can be frustrating because the cardinal directions are meaningless here. No one knows which way is north, south, east or west. Instead, people know their way around the island by these designations: mauka ("toward the mountains," or toward the center of the island), makai ("toward the ocean"), Diamond Head ("toward the big mountain thataway"), and ewa ("away from the big mountain thatotherway"). In other words: out, in , clockwise and counterclockwise.

It was only a 30-minute walk in a mauka-ish direction to Byron's office, but I gave myself an hour to get there just in case I got lost. Of course because I planned for it, I didn't get lost and so was a half-hour early for my lesson. I used the half-hour to practice and it was the most time I've spent just playing my uke since I've been here. It's funny that for a uke-themed trip, there has hardly been any time for me to sit down and play. But I suppose there will be plenty of time for me to play when I get home, so I don't feel bad that I've been busy watching others play while building my own.

I've always been sort of secretly proud of the fact that I'm pretty much self-taught at guitar and completely self-taught at ukulele, but studying with Byron has eliminated my pride. While Byron has given me a lot of confidence in what I already know, there is much to learn and I've got no reason to remain ignorant of the rest. I've gotten so much from him that I can't wait to practice and apply what I've learned. When I first contacted Byron months ago about lessons, he told me he charges for 90-minute lessons but said "they often run longer." He wasn't kidding. My lesson today went for nearly three hours. I'm really going to miss studying with Byron when I get home. A music theory instructor who plays uke is none too common, even in New York.

[view today's photos]