Musicians

Aaron learned the basics of the ukulele a couple years ago and loved the heck out of it, but he had not been playing it for the past year or so, because he didn't know many chords and it had gotten boring. Then Dale pointed out to him that his wonderful ukulele book, "Daily Ukulele," has a chord chart in the front - and it was a revelation. Any chord you want, right there! The next revelation was that "Daily Ukulele" actually has 365 songs, so that you could learn a new song every day for a year. How awesome is that! Aaron proceeded to learn five new songs then and there, and another five the next day. Clearly he can read a chord chart.

One day he picked out "Don't Worry, Be Happy," which Dale could also strum on the guitar, and Jordan hopped over to the piano, and the three of them played together. Dale's music-father heart just about burst with joy.

And it really is pretty amazing. Jordan can accompany pretty much anything you want on piano; he can play any melody he hears (in essentially any key), then accompany it with chords that he finds himself. And Aaron, even on a song he's just learning, is such a good all-around musician that he is a pleasure to play with: he keeps time, he knows how to drop out and come back in, he responds to what the others in the band are doing without getting frustrated or needing things to be just so. For Dale's mom's birthday we had a little family singalong with Dale on drums, Jordan on piano, and Aaron and Uncle Danny both on ukuleles, and Danny was extremely impressed with Aaron. Danny is one of these extraordinary musicians who plays pretty much any instrument you hand him, so that is quite a compliment.

Jordan, meanwhile, has not played the ukulele in any concentrated way; but he does sit down with it and strum a little song sometimes. At some point I realized he was doing this without a chord chart... so how does he know where any of the chords are? I asked him, and he said, "I just find them." I had never thought about anyone possibly doing this. But the frets are a half-step apart, and his music theory is so deep that chord structure is just a second language to him, so he just fiddles around and finds finger positions of his own that produce the chords he wants. This casual musical sophistication, with both kids, is a wonder to me.