One of the most common questions and complaints I hear from teachers is how to approach tuning a set of classroom ukuleles. The invention of the clip-on tuner was a great step forward for those of us who teach class ukulele and guitar, since it doesn't rely on a microphone to pick up the pitch. I remember buying my first Intellitouch tuner when I was teaching my first guitar class. It cost $70 at the time, and nowhere near as reliable as even the cheapest clip-on tuners today, but it was worth it to me to have the ability to tune during class. I now usually tune one instrument while the kids are practicing a skill, then trade a student for theirs while I tune theirs.

And now, the next step forward: A Roadie 2 Automatic Tuner. This is an AWESOME tool for a classroom ukulele and/or guitar teacher. The previous version of this had caught my eye before, but when I found out that the first version REQUIRED pairing it with a tablet or smartphone, and it used the microphone from the paired device, I decided that it was cool, but useless to me.

Now that's all changed with the Roadie 2 - now it works like the clip-on tuners, and does not rely on a microphone.  Check it out in action below!

UPDATE: 
Found a new great use for this gadget: allowing students to tune instruments who don't necessarily know how!  The other day, I had a student in my general music "Music Tech" class finish his project early. I had showed them my new "toy" the previous day, and he asked if he could tune all the ukuleles while he was waiting for the other students to finish.

Gee...SURE!  Since then, a number of students have asked to do the same.  I see a work reward in the making...one that rewards me as much as the students! 

And then came the Aquila Kids Strings, which honestly seemed like a gimmick to me at first. In fact, I have a visceral reaction to anything that makes the ukulele seem more "toy" than a legitimate instrument, so I ignored them at first. And then I got my ukulele snobbery under control (yes, it exists, and I may just have to battle it in myself from time to time...) and thought about the possibilities.

How many of us teaching ukulele and/or guitar have had to continually do the "First String...No...that's the fourth string..." thing in class? This certainly makes it easier...especially when incorporating left-handed ukuleles into your curriculum. When I realized that you could color notes in Sibelius, I was sold, and contacted Aquila to order a set.

I was completely floored when I realized that the cost of them (when sold directly to schools) came out to be around $2.50 a set...barely more than using fishing line, and a LOT more useful! I re-strung all of my ukuleles at the end of last year, and immediately started seeing a difference in the students' learning.  When I purchased 30 new ukuleles over the summer, I re-strung them as soon as they arrived.

I've especially found them useful with my more advanced students that have moved out of first position.  The pitch C5 (C above middle C) can be played in 4 different places on the ukulele. When I'm writing out the sheet music for students in fifth position, etc, I indicate the position in the traditional way, but I also color the note for the string it's on...sure helps them find it quicker when reading! See the arrangement of "Infant Holy, Infant Lowly" below as an example, and feel free to use it! The second page takes advantage of re-entrant tuning in a style called campanella. I've included tablature on that line to illustrate how the string colors are showing the location of each note.

​Likewise, I've re-done my chord posters in my room to reflect the string colors. Again, this makes it so I don't have to have separate chord diagrams for lefties...very handy!

Can you do this simply by putting beads or stickers to indicate which string is which?  Sure...absolutely.  But when the cost of the strings is so low, and the benefits are high, I see no reason not to go with them! 

I was recently a clinician at a school inservice for music teachers, and a question was asked during that session about whether or not I allow students to play left-handed or not. This question comes up at every session I've taught, and this particular one came on the heels of a long discussion on one of the Facebook groups I follow. Now, in general, my rule is not to engage in these types of discussions on social media, since the arguments tend to center around the idea that "this is how I did it, so they can, too," regardless of the opinion that is held; ukulele, musically, or otherwise. I even saw a post about a year ago from a teacher who had dug their heals in so deep about the fact was that the "one correct way to play was right-handed," that it fomented (predictably) rebellion in their class in which one student was not comfortable with it and questioned why they could not play left-handed.

So I'll state my (oddly) controversial opinion: We make accommodations for all sorts of students for all sorts of reasons. I arrange my seating order to give students the best chance of success, either for social reasons, or just so they can see the board.  I have at least 4 desks in my room that are left-handed desks. I have installed colored strings on my ukuleles to help my students learn better. 

Why the heck WOULDN'T I have a few left-handed instruments set aside for students who need them?!?

Look, when I started teaching guitar as a general music class, I was actually unaware that there WERE left-handed guitars. (I have no problem admitting that I was pretty green when I got into this...) I'm primarily a chorus teacher, and learned enough guitar in college to "boom-chuck" my way through elementary music, if necessary. Teaching class guitar in middle school kind of fell into my lap.  

It wasn't until halfway through my first quarter teaching class guitar that I recall watching a student REALLY struggle to do the basics.  Now, this wasn't an intellectually-challenged student, nor was he generally uncoordinated (he was a pretty good athlete, as I recall).  Then I noticed that he was writing with his left hand, and it hit me...and I went to research whether there were such things as left-handed guitars. (There are.) I was lucky enough to have a sympathetic principal who immediately purchased 4 left-handed guitars, considering it a reasonable accommodation for students, and he immediately improved.  Again, this wasn't a perception issue on either of our parts; neither he nor I knew that left-handed instruments were even a "thing."

I know the arguments. It's just that I consider most of them invalid. The arguments for teaching all "right-handed" tend to be the following:

1. Using your dominant hand for your fretting hand could be considered an advantage.
Honestly, I don't know if it would be or not.  I've often wondered if I would feel differently if I had originally started by using my right hand (dominant) to fret, and the left hand to strum and pick.  Truly, I think this is a hard thing to judge without having done it both ways. (Any enterprising University student want to start an extended study on the subject?!?)  However, I will say this - as illustrated by the story above, I never knew about left-handed instruments until a left-handed student was having trouble playing right-handed. That's the answer for me, and my chosen focus.  Not the "right" thing, but the right thing for the student. I will agree that, from my experience, some lefties will find an advantage in playing right-handed, and choose to do so.  Others find it easier to go lefty - in 7 years, and about 800 students, I find that given the choice, it goes about 60/40 - 60% choose right-handed, 40% choose left.

And almost all of those 40% chose to continue in music after the class in some form.

2. Left-Handed students who learn using a left-handed instruments will be at a disadvantage when reading standard chord diagrams and TAB.
Well, that depends on how you teach.  If you teach standard notation, it's not an issue at all, but I find it to be little issue even if you use it. (More on this later.) But let's look at chord diagrams.  That was one of my main concerns at first, too. In fact, I created left-handed chord diagrams to go along with my "standard" ones, until one of my lefties pointed out something that I didn't realize, and probably should have: Standard chord diagrams actually make more sense to a lefty, if you think of them as looking through the neck from the back.

I've encountered a LOT of students that have trouble with this orientation, since this is not how we experience the fretboard as players.  We don't experience playing it from the front; we play from behind the fretboard, so it can take a while for us to process that "flip" in perspective.

​As far as TAB, unless they are playing a right-handed ukulele upside-down (that is, strung as a right-handed instrument, but with the neck in their right hand), there should be no difference.  They just have to read the lines.  Truly, the only thing that's different is reading the chord diagrams, and that's a fairly simple switch with the right way of looking at it.

3. There are no right-handed or left-handed instruments; there's no left-handed or right-handed piano, after all!
I do hear this one a lot...and consider it one of the weakest arguments out there. There were also no left-handed desks...until there were. There were no left-handed scissors...until there were.

So now what? Can I just flip the strings?
For ukulele, the answer is pretty much yes.  (Guitar is a different matter...) The shorter scale of the ukulele means that there won't be a huge intonation problem until you're really up the neck, and on classroom instruments, I doubt you or the students will notice.  THEY will notice that you've gone the extra mile to give them a chance to be successful, though! If they are purchasing higher-end instruments, then they might want to look for a specific lefty, but it shouldn't be that big of a deal. 

Depending on the string gauge, there may need to be some slight alterations to the nut slots, but even though I'm capable of making minor adjustments to that, I've never needed to on any of my ukes, and I usually have up to 4 ukes set up for lefties.

I give the students the choice.  This is the information I give them to make the decision on whether they want to learn lefty or righty:

1. It is their choice. They can try back and forth for about a week, but I want them to settle one one fairly quickly to avoid confusion.
2. If they CAN use a right-handed instrument, I recommend they do, because it will simplify many things down the road, including purchasing instruments, and being able to pick up a friend's instrument and play, etc. However, whichever is the one that "feels correct" to them, go for it.

It's amazing to me that in this day and age that there is a debate or even question about this, but we in music education are an odd mix of innovation and strict conservatism.

The heart of the question should not be "what is the correct way," but instead "what is the right way for THIS student to be successful."  I'm truly puzzled by teachers that force students to play ukulele or guitar right-handed. I see no purpose when the instruments are there and available. By all means, if there is something that I'm missing, please post it. I'm curious about where this attitude comes from!

Well, got distracted by the summer, and will hopefully be following up with some of my foibles & triumphs from last year, but I'm excited to be receiving a group of Mainland Ukuleles that will allow me to check out some of the old classroom instruments to students in the class! It's also allowing me to get rid of the first couple instruments I purchased that did not turn out to be very good instruments, so these instruments will be re-purposed as Cigar Box instruments or decorations.

If you're a teacher, you know that the room cleanup at the end of the year can make you a bit...silly. This is just a bit of my silliness that my daughter decided to catch on camera:

On Facebook every day, I have colleagues posting articles about how music is essential, as we continually battle in our school programs to try to prove our relevancy in a world that is so focused on test scores. I've yet to see an article that I disagree with, but also feel that we miss one of the most important aspects of music that is becoming more and more essential in education today.

In the past 8 years, I can recall at least 5 seminars given to the staff of the schools I had worked for that emphasized the need to prepare students to be flexible in their learning for the world ahead.  The point is made over and over that with the constant change in technology, that students need to not only learn the material we are teaching them now, but learn how become independent learners, in order to adapt.

I agree with this wholeheartedly.  I feel that one of the ways we have traditionally failed our students in every discipline is by treating them as memory storage devices that store information and spit it back out, rather than teach them how to learn and think.

And I believe strongly that this is where the need for music education in our schools has become more important today than perhaps any other time.

Yes, music fires the brain in ways nothing else does.  Yes, music ties all of the core subjects together. Yes, music connects us in a spiritual way that few other things can.  The problem with these statements, however, is that they miss what I think we are losing in our school systems, but we have always had in the music classroom: We teach how to learn a skill.

What subject does this anymore? Here's the ones that do: The Arts (including Industrial Arts, if you can find them), and Physical Education. For most of the others, the focus has become how to FIND the information you're looking for. In fact, at another one of those inservices in another district, we were told that students of tomorrow no longer need to memorize equations, facts, and theories because they are easily available on their phones and devices.

There's no shortcut to learning how to do music. Sure, there's tools to make music in different ways.  There are videos you can look up how to play a certain song.  There's apps to help you practice your skills.  But YOU still have to do the work; the repetitive, often boring & frustrating, work that with a bit of resiliency, eventually pays off.

Many years ago, I had a revelation. I was telling my students to go home and practice, then becoming frustrated when they were coming back to class, and it was obvious that they had not in fact practiced.  So I decided to take time in class to MAKE them practice in small groups while I observed and moved around to assist, and I fully realized my failure: They didn't know how! I had failed to prepare them with the basic skills of HOW to practice!

Soon after, I took a job that was primarily teaching Middle School General Music, but I was given full latitude on what I wanted to teach.  There was no textbooks, no expectation of a traditional general music curriculum, but there WERE 32 guitars in the room.  Students were placed into the class at random (there were no elective classes), with some having guitar experience, and others having none. With that class, and the Ukulele Class that I started soon after, I created my three goals for the class:

1. To teach them that they already loved music
2. To teach them how to practice a skill - ANY skill
3. To teach them that they COULD do music

These students were stuck in my class for 9 weeks, whether they liked or not. I told them: You're stuck in here; might as well learn something!  When parents showed up on Curriculum night expecting to hear about a music class, they were told that my class wasn't really about music.  It was about how to learn a skill. I know that the vast majority of the students in my room will not be professional musicians.  Most of them may not even be amateur musicians. But every single one of them will need to learn how to learn a new skill at some time in their lives, and understand that they CAN learn something that's completely foreign to them, provided they take the necessary steps to learn them. Suddenly, a roomful of parents who knew for a fact that my class was going to be irrelevant to their child because they already knew in 7th grade that they were going to be an engineer, sat up and took notice and started to pay closer attention. 

Every year, I have some students return to show me what they've continued to do with the skills I taught them, and those are the best moments in my teaching career.

So in all of our passion for the spiritual aspects of our craft, the full belief that music can be of benefit to the community and every student, don't forget one of the more mundane aspects of our art.  We teach them how to work, and how to learn.  Never discount the importance of that.

A student asked me a question in my ukulele club yesterday.  She asked, "Which do you enjoy teaching more, ukulele or guitar?"  I told her it was a tough question, but I think I'd have to choose ukulele.  She asked if it was because it was easier. I responded that no - it's not easier, but students aren't as intimidated by it as guitar, and it's not because it only has four strings. (Violin has four strings, too, but no one seems to think that makes it easy to play!)

I have found that the biggest hurdle in teaching music is the notion that some people are "talented" and others are not, which of course is hogwash. Getting students past the self-consciousness of singing & playing an instrument is often the first step towards making real progress.  Too many try to sing, or play, get frustrated that they don't sound the way that they think they should sound, and give up.

You see, when we pick up guitar for the first time, most of us already have in mind all of the great guitar players that we have heard, and are immediately comparing ourselves to them.  This doesn't exist with ukulele...yet.  There's many of us who know of the great modern ukulele players, but these players are not household names (at least in mainland USA), so I think students are more open to trying it out and not immediately convincing themselves that they have no talent than they are for guitar.

So is it easier than guitar? Sometimes...but then guitar is sometimes easier. (Try playing an E Major Chord on each!) Can it be a lot more accessible for students in the classroom than guitar?  I believe so, especially at the Middle School level when the students are SO self-conscious and often afraid to try something new and fail.

I think it's time that we stop spreading the notion that the ukulele is an easy instrument.  It's not. It is, however, more accessible to a lot of instruments, giving you as the classroom teacher a real chance to hook them before it's too late, and they've given up on music entirely.