I am a bit of a music snob, but I am grateful for the opportunities I had when I was in elementary school and junior high. In fifth grade, we learned to play the recorder, which provided a way to get a bunch of kids to learn note duration and simple sheet music while still remaining somewhat in the same key.

But nothing tops my experience in seventh grade, with the ukulele. That was fun, pure and simple — but only because we made it fun.

I didn’t realize how boring the ukulele could be until we did a joint concert with the other junior high in town. In theory, we had both learned the same songs, but you couldn’t tell. Some of those kids were strumming so slow you could hear individual strings being plucked 1-2-3-4.   1-2-3-4.

Meanwhile, Paul and James and I were engaged in serious exploration of the space, incorporating syncopation and other sorts of stop-time arrangements that would have gotten us bounced out of choir, if it weren’t for the fact that it sounded really cool. (Yes, we tried doing Yngwie Malmsteen, and it didn’t translate as well but we shredded it anyway.)

The uke worked for us, because it was simple enough to learn, and versatile enough for us (as a group) to do other things. With the right arrangement, “Tom Dooley” doesn’t sound so melancholy, but nothing could save “If I Had a Hammer.”

So… with the ukulele clearly in mind, I present four minutes of awesome.

Paul? James? This could have been us…

Doesn’t this video makes you want to throw more support into music education?