Learning a new song has given me a renewed sense of excitement and motivation for playing the ukulele. After playing “You Are My Sunshine” for so long, its initial intrigue started to wear on me and (even though this isn’t true) I felt that my playing was plateauing and I wasn’t really improving anymore.

Since starting Riptide last week, I have been experimenting with a new strumming pattern (DD-UU-D-U), as well as switching more fluently between the chords used in this song. These chords are G, C, and Am.

I found that YouTube videos were really helpful while learning “You Are My Sunshine”, but I have yet to find a video I really like for “Riptide”. Despite this, I feel like I’m off to a good start with this song mainly because of the time we had in class last week to practice. Catrina, who already knows “Riptide”, generously offered to help me learn it during that block of time. She shared how she plays the song, did the strumming pattern with me, and gave me a strategy for switching chords on time with my strumming. She also gave me a pick that I am going to use in my practice to see if it makes any difference in my playing!