Well, hello and welcome to the Learn Every Day English podcast, Your Roadway to English
Proficiency.
Hey, you've come to the right place to improve your listening comprehension skills and mastery
of the English language.
My name is Gary and I will be your host today.
I am a native English speaker born and raised in the United States and a retired engineer
living in a small Texas town.
I'm also a language learner like you.
I'm learning Spanish, so I know what it is like to learn a new and different language.
Hey, so now let's jump right in to today's episode.
Hey, hello listeners and welcome to episode eight of the Learn Every Day English podcast.
Glad to have you with me today.
Hope you're a week or day is going well.
And again, my name is Gary.
In this episode, we have something a little bit different.
I have a special guest that is going to join me today and he is my brother.
He is not here in the studio with me, but he is calling in on Zoom and I'm going to
be talking to him about what he does, interests that he has.
And he plays an instrument called the ukulele.
You might have heard of that.
It's a small, it's like a guitar, but a lot smaller and it only has four strings.
And just to let you know, my brother's name is Gerald and he does have a YouTube channel
called world ukulele world, just like W-O-R-L-D, like the world we live in.
Ukulele is spelled U-K-U-L-E-L-E, ukulele.
So if you go to YouTube, type in world ukulele, you'll find his channel.
Hey, check out his videos.
He plays and sings and he has a lot of interesting songs on there.
You could practice your English by learning and listening to songs.
Hey, and please subscribe to his channel.
He would really appreciate that.
But before we get started into today's episode, I want to just remind you again that we do
have a Learn Every Day English webpage.
Just go to www.learneverydayenglish.com and check out what we have there.
You can listen to the podcast directly from the webpage.
And you can also access our Learn Every Day English YouTube channel where we have engaging
and interesting videos that will help you learn and improve your English and mastery
of the English language.
But you could also go directly to the YouTube site.
Just type in Learn Every Day English and you can find us there.
So I think that's enough for now.
So let's jump right in to today's episode.
Okay, listeners, got a special treat for you today.
We got a special guest in the studio, not someone that's foreign to me because it's
my brother and I know him pretty well because he's actually my twin brother.
I would say maybe this will give you some a different form of listening comprehension
practice, but a lot of people say he sounds just like me.
So you'd be the judge of that, but I'm going to ask him some questions and he's a very
interesting person.
There's a lot of varied interests and his name is Gerald.
So I'm just going to jump right in to today's episode.
So Gerald, tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are and maybe what you do for a
living.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Glad to be on the podcast, the show.
Okay.
As Gary mentioned, I'm his twin brother, so we've been knowing each other for a long
time.
I guess I'm still working.
I work out at NASA here in Houston.
I work in the safety group on the International Space Station program.
So we review all of the experiments and payloads that they send up to the International
Space Station to make sure they're safe.
So then also, I guess, as part of my job, work with the Japanese Space Agency and as
the safety liaison or interface, helping them with their payloads and some of the
hardware that they fly up to the space station.
Okay, sounds like that's a pretty interesting field or job.
Do you find that pretty interesting?
Not many people are involved in that type of activity.
Yeah, it's interesting dealing with the different pieces of hardware and
experiments and things like that.
Just working out there can be stressful or like any other job, you know, in some parts of
that, you know, a lot of deadlines.
You have to meet things like that.
But it is interesting.
Okay, well, what besides work, what do you like to do in your free time?
I know you have a lot of varied interests.
So tell us what you'd like to do for fun or when you're not working.
Yeah, I like to play music.
Sometimes I'll play music with my brother, Gary.
So I play the ukulele.
I play that the most.
It's a really fun instrument to play.
But I also play some guitar and I learned how to play the banjo.
And I also play an instrument called the African djembe drum that we do with some group we play
with where we play some African rhythms.
So that's pretty fun.
And I also like to try to get some exercise.
I may ride my bicycle and do some workouts, you know, lifting weights, things like that.
And I also like to study, like, about different world religions, things like that.
So that all keeps me busy.
Sounds like it does.
Well, let me kind of focus in on the music aspect of what you do.
Have you been into and enjoyed music all your life or what is your music history?
Yes, when I was younger, back in like elementary school, maybe six or seven years old, I was in the band for a little while.
I played the cornet.
I guess it's similar to the trumpet.
And then then growing up, I took some organ lessons for a while.
But then I didn't do much in the way of music until I got into college.
And I bought a guitar from a pawn shop so I could play with a Christian fellowship group that I was involved in and played that for several years.
And then didn't really do anything with music for a long time.
Maybe 15 years ago, I started playing the ukulele and then that led into playing with some other people here in Houston.
And we started playing Hawaiian music since I played the ukulele and they played like a Hawaiian style guitar.
So that was fun.
And so we did that for a while and then got into other types of music.
That's why I started playing the banjo, got into this type of music called bluegrass, which is really fun music to play.
And then got involved in playing the African djembe with the instructor from Guinea, West Africa.
And that's fun also.
So it's sort of a brief history.
Wow, sounds quite quite a bit quite involved.
Well, let me hone in even more.
Hone in kind of means to focus in on your interest in playing the ukulele specifically.
So why did you decide or why did you want to learn to play that specific instrument?
Yeah, that's interesting.
I think it was one of my co-workers, someone I work with, mentioned that one day I had never thought about playing the ukulele.
So I thought, OK, well, let me let me try and see, see if I like it.
So I bought one and started learning how to play it and kind of fell in love with it.
It's a little easier to play with the guitar than the guitar.
And it's small, smaller and you can take it different places and you can play a lot of different types of music on it.
So that's really how I started.
OK. And what is the the history of the ukulele?
I know it's from Hawaii or maybe Hawaii, as people say.
How is it pronounced in in Hawaii and and what makes it specifically different than the guitar?
I know it's smaller. Is there other differences?
Yeah, I believe it's actually pronounced ukulele, not we'll say in the United States.
A lot of people will say ukulele, but it's ukulele.
It's two words that mean jumping flea.
And from the history, from what I've read, the original instrument came with some sailors from Portugal
who had gone to the island of Hawaii and the Hawaiians like the the instrument.
It was it was a different name that the Portuguese sailors played.
It wasn't called an ukulele.
Anyway, the Hawaiians started playing the ukulele and.
Adapted it to their style of playing, and it's become really popular in Hawaii now.
And they play it in a lot of groups that play Hawaiian music.
But it's different from the guitar because it's smaller and it only has four strings.
The guitar has six strings.
But the you know, the way the ukulele is made, it's similar in design to the guitar, just smaller.
OK, what would you say on how you played the djembe banjo guitar?
Would you say that ukulele is your favorite instrument?
And if so, why?
Yeah, I would probably say it's my favorite.
It's probably the one I've just played.
Played the most, and I'd say I'm probably a little better at playing the ukulele than the guitar or the djembe.
I guess I can play the banjo fairly well, but it's
it's not as versatile.
I guess versatile just means it's a little more difficult to play with different types of music.
The ukulele, you can play a lot of different types of music.
So that makes it a lot easier to play with people.
OK, well, as I guess I'm having four strings, it's probably a little bit easier to learn than the guitar.
So how long did it take you to learn to play the ukulele?
Like, how often did you practice when you were starting out?
And do you practice a lot now or are you at the level where you just kind of focus on things and just your technique improves just by playing around with different songs?
Well, since I had already played the guitar, playing the ukulele was not as difficult because I was used to fretting the strings or pressing the strings.
But it still took a while to get comfortable and to be able to play songs.
Well, I'm thinking maybe it took a year and a half, maybe before I started feeling comfortable.
But I was still maybe like at a beginner, upper beginner level, higher beginner.
And so now now I wouldn't say I'm an advanced player, but maybe intermediate or high intermediate, you know.
So maybe now I just I don't really have a set time to practice.
I'll just pick up the ukulele when I'm maybe sitting, watching TV and play.
Or I may play, try to play maybe an hour or two a day or every other day and just try to play some songs that I'd like to learn how to sing and play.
So that's normally what I do now is nothing very structured.
I don't set out a specific time every day that I have to play the ukulele.
I just try to keep it fun.
And that's kind of like what I like to do.
And I also like to get together and play with people.
I think that's the best way to learn how to play is just to play it and meet with other people.
Well, that's a good segue, as we say in English or kind of a channel into another question.
So you like to play with a lot of people.
But I know during the coronavirus pandemic that we have here in the US and all over the world, how has that impacted your ability to play with others?
And do you still are you still able to get together from time to time and play with other people?
Or do you use other methods to get together and play?
Yeah, yeah, the pandemics really affected getting together and playing.
So I guess I lead a ukulele meetup group.
And so we used to meet once a month at somebody's house.
But now we can't do that.
So we've been doing all that online and using Zoom like a lot of people are now using Zoom to meet.
So we do a virtual meetup where I'll lead the meetup and play some songs and people can follow along.
And so, yeah, and I used to try to get together and actually play together with people once a week if I could on the weekends.
But we have not been able to do that either because of the covid virus.
So that's been something I'm sad about.
But sometimes I will meet with the two other friends and we may get together occasionally to play.
But it's definitely not as regularly as I used to.
So, yeah, it's definitely affected the playing time with other people.
OK, maybe I want to maybe dispel a myth that's out there about the ukulele.
A lot of people may think that the ukulele is is an instrument for kids or for children.
It's not very versatile and you can't play a lot of music on that.
But I know from seeing you play and other ukulele players, that doesn't seem to be the case.
So tell the listeners, what can you play on the ukulele?
Yeah, you can pretty much play anything you can play on the guitar.
It's definitely not a just a children's toy.
You play all types of music from rock and pop music reggae.
Of course, you can play Hawaiians, Tahitian, any pretty much any style of music that you can play on the guitar.
You can play on the ukulele.
So you can go on YouTube and just search ukulele, maybe search for some specific people.
There's a pretty famous ukulele player from Hawaii called Jake Shimabukuro.
So if you just search on him, a number of videos will come up.
And, you know, he's a really good ukulele player.
So, yeah, if you just like to look and see what the ukulele can do and what you can play, check him out on YouTube.
OK, yeah, I've seen him.
He's very phenomenal.
He kind of as English, we could say he he can blow your mind, which means that he can you'll find him just phenomenal.
You you won't believe what he can do.
So if someone we're thinking about or is interested in getting started and playing the ukulele,
what advice would you give them and where would they start or should they start?
I think it's just like trying to play any instrument.
It maybe depends what you'd like to do.
Most people need to learn how to play the chords first.
So you need to get a book of chords and learn how to play the chords and then learn how to play the chords together in a song up to a speed
where you can sing and play and change chords without having to stop.
That's kind of the main thing.
And YouTube, again, has a number of videos that you can watch for beginners.
So you can learn that way or you can buy some beginning books from Amazon and then just start start doing that.
And I think to me, one of the important things is don't buy a really cheap ukulele because it's going to be hard to play.
And you're probably going to stop and give up.
So you don't have to spend hundreds of dollars, but you can probably find a good ukulele for around a hundred dollars,
a little more, a little less.
Don't get anything that's like 20 or 30 dollars.
It's not going to be good quality and you're not going to like it.
And I guess maybe to tie this in with the purpose or focus of this podcast is, you know, you out there,
you're trying to learn English.
Like I said before, I've I'm learning Spanish.
Actually, Gerald has studied other languages.
Want to just briefly tell them your language learning background.
Yes, I in high school, we had to take a foreign language.
So I studied Spanish for four years and it took a class in college.
But I think like many people here in the United States, I never practiced speaking or really listening to Spanish TV or radio outside of school.
So my Spanish is not very good.
And I guess when I was a little bit later in life, I started learning Japanese because I worked with the Japanese space agency.
I studied that for for quite a number of years.
But again, I never practiced speaking.
I mostly practice reading so I could read OK with the dictionary, but I could not speak well.
And then I have a interest in like Hawaiian and Tahitian music.
So I've studied those off and on, but haven't really been serious with that.
And I guess what I've learned, and I think Gary talked about that in one of his podcast or videos that I guess in order to really get good at a language, you have to do it regularly.
And that's really something I wasn't doing.
I think try to speak and use it as often as you can.
That seems to be the the best way to go about it.
And that's what I never did.
So in the future, I'd probably need focus on that if I started studying languages again.
I think it's a good tie in with your ukulele playing because it seems like you were pretty dedicated and consistent with that over the years.
So I think that is a good parallel to language learning.
So you need to be consistent and persistent and just try to practice as much as you can.
The time allows, but try to be consistent and persistent.
And I think Gerald mentioned earlier just to have fun.
You know, don't look at it as a chore or something that you have to do and try to make it fun.
Yeah, like I mentioned, I like to play with people, but I think that's really how I improve the most.
Playing the ukulele was when I was actually using it and playing it and playing with other people.
So I think it's similar to learning a language.
If you meet with people and just practice speaking, you're going to get better.
So I think it's a similar analogy, you would say, or a similar similar way to improve, use it, keep using it.
And I know, yeah, we played I was able to play with Gerald and some other guys in the Hawaiian group that he mentioned.
I kind of got in a little bit after him, but some of the guys in there, their musical ability was well above hours.
But it was good in a way because it pushed you to improve where you were able to had to play with people that were better than you.
And I think in languages, if you're speaking with other people that may be at a higher level can be intimidating, which playing with these guys in this musical group was somewhat intimidating.
But if you just had fun, you realize that they were able to kind of pull you up from where you were at to a higher level, not to maybe where they were at, but it did help improve your level of playing.
So the same thing, I think, pertains to language learning.
Is there anything else you would like to add, Gerald?
No, I think that's it.
OK, well, thanks for all that input.
Maybe if you want to give the listeners a little treat and play a little a little something, as we say in English on the ukulele.
And I know instead of playing chords and singing, you like to do that.
But I know you're into something called chord melody, which involves another style called finger picking, which I find it pretty fascinating.
A lot of people maybe may not do that or are into that, but it's where you use your fingers, you pick or pluck the strings, as we say in English, and you play the melody of the song.
And so if you want to play a little something, maybe let us know what it is you're going to don't want to didn't mean to, as we say in English, put you on the spot, which means we didn't prepare this.
So Gerald didn't know I was going to ask him to do this.
So he wasn't ready. That means put someone on the spot.
But I think he's up to the task, as we say in English, like he's fairly very capable of adapting to situations like this.
So let us know kind of what you plan on.
We'll see what happens.
It's always more difficult playing when you know somebody's listening to you than if you're just playing by yourself.
But yeah, I can try to play this song called, let me try to play a Danny Boy.
Thanks a lot. That was very beautiful.
I think that's a was an Irish song or yeah, I believe it's an Irish song.
I don't know a whole lot of the history.
Pardon a couple of mistakes there.
So listeners, I guess if you want to learn to play the uke, that's something you can shoot for, as we say in English, or something you can try and be able to play over time as you practice and get used to playing the instrument.
Well, Gerald, this was very enjoyable.
I really appreciate you joining us and being on this podcast.
And I know we can have you back if you'd like to talk about other things that you're into, maybe what you do at NASA or what is NASA.
I don't know if listeners would like to know more about that or other interests that you have.
So again, thank you for joining us.
Yeah, sure. Yeah. Anytime. I'm glad to come back.
OK, well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Learn Every Day English podcast.
Hey, I would love to hear from you and what you thought of this episode or if you have any questions for me.
And if you have any suggestions for specific topics you would like me to discuss on this program, just go to the Learn Every Day English homepage at the bottom.
There will be a contact form where you can send me a message.
Well, that's it for today. Be sure to check out our upcoming episodes.
Hey, and thanks for listening and goodbye.
