The Howard county library has now made ukulele easily accessible to the public. The library community introduced a DIY ukulele kits which includes a ukulele itself, a case and a tuner with its toucan-based symbol. The kit was unveiled on July 1 2017. So now is the time to get ukulele for beginners
The people at the Howard Library seemed quite excited about their idea of launching a lending ukulele kit as the president of the library Valerie Gross said” We’re having some fun with this. Who doesn’t like the ukulele?”
These kits are available for the library contributors to lend for a period of three weeks. Next, they can go over to ArtistWorks, an online research tool, and take online lessons to learn how to play a ukulele. The availability of these lending kits is currently restricted to 4 branches including Savage, Miller, Glenwood and Central branches and each of them has got 6 kits to lend out.
Jessica Landolt, a specialist researcher and a children’s instructor at the Howard library is quite a big ukulele fan herself. She has been playing the instrument since she was a kid and has grown up to become an instructor of this instrument. She became a part of the library community and taught the staff how they could integrate the ukulele music into their classes.
Landolt explained why everyone should learn and play a ukulele. She mentioned “It is the best and the easiest string instrument to learn. You feel success right off the bat”.
She added how they taught people about the ukulele and turned them into fine musicians as she said “From those folks who joined up and learned to play, we developed diamonds in the rough”.
Jessica Landolt went on to explain how the idea of DIY Ukulele kits came up. She told how the staff at the library plays the ukulele on various functions and that how it is evolving into a kind of tradition for the members now. She said “Sometimes you do a lot of serious work and you need a break and live music to jazz things up a bit”. She added “It was really the staff that suggested this and ran with it”.
But guess what, that isn’t all!
Jessica also mentioned that these DIY Ukulele kits are just a part of a bigger project. There will be a grand collection of DIY projects upon the reopening of the Elkridge branch.
Apart from this, the launch on 1 July features tons of other things as well. Along with the introduction of Ukulele kits and ArtistWorks program, a lot of valuable information including books and records of ukulele music were shared. While this was just the beginning of the program, the program seems to be in the right direction.
The library also announced something more for the ukulele enthusiasts to cheer about. They confirmed that they’ll commence detailed ukulele courses and classes in September. To make things even more interesting, Landolt announced that the participants of the class will have the opportunity to perform a small concert. She added “I think it is going to be exciting. A lot of people are impressed how much they can learn in a short time”.
