Two years ago, in music appreciation class, a girl sitting in a chair was skillfully plucking at the chords of a ukulele with her fingers as high pitched “phwong”s rang outwards from the corner of the room, playing her favorite song. 

   She is a high school junior, her name is Emilee Gurrola

 “You just need to start out simple.” Emilee said. 

  Starting out with easy songs can help you learn more quickly and efficiently, Starting out simple can also prevent burnout and stress from over performance, nobody is an expert on day one.

  When attempting  a new task or hobby, failure is inevitable. That’s why you need to keep determined or else you’re bound for failure.

   “The most important step I learned while playing ukulele was to never give up,” Emilee said. You don’t fail when you make a mistake, you fail when you give up.

  When it comes to playing an instrument like ukulele,there are a lot of  concepts and rules you need to remember in order to play correctly. And for some, remembering these rules can be hard.

“It’s good to take notes” Emilee said, taking notes is one of the best strategies possible for a person who wishes to learn. Notes allow you to review anything you forget at any time you want, notes also allow you to elaborate a concept that you don’t understand a bit further for you.

  Perhaps one of the most important things you can learn is that you need to give yourself time to rest and recover after achieving a difficult task such as playing a hard song on the ukulele 

“I always take a break after playing a difficult song” Emilee said, this ties back to avoiding burnout and overworking yourself, because in the end burnout will leave your skill growth less efficient.