The “Creating Your Life” course includes a series of two-week goals to accomplish, and I’ve found that specific time frame can be very effective for achieving goals both large and small. My second two-week goal was to learn the song “Little Talks” by the Icelandic band Of Monsters and Men on the ukulele—a song that I like and seemed not too daunting for a beginner like me.
Creating Structure Around a Goal
And when I say “beginner,” I mean that I had never learned to play anything even mildly complex on my ukulele before. I knew the finger placement for a few chords (C, G, and F), and I could tune and strum the uke, and that’s about it. “Little Talks” requires a fourth chord, Am, which uses just a single finger to create, so I found it easy to add to what I knew already. I’ve always wanted to learn how to play something, and over time I have filled my home with instruments that I can’t play: two bass guitars, two acoustic guitars, and multiple drums, with the ukulele being the most recent addition. I had a clear desire to play music but no structure built around this aspiration, so these instruments have been literally gathering dust. However, once I put a specific song I wanted to learn in a two-week timeframe with a clear understanding of my starting point, I was able to create an action plan with due dates which really facilitated my desire becoming a reality.
Challenges
I made a few assumptions before I started my action plan: I assumed two weeks would be enough, and I figured all I had to do was follow a YouTube tutorial and practice for 15-30 minutes a day. However, it turned out not to be quite as simple as I had imagined. To begin with, the tutorial I chose was excellent for teaching me to play the opening bridge and the first verse but it did not address the rest of the song. I searched in vain for other tutorials that had the same arrangement and progression, but the others I found varied from what I had been practicing and were less fun to play. I could piece together the second verse, as it went the same as the first, but the third verse was very different, and I had no idea how it was supposed to sound. Finally, I found two other sources of information to help me: The first was a tabbed version of the lyrics which showed which chords to hit on which words, and the second resource was a recent recording of the band playing a slowed-down version of the song that was close to what I had learned so far and it gave me the third verse and ending I needed.
Realization of a Long-Held Goal
Additionally, I found that the desire to know how to play drove me to practice more than the amount I had set for myself, and 30 minutes a day wasn’t adequate to learn it. I also did not anticipate that it would really help to sing the song and that I sometimes go off-tune when I sing. I might decide to add learning to sing to my skill set down the line, but for now, it feels amazing to be able to play a song on an instrument, and I am elated to have reached my goal in the most satisfying way. I can now adequately play “Little Talks” on the ukulele, and I get better every time I play it. In addition, the ability to play one song will make it easier for me to learn new songs as I increase my skills. For me it feels like a new world of music is opening up for me, one in which I can do more than just listen to others make music, I can actually take part in creating it myself.
© 2025 Ivan Fritz | Photo: Jen Thornton