Ukulele on Retró Rádió
I had the honour of accepting a wonderful invitation: this morning I was a guest on Retró Rádióbetween 8 and 9 a.m. I had an opportunity to introduce the instrument, and several songs were played on ukulele as well. But before jumping straight into the middle, a few words about how it happened. A few days ago my phone rang and the Retró Rádió editorial team asked whether I could come into the morning programme. I was delighted by the opportunity and naturally accepted. After arranging the technical details, I had a few days to gather my thoughts and choose the songs. A million emotions were swirling around in my head and of course I was nervous, because I had never appeared on radio before, let alone live. (Well, actually I once appeared on a Children's Day television programme when I was eight .) So Wednesday and Thursday were spent preparing both physically and mentally after work. On Friday morning I grabbed three ukuleles – two tenors and the Mini – along with a few chord sheets and lyrics, and set off. When I arrived at the studio I gave Endre my Baton Rouge tenorand Anita the Miniso they could look at them, turn them over and play them. It was wonderful to see that for almost the entire hour the instruments remained in their hands: they strummed, experimented, and could not escape – nor did they want to – learning two or three chords from me .
Anita and Endre, for anyone who does not know them, are presenters on Retró Rádió and can be heard every weekday morning from six on the programme Retro Reggel. In my opinion they are extraordinarily professional. You can see – or rather hear – how well prepared they are, yet at the same time they remain completely relaxed and have an excellent sense of humour. They really are very enjoyable to listen to every morning, and I was glad to meet them in person too. Anita and Endre are extremely approachable personalities. We immediately found a common chord wavelength, and I did not feel uncomfortable behind the microphones for a single moment. Thank you to both of them for the company; it was an honour to spend that hour with them. At the end of the programme I felt as though we had barely begun, yet the hour had flown past. I also invited them to the upcoming ukulele meetup and they were interested. Well now – have I managed to infect two more people? Once somebody catches the ukulele bug, they never put it down!
Let us see in pictures how it happened:
“Our first time holding a ukulele!”
“Look, third fret on the first string...”
And there you have it... this is how happy you can be after successfully fretting C major!
The hour flew by in an incredibly good atmosphere, and I even got to admire the radio station's computers. I had no idea how all the information comes and goes, but now I can see that the desk hides a small mission-control center, with information flowing through all kinds of channels. Keeping track of all of that is quite a job — and, "by the way", you also have to host a radio show at the same time. Last but not least, I would also like to thank Attila, the editor of Retró Reggel, for organizing everything; without him, this morning could not have happened the way it did.
I hope the show helped the ukulele's message reach many people: making music is good, so play the ukulele!
And if you missed the show, you can catch up now. One thing to know is that the roughly fifteen-minute conversation below was not broadcast as one continuous segment. It was interrupted by news, weather and lots of good music, so these fifteen minutes were actually spread over a full hour. Endre was also game for my little creative surprise: I asked him to say the familiar Retró Rádió line, "Only Retró Rádió brings you the '60s...", and this time I played the music after it. That was our little surprise for the listeners — here it is:
