What is 100 Days of Ukulele Songs?


This year (2019), #The100DayProject starts April 2, and that’s when I’ll begin my second round of attempting to post #100DaysofUkuleleSongs, 100 days in a row.

The global Project was started by two women in San Francisco. You can see more about it on the official website, but here's how they describe it:

"#The100DayProject is a free art project that takes place online. Every spring, thousands of people all around the world commit to 100 days of exploring their creativity. Anyone can join (yes, that means you!). The idea is simple: choose a project, do it every day for 100 days, and share your process on Instagram with the hashtag #The100DayProject."

Last year, Uke teacher Cynthia Lin, who herself had participated in the project a year prior to that, had the idea to challenge ukulele players to play 100 songs, and we created a sort of peer group within the larger challenge. I even met some wonderful friends along the way!

It’s a simple idea but takes a fair amount of work when you add in the recording element. Playing a song a day for 100 days as a discipline is not so bad; it's the recording and posting that takes all the time. Yet I love this project as a way to practice accountability with a chosen art form.
honing my arrangement skills
Are you interested in participating? Of course, it's not just for ukulele players, and you can do it with any art project you choose, but even if you are a musician, people interpret it differently.

Personally, in 2018 I chose to record two or three per day whenever I had the time, but only posted one a day, banking the other videos so that I had a small pool ready to go on days I did not time for record. Some people did not post one every day but just kept posting until they posted 100. Some ukulele players I know on Instagram started last April and are still working on reaching 100. I had a friend who decided her project was 100 days of learning theory. Another might have repeated some of the same songs, polishing them through practice, etc.

Ultimately, there are no rules. If you check out either hashtag above (on Instagram), you will see that lots of different people participate in different ways.

Dressing up for Day 100's video! 
This year, I'm feeling a bit daunted. I've had a slow year of work, and I decided I needed to take on a bit more, so I've begun a new freelance gig (or, more accurately, returned to an old one). It's taken a LOT of time away from my ukulele playing, and I am not finding it easy to fit in video sessions. So I may find myself posting shorter clips, rather than full-length songs (last year, I posted clips to IG but full-length songs on YouTube each day). We shall see!
Even if I don't make it all 100 days, I look forward to this year's Project as another chance to recommit myself to my instrument and my creative potential. Let's go make some art!

See my playlist from last year below, or on YouTube! And be sure to follow me there or on Instagram if you want to follow this year's project! My goal is to not repeat any songs from last year.