The instrument that you’re working on right now?
All the instruments I had a very hard time picking [at the Oscars:] I could play one and I could not do the other…
I know all this is really hard, but you can only play them so many times before they die. So many parts have to be played with each other. You have to remember which part of the piece you want to play, and then move on. With guitar and drums you can be very precise. You have to be very, very precise. You can’t put a melody and a bar in your head, and then make it a melody with a bar. Once you learn the key, you can play it, like, 100 times.
The Beatles also started with their first instrument?
The most well-known instrument in them is the guitar. [Laughs].
But a few years before, did you play any of the instruments you’ve been playing lately?
Yes: I was playing the double bass with a friend. We learned to play it, and we started playing with the double bass, which is really cool. I’ve been playing it a lot lately, and it’s really cool.
I always wanted to ask you about your childhood. There’s so much about it that’s surprising and amazing, like your parents in their mid- to late-thirties and your siblings who were born then. Did this make your childhood more or less scary?
Probably a little less. My parents were really nice, which wasn’t something I wanted. We grew up in the suburbs: we were on the South Side. We just couldn’t afford to go on vacations.
Was it hard to go on an air trip sometimes?
No, it was OK, I think. We used to play a lot of soccer.
Were you a great friend, a real rock star?
No. But I like going on a lot of trips to places — like being at a Beatles concert, which is really difficult because it’s a concert, but more like a small concert or something. I’d been to a few concerts where everybody was very loud — you know, like at St. Paul’s Cathedral, where the Cathedral organist played the piano at about five times the volume. It was really loud. I liked being loud and doing stuff, and it’s not a problem now, because I use headphones.
Were your parents the main people in
coursera ukulele, ukulele swing, ukulele lesson plan, sweet home alabama ukulele, do you strum all the strings on a ukulele