Do you remember the ukulele fad that swept across multiple generations about 10 years ago?
My daughter was in junior high at the time, and she taught herself to play her dad’s old ukulele by watching YouTube videos.
Several of her friends scrounged up an instrument and did the same thing. As did university students bored in their dorm rooms, 9-to-5 employees looking for a creative outlet, and retirees looking for a new pastime.
I’d always associated the ukulele with hokey children’s TV shows, but suddenly what I thought was campy was cool.
What was the reason for the ukulele’s sudden popularity?
Compared with its larger cousin, it seemed easy. Easy to transport, easy to hold, and easy to play.
As musical instruments go, the guitar is not difficult to learn, and many famous rock musicians have mastered strumming and picking on their own. But the ukulele has fewer strings, simpler finger configurations, and softer strings.
I remember struggling to learn the guitar when I was in junior high. I never progressed much beyond the most basic tunes, partly because, in hindsight, the instrument I had was too big for my 5-foot-two frame.
And then there were the calluses. When you first start to play the guitar, you have to intentionally scar your fingertips so you can bear to press them into the steel strings.
The ukulele, on the other hand, required no such self-torture. I marveled as I watched my daughter quickly pick up new tunes. She never became a ukulele virtuoso, but with little effort, she was soon making real music.
When I reflect back on the ukulele craze, I see in it a lesson for knowledge mobilizers.
People want simple.
A ukulele doesn’t have the tonal depth or range of a guitar. You can’t use it to play all the chords or melodies you can evoke from the larger instrument. But many people will willingly sacrifice complexity for easy progress.
Simple is attractive, even when it comes with limitations.
That can be a hard pill for researchers to swallow because we live and breathe complexity. We love the thrill of seeing beneath the surface of a subject to root causes and unanswered questions.
As a result, when we’re sharing research with non-experts, our first thought is often how to equip the audience so they can handle complexity. We want to educate them so they can appreciate the finer contours and hidden intricacies of our subject.
But is an appreciation for complexity what the audience really wants?
You might think they need a guitar. But what if all they really want and need is a ukulele?
When you take an honest look at your audience and their relationship to your research, you may find that four strings are better than six, even if the sound is less full.
And if that’s the case, then you’ll need to get creative about how you translate knowledge. The less space or time you have to work within, the more engaging your knowledge translation must become.
Comments