Fred Thompson knows that good things often come in small packages. An avid ukulele player and co-producer of this year\u2019s San Diego Ukulele Festival, he is well aware of the power of this strange little instrument. “I have been playing the ukulele since 1938. I play it everyday because you can\u2019t play a sad song on one,” said the 77-year-old. “I know so many people that consider themselves depressed and take medication to help them cope. I say, \u2018Put those pills down!\u2019 and I start to play them a song on my ukulele. And you know what? They smile. Then they ask me if anyone can play. So I give them the ukulele and begin to teach them a few songs. Within minutes they are playing their first musical instrument in their lives and saying \u2018This is the most fun I\u2019ve had in years!\u2019” Thompson will get plenty of chances to prove that claim at the festival, being held at NTC Liberty Station July 14-16. This weekend\u2019s event headliners are world-renowned Jake Shimabukuro and James Hill, the Eric Clapton and Eddie Van Halen of the ukulele world. The festival will also feature ukulele craftsmen, workshops, giveaways, fire dancers and hula performances. Additional performances will be put on by Ukulele Bartt, Derick Sebastian and, of course, Fred Thompson and the Ukulele Orchestra of Southern California.\u00a0 Not sure what do to this weekend? Come on down to the Ukulele Festival at NTC Liberty Station because, if you have never seen live ukulele, I promise you\u2019ll feel like it\u2019s Christmas in July. For additional information, visit www.sandiego- ukefestival.com or email Fred at ukulelefred@- cox.net<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fred Thompson knows that good things often come in small packages. An avid ukulele player and co-producer of this year\u2019s San Diego Ukulele Festival, he is well aware of the power of this strange little instrument. “I have been playing the ukulele since 1938. I play it everyday because you can\u2019t play a sad song […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":293353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"The ugly little instrument that makes beautiful music","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-293352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}