I am a music teacher with experience in winds and keys. Although I have strong musical knowledge and a good ear my little fingers have never learned string instruments. This was my first ukulele. Ive owned this "melodic" for about four months now and I have loved it. It took about a week of constant tuning to get it to stay tuned which is to be expected from ANY new instrument due to the movement of shipping and the change in barometric pressure between regions. After a week or two it held its tune quite nicely and now requires only minor tweaking every few days. Even with a trained musical ear I have been pleasantly surprised with how nice this little guy sounds and how easy it has been to play and learn. Im sure after a few more months I will want to upgrade to something more professional but this has worked out quite will for me as a beginner instrument. Ive been very pleased.UPDATE - I even bought 2 more this year for some new students and this time one of them was actually in tune right out of the box and the other was pretty close. If anything Id say the quality of these have gone up since the last time I purchased. A great instrument for the price point