Comments on: Reasons I’ve Purchased a Ukulele

By: mary

mary — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 09:38:53 +0000

looking for ukulele players in Illinois, the Chicagoland area in particular,…
spend the winter in Kona and have played the ukulele for the last 4 years,… just saw OhtaSan at eh 6th annual ukulele festival in Waikoloa,… awesome!!

By: Frank Henning

Frank Henning — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 19:59:47 +0000

If you want your ukelele paradigm shifted forever, check out http://www.ukulelejames.com
Aside from creating one of the best CDs around, Canadian James Hill has recreated the landscape for an instrument that I shall hereafter consider the equal of any other!

By: David

David — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 23:18:55 +0000

Congrats on joining the club…
Beware of UAS (ukulele acquisition syndrome). You can’t have just one. I bought my first uke only 18 months ago and have since managed to sneak another 2 into my house and 3 at the office (hiding them from my wife).
If you are coming to SxSW bring your uke. We can compare instruments. Austin is a remarkably uke-friendly town. You might even be able to coordinate a little strum-along…

By: Chris Jenkins

Chris Jenkins — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 15:18:25 +0000

Hey, Ukulele’s are ultra cool!

By: Teacher

Teacher — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 15:19:45 +0000

Great! now we need the advanced guide to Ukulele ;)

By: kaleoaloha

kaleoaloha — Sat, 18 Feb 2006 17:13:35 +0000

Interesting to say the least. I learned to play the 'ook years ago living in Hawai'i. Since I am the antithesis of laconic I will just make a quick list of points. 1) a great resource for ukulele popularity is the Martin factory production statistics 2) It is not a Hawaiian instrument. It was introduced to the hawaiians by the Portuguese 3) the Hawaiian tuning is somewhat unique using an octave higher tuning on the fourth or "G" string 4) the hawaiian pronunciation (please practice and learn it) is phonetically sounded out as " ooh koo leh leh" NOT "you kah lay lee" the name is a compound word, meaning the "leaping bug/flea". So nicknamed after a Portuguese man that was very small in stature, but huge in presence. He would do frequent "pub crawls" around Honolulu and the 'ook" was his ticket to drink. *notes I tune my soprano standard "hawaiian" style. The baritone "ook" is the same tuning as a guitar, but I tune my baritone the same as the soprano, however I tune the 4th "G" string an octave lower so it is completely identical to the guitar's when fretted or capo'd at the fifth fret. It is fun to take a guitar capo at fifth fret and hand it to a good "ook" player. If you want to hear really hot "ook koo leh leh" music check out the ka'au crater boys and as much as I love "troy Fernandez's" playing, I have to take my hat off to the young man I nominate as the worlds all time hottest "show boat" Jake Shimabukuro. The first time I saw jake play, he was waiting for a stage transition to complete so the band he was in at the time, (Pure Heart) could perform. I watched Jake's stage antics and thought, "this young man is either the worlds most arrogant, or best player". He proved to be in my opinion the latter rather than the former !

By: Marc Sexton

Marc Sexton — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 23:16:35 +0000

The Do-It-Yourself network has an online Ukulele Tuner. They also have some free Kentucky Thunder blugrass mp3s for download.

By: Dudu Figueiredo

Dudu Figueiredo — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 04:36:38 +0000

Have you ever listened a Paul McCartney’s song from his second Album solo, called RAM on ??
Nice Ukulele.

By: Hoku

Hoku — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 04:00:33 +0000

Got a uke? Cool. If you’re really gonna get into it, you should buy any CD from Jake Shimabukuro, the guy is a genius on the uke. He was on Conan O’brien last month. Also, if you do a search in Google Video with his name, I think there’s a snippet of him playing a George Harrison song on the uke.
Aloha from Hawaii!
-Hoku

By: Josh

Josh — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 16:26:43 +0000

“There’s nothing like a good blaster at your side” is a fantastic comment.
Carrying my still three-weeks-new uke to a class full of eager first graders (because there is nothing, nothing worse than the recorded hyper-music they use to teach things in schools in Japan, but fun songs will often mean fun classes), it schlupped out of the back of its case and landed with a THWONG and a CRASH on the hallway floor. Despite the damage–a fair sized piece that broke out of somewhere on the inside and some cracks and splintering below the bridge–it still stays in tune about the same as it did before. And, you know, kids are pretty easy sells. It’s band practice I worry about.
But after only three weeks with the thing, I’m a whole heck of a lot more adept than I figured I’d be (except, obviously, for the unbelievably complex mechanics of zipping the bottom of its little case); keep it and you should be seranading that kid to sleep in no time (also, mozel tov on the kid).