The All Purpose Ukulele Thread (Now with added interest)

[TotalNightmare]

i have come across this night of Open night Ukulele performances..

here...

http://www.ukejoint.co.uk/

WHERE: THE MUSIC ROOM (Upstairs at O'Neill's, Entrance through pub)
73-77 Euston Road, London NW1
(Opposite The British Library & a stone's throw from St. Pancras, Kings Cross and Euston Stations)

TIMINGS: Doors Open: 6.30pm,
Performances from 7.30pm - 10.30pm

WHAT: UKE JOINT is an open mike night for ukulele players and performers.

It is hoped that UKE JOINT will evolve into a fully fledged regular ukulele cabaret night.
Around these regular performance nights we would also like to facilitate an active London based Uke community creating opportunities for teaching, learning, socialising and exchanging ideas.

and i'd love any other VW Uke players to come along to the next night, the only problem is, i dont know when the next night is...

iv emailed the people at the venue to see when it could be and if and when i find out, i will post it on here.

When i get to go to Edinburgh i will be playing my uke as part of my sketch show, doing a improv blues song and then ending the show with a classic hit but via the Uke and Kazoo's.

Im really fucking excited , if i can be blunt,  and ive also had publicity pics taken for the show with my Uke and apart from a wonky mouth, i look good.

www.myspace.com/pmgannon

[Ignatius_S]

Love the paintjob!

[TotalNightmare]

How dare you!
I'd never suck a man's...

OH... Paint Job.

I digress.

[Glebe]

[peet]

I've been thinking of getting a ukelele for ages. I remember my grandparents having a crap toy one when we went to visit when I was about 7, but it had a string missing and nobody in the family was (or is still) even vaguely musical.
After starting 18 months or so ago I'm still barely competent on guitar (how the fuck do you play a B?) but I like this - Penguin Cafe Orchestra - The Ecstasy of Dancing Fleas (ukelele means 'dancing flea' in Hawaiian)

Also - http://beatlesite.info/index.html ukelele Beatles chord guide thingy

As a total novice, wot ones aren't crap then?

[Marty McFly]

you can get a decent little one from ebay. i've had one for quite a while (check back in this thread for a photo) and it's a cracking little instrument.

various sellers have them.. er.. here's one. search ebay for 'mahalo ukulele' and you'll find tons of colours.

what it's important to look for in a cheap uke is the tuners. really cheaply-made ones have crappy little tuners which mean you have to retune all the time. you want to get one with tuners like these..

[Jemble Fred]

I'd always suggest going to a music shop, myself. Two years ago I bought an eBay uke, and it snapped in two the second I tried to tune it. It put me off for another year!

And peet – it goes without saying that the ukulele is roughly 4000 times easier to play than the guitar – it's a sort of entry-instrument, I'd say – you can go from musical ignoramus to being able to play at least one song with less than ten minutes' tuition. Then, when you get the hang of it, you progress to something with more than four strings, guitar etc. At least, that's my plan...

[TotalNightmare]

Thats a nice website (the Beatles one) and there are a few places you could try for getting a nice cheap Uke.

For instance you CAN get a nice Uke for 15 quid, certainly, if you go to www.ukuleleshop.co.uk (which is a london based store) they have a link to their online store and there are a range of great little models to try out.

I have 4 ukes now, all of various qualities and sounds and i just fancy collecting them as they are very lovely things.

Like Jemble says, they are remarkably easy to pick up and play and once you have mastered the basics, the rest of the harder chords arent hard to pick up.

Pick easy songs to learn and give you confidence and then you can try the slightly harder stuff, pick a song with maybe one or two harder chords to learn, thats the trick.

Im at the point now where i can pick at the strings more rather than just strum.

God i love this thread.

[jennifer]

Hello- a combination of Josh Ritter's Tonight You Belong To Me (a lovely uke-heavy cover of the song from The Jerk) and seeing Robert Newman's History Of The World Backwards (with three live ukes) has driven me to this thread.

I'm very left handed and ditched guitar and bass so I've been wary of finding a new instrument. BUT I have just given up smoking so I need something to do with my hands, plus when I look at this my tummy flips like I'm on the precipice of something exciting. So- is this a good starting point? http://tinyurl.com/hejyq

[Jemble Fred]

Yeah, some friends got me a yellow one from that line for my birthday last year – even the fact that I HATE YELLOW didn't put me off, those particular ukes have a specifically pleasant bell-like sound to them.

I've finally got round to pimping my old yellow uke (soon it will be a Yellow Submarine uke – if I had a digicam thing I'd post up the results here, it's an artistic Everest getting it right. I think it was because of my Yellow Submarine obsession that I was given the yellow one in the first place. I'm not at all ungrateful. I just HATE YELLOW), so had to buy a cheapo £10 one to use while the strings are off my old uke. I thought it'd be a bit shit for that price, but no, in fact I think (having pimped the new one Green Man-style as a tester) I might make it my default instrument!

So yes, do that thing. I always feel a bit awkward recommending the ukulele – it really is so easy to pick up that everyone should be doing it. But then, if everyone was doing it, I'd be just that bit less weird.

[9]

I'd pay a little more for something of better quality if I were you. The music shop near me has some of those in the window and last time I walked past some of them had literally fallen apart in the heat.

[Jemble Fred]

No, they're seriously hardy things. £8.99 is a lot less than you should be paying for it, and especially as you're starting you'd be a fool to aim for soething more expensive.

[jennifer]

Yeah, some friends got me a yellow one from that line for my birthday last year – even the fact that I HATE YELLOW didn't put me off, those particular ukes have a specifically pleasant bell-like sound to them.

I've finally got round to pimping my old yellow uke (soon it will be a Yellow Submarine uke – if I had a digicam thing I'd post up the results here, it's an artistic Everest getting it right. I think it was because of my Yellow Submarine obsession that I was given the yellow one in the first place. I'm not at all ungrateful. I just HATE YELLOW), so had to buy a cheapo £10 one to use while the strings are off my old uke. I thought it'd be a bit shit for that price, but no, in fact I think (having pimped the new one Green Man-style as a tester) I might make it my default instrument!

So yes, do that thing. I always feel a bit awkward recommending the ukulele – it really is so easy to pick up that everyone should be doing it. But then, if everyone was doing it, I'd be just that bit less weird.

Oh, I too have a yellow sub fetish Jem- I'm seriously considering a Jeremy Hilary Boob Phd tattoo.  We are so similar yet so different in many ways, hee hee. Anyway thanks for  the advice, going to take a punt. Yay. Will it be easy enough to restring for left handed play, you think? also do I need a tuning instrument? (I  have a lovely harmonica, can I tune it with that, frinstance?)

[Jemble Fred]

Eye-ronnie-callie, despite being right-handed, I've always instinctively reached for the guitar left-handed (because, well, it's the right hand that's doing the complicated stuff on left handed guitar playing... I just DON'T GET IT), and so my original attempt to play the uke was going to be left-handed, but the cheap instrument snapped when I tried to tune it that way (as detailed at the start of this thread). When I got my current uke, I just decided to learn right-handed instead, as I didn't want to risk another snappage.

I'm sure it was just a crap uke though, ultimately I think all you have to do is tune it left-handed, no swapping over of strings necessary (cleverer muso-types may prove me stupid on that point though).

I'd get a set of tuning pipes though – even though it annoys me that the only kind you can get in any music shop round here is the basic ADF#B one. Now I have three ukes, I'm desperate to tune one the other way, to suit my incredibly limited vocal range. But without a full Chromatic tuner, I can't.

PS – Good call on the tattoo. And I don't say that very often, fusty fucker that I am.

[Jemble Fred]

I'm not London-based (grrr etc) but tell your friend I'll probably be paying a visit next time I'm in town. The one I just bought does the job, but I know I could have got a far better (or rather, just different) one if the music shops in Bath had any kind of variety on offer.

£40 is the most I'd spend, obv.

[butnut]

I'm sure it was just a crap uke though, ultimately I think all you have to do is tune it left-handed, no swapping over of strings necessary (cleverer muso-types may prove me stupid on that point though).

I must confess very little knowledge of ukulele tuning, but almost every other string instrument has strings designed for the pitches they're meant to be tuned to. So if you tried to just re-tune a guitar without swapping the strings, the low E string would almost certainly snap, as they're not designed to be tuned  2 octaves higher. The high strings would also sound a bit crap tuned 2 octaves too low.

So my instinct is saying that's not the route to go. I play guitar left-handed, so I've restrung a few, and it's always been fine once they've settled down. As someone said above, you might need a better quality ukulele to be able to withstand the changes in pressure. Or you could just learn the instrument up-side down (ie don't restring it, just reverse where you put your fingers).

[Jemble Fred]

I think I'm right in saying that uke strings tend to be all the same though – it's certainly completely unlike the way guitars are stringed.

[butnut]

Are they the same thickness? Well if Mary's feeling brave, she could try that.

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

I'd tend to agree with 9, those Mahalo things (or at least the ones you linked to, the soprano one Marty McFly linked to was a bit better but still not worth bothering with I'd say) are far from the best quality instrument in the world. (I can back up that they fall apart in the shop, never mind after being brought home, we probably saw it in the same shop actually 9 as you live in Edinburgh). For a few quid more you can get something that doesn't feel like a toy and will last significantly longer. When buying a uke I'd recommend spending a little bit more than a tenner, they are so cheap that a few quid does make a difference. I just think it's no fun whatsoever playing a shit one.

[sam and janet evening]

D'you know, I spent £109 on a new uke t'other day. It's electric an' everything and I wanted one I could play in a band. It's lovely it really is.

In reply to the earlier strings question, they are different thicknesses* and you would have to re-string I'd have thought.

We should do a uke meet one day...

*well, all the ukes I've had from the £10 mahalo to my brand new super duper 'axe of the gods', have I mentioned my new Ukelele?...

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

D'you know, I spent £109 on a new uke t'other day. It's electric an' everything and I wanted one I could play in a band. It's lovely it really is.

Got any pics/links?

[jennifer]

I'm sure it was just a crap uke though, ultimately I think all you have to do is tune it left-handed, no swapping over of strings necessary (cleverer muso-types may prove me stupid on that point though).

I must confess very little knowledge of ukulele tuning, but almost every other string instrument has strings designed for the pitches they're meant to be tuned to. So if you tried to just re-tune a guitar without swapping the strings, the low E string would almost certainly snap, as they're not designed to be tuned  2 octaves higher. The high strings would also sound a bit crap tuned 2 octaves too low.

So my instinct is saying that's not the route to go. I play guitar left-handed, so I've restrung a few, and it's always been fine once they've settled down. As someone said above, you might need a better quality ukulele to be able to withstand the changes in pressure. Or you could just learn the instrument up-side down (ie don't restring it, just reverse where you put your fingers).

that sounds like a head-fuck too far, I think what I'll do is when it comes is try it right-handed and see how I get on, it's about time Righty started earning his keep anyway. He does next to nothing. If not then I'll examine the strings and see if they need restringing or not. Hum.

Just ordered Jumpin' Jim's '60s Uke-In: 25 Really Groovy Songs Arranged for the Ukulele, and am hunting for a cheapish tuner (suggestions? The Intelli ones look nice but they cost more than the uke...) Getting a right gid on about getting it all in the post, best whim I've had in a while...cheers all.

[Jemble Fred]

I badly need a chromatic tuner myself – I should check out eBay.

For further uninteresting episodes from the Fred household, I was given a can of varnish stuff by the splendid Mr Sherringford Hovis, to put the finishing touch to my new Green Man uke, as the acrylic paint could easily become chipped. The varnish proceeded to melt the fucking design to bits, so I'm going to have to start all over again tonight. And over the weekend people had been amazed that I'd done it myself, it looked so good.

Gah. Paint hates me.

[sam and janet evening]

Got any pics/links?

http://www.tech-mate.co.uk/acatalog/Vintage_Ukulele.html

the one second from the bottom is what I got.

[Jemble Fred]

The worrying thing about those is that the top one must be twice the price it really should be – so what about the other prices?

Bear in mind, I am miserly/broke.

On the plus side, I finished pimping my ukes this weekend, and the finished result is worth twice the maximum price on that site! Problem is I'm afraid to play the Yellow Submarine one in case it falls apart. twat.

[jennifer]

My baby came today.  She is yellow and quietly gorgeous. And now I am going to Denmark Street to get a tuner and a starter book while I wait for the Jumpin Jim book to come. Happy days.

[Jemble Fred]

Starter book? Why bother? http://www.alligatorboogaloo.com/uke/index.html

[jennifer]

The very nice man in Denmark St tried to sell me Jumpin Jim as a starter book, so I'm obviously better off with that. When it comes. Damn you ebay.

The uke is possibly the most satisfyingly shaped thing I've ever carried about town. I may not even learn to play it. Just carry it about forever looking enigmatic.

[sam and janet evening]

The worrying thing about those is that the top one must be twice the price it really should be – so what about the other prices?

A fair point, although without actually holding the thing I'm not sure whether the tuning pegs/strings/wood are worth the extra compared to those Mahalo* ones. Also, I always found the Mahalo's a bugger to keep in tune and their price varies from shop to shop. Still [defensive mode] It was the best value electric one in my local music shop (there was one cheaper but it wasn't as nice) and I will support that little shop whenever possible.[/defensive mode].
I also got a lovely little hard case with it, which does look cool when strolling round, plump and friendly unlike my cold, sneering, arrogant violin case.

*Mahalo? Is that right? That or Manalo, I scraped the name of mine in a similar painting spree to yours, although I got as far as half-finishing Charlie Brown's head and then got bored...

[Jemble Fred]

I got as far as half-finishing Charlie Brown's head and then got bored...

Well I've finished both of mine now – quite chuffed with the Yellow Submarine one (may get round to posting a pic one day), although I did ruin my carpet with red paint and now I'm afraid to ever play the fucking thing again in case it falls apart.

I still need to buy an expensive uke just to get a better sound, but ultimately I think a cheapo uke that's had a lot of care put into pimping it is worth several flash ukuleles with no personal effort pout into 'em (That's not a dig at all, by the way, as I say, I need to buy a flash one too. Hope you finish off yer Peanuts uke).

I'm going to have to get a solid uke case too.