Ohana Ukulele
I am not normally a trendy person, but in March I ordered an Ohana Ukulele from Music Is Life http://www.musicislife.co.uk/ (also called the Southern Ukulele Store on Ebay) which finally arrived a few weeks ago. Ukuleles are very popular at the moment – even the Guardian has dedicated an article to a Ukulele teacher in last Saturday’s Work section. I think the Ukulele is popular because it is cute and a good starting instrument. The funny thing is that I have a beautiful acoustic guitar, but its body is a tad to big for me. I had some lessons and know a few chords. And now I have to re-learn how to tune my Uke, which still goes out of tune too quickly, and the chords, which are different to the guitar chords.
I bought my Uke after watching reviews by Uke expert Ken Middleton on YouTube. He is very thorough and explains everything you need to know.
http://www.youtube.com/user/KenMiddletonUkulele#p/u/81/d9FlraRx1M0
My Ukulele is made by Ohana, a company which specialises in hand-crafting Ukuleles. Though they are based in Long Beach, California their instruments are made in China. My Uke is an SK 35 G – a soprano Uke made out of Mahagony. As you can see in the video and from my photo it’s a beautifully made instrument.
Unfortunately Bobby is not too impressed – she is generally scared of string instruments – especially my guitar and my husband’s violin. Mainly because he can’t play it yet and because when she was a kitten she managed to whack my guitar over which scared the life out of her. She survived the incident without a scratch but my guitar’s head needed to get fixed with nail varnish (!), because it splintered. I was hoping that she will at least tolerate my Uke for a photo shoot, but so far no luck. Maybe next time. She got used to the hoover and the hair dryer, so there is hope.
I have a couple of books to help me learn the chords and notes but I decided to buy a DVD which I ordered today. It’s called Steven Sproat’s Ukelounge. So I hope I can play a few tunes in a couple of weeks.
If you like Ukuleles, here are some useful links.
For tuning: http://www.get-tuned.com/ukulele_tuner.php
For everything else: http://liveukulele.com/ukelounge-lesson-dvd-giveaway-part-1/
http://www.easyukulele.com/index.html
1 comment
Teresa Lewis says:
September 27, 2010 at 12:54 pm (UTC 0)
I think ukelele’s were party made fashionable by Geri Halliwell in one of her videos and also the arch idler Tom Hodkinson in his books and articles in the Guardian and Ecologist who advises people to learn to play them.
They are small and easy to transport and store unlike guitars.
I borrowed a bass guitar and tried to play it but not long after had a tooth extracted with part of the root removed and prescribed antibiotics so was so under the weather for weeks I didn’t get around to continuing with it.