Ukulele Ghetto

Hey Jude

2012-01-15T17:29:00.001-06:00

A few years ago I came across an instrumental cover of the Beatles' Hey Jude by WS64 on Youtube. I thought it was a great arrangement and later found that someone had tabbed it on the Ukulele Underground forum. The tabs were not totally complete, but there was enough to help me learn this arrangement. So I've been playing this on and off for a couple of years now. It's pretty easy and fun to play, and although I stopped playing it for a while, I recently started playing it again and it came back to me pretty quickly. I've been meaning to record a video of this song, but haven't really tried to find time to do it until now.

I decided to play it on the Leolani super-soprano I have laying around the couch lately. This ukulele was the very first ukulele I bought during a trip to Honolulu at the Aloha Stadium flea market. I probably overpaid for it at $125, and it is the one responsible for starting the UAS madness for me. I had loaned it out to someone for a couple of years, and last year it was returned to me. Playing around it over the last couple of months, I was surprised by how nice it sounded to me. Even when I was an inexperienced beginner, I found other ukes such as a Flea I once owned to be better sounding. But today, for some reason, this Leolani is actually holding its own even against the solid wood ukes I own. The fact that it's a laminated ukulele means I can just leave it out all the time, so it's very handy. I'm glad it has returned to my possession after a couple of years away.

Bring Your What???

2012-01-12T23:35:00.001-06:00

Your Adz, that is. So I have no idea what Adz means and I'm too lazy to google it, but I managed to learn a reasonable facsimile of this song from Jake Shimabukuro's "Peace Love Ukulele" album a few months ago. The video was recorded a couple of months ago, but I haven't had time (read: lazy) to post it until now. I'm pretty sure I played the main riff incorrectly, but I haven't tried to learn the correct way. In fact, I don't think I can play this song all the way through right now because I haven't played it at all lately. Maybe I should try to re-learn it at a later date. Perhaps wait until Jake's "Peace Love Ukulele" tab book is released! (I just learned about this tab book today. Too bad it won't have Blue Roses Falling in it. I get many messages via Youtube asking for Blue Roses Falling for some reason)

Anyway, here's the video. I think I've reached my ceiling as an ukulele player as I don't feel like I've improved in the last year or so. That's OK though. Considering I'm playing stuff now that I never dreamed that I would be able to play when I started playing the ukulele, I'm happy just being a hack!

Happy New Year! (2012)

2012-01-01T01:03:00.000-06:00

Aloha! And happy 2012!

Holy buckets! I can't believe it's been almost half a year since I've posted on this blog. If you've been reading this blog, you probably figured that I've moved on from ukuleles. After all, not only have I not written any posts here in a long time, I've also not been active at all on the ukulele forums. But, while it's true that my online ukulele presence (ha, I said presence...) have been minimal, I've been playing my ukuleles as much as ever. So why have I not been updating this blog or visiting uke forums very much? Basically there are a couple of reasons. First reason is that I have 3 kids that are now 1.5, 4, and 6 years old. Those of you out there with kids might be able to relate. I have to say my kids are actually very well behaving for the most part, but because of my wife's work schedule, I have to take care of the kids by myself quite a bit, so it seems like I never feel the motivation to type these posts when I get some free time. Also, as a byproduct of this, I don't seem to have time to record one of my ghetto videos to post here (although I do have one recorded a few months ago that I haven't had a chance to upload).

The second reason is that I've basically been UAS-free. Since this has kind of been a blog about my UAS advantures, this means I don't have a lot of content I can post. The last ukulele I bought was the Les Paul, but that was pretty much just for shiznits and giggles. The last real ukulele I bought was the Mya-Moe. While that ukulele was received in April, I ordered it in 2010, so I think that qualifies me to the no-new-real-uke purchase club for 2011 right??? Anyway, I really have been satisfied with the ukes I own now, and hopefully it stays that way. I mean, why would anyone need 15 ukuleles???

So, what does the future hold for the ukulele ghetto? I'm not sure. I do want to keep it going, and while I don't have a heck of a lot to post about, I have been dragging my feet on a post about Eddie Vedder's ukulele album (pretty old news now), and besides the one ghetto video I have recorded, I could probably do another one or two now. I guess we'll see if I can get around to it.

Now for some ukulele related new year resolutions:

1. I'd like to learn a few new songs to play. I'm playing the ukulele pretty much everyday right now, but I mostly cycle through stuff that I've already learned. The songs I play the most now are Kalei Gamiao's "Shore Break", "Bohemian Rhapsody", and WS64's version of "Hey Jude". I'm not sure what new songs I'd like to learn, but hopefully I get motivated to learn some new ones real soon.

2. Continue to be UAS-free. This has been pretty easy, as I've been happy playing the ukes I have and haven't looked at ukes online for a while now. I do have a potential temptation in the form of a trip to Hawaii this year, but I do plan to bring the Glyph with me, so hopefully that takes care of my ukulele playing needs on the trip. Still, when you are in ukulele paradise, it's hard not to think about getting another one.

3. Play more of my ukes. Right now I rotate through my concerts pretty good. The King LS-concert and Glyph gets the lion's share of playing time, but the Mya-Moe is also getting some decent playing time. My tenors have not been played a heck of a lot though, and I plan to make it a point to play them more.

Anyway, I have no idea what I'll be posting on this blog down the road. Hopefully I find some energy to devote to this blog and post more. But whether or not I do, I hope you guys who stumble upon this blog continue to enjoy playing the ukulele. Ukulele is in my blood now, whether you see me much online or not, I'll always be strumming.

Is Les more???

2011-07-09T14:14:00.000-05:00

Whoa, it has been 2 months since I last posted here. Not sure if anyone is still checking this blog, but it's not dead. I just got more busy as summer has finally rolled around in Minnesota. Also, I've contracted some other "AS" so UAS is in remission, thus less stuff to post here.

Regardless, I had ordered an Epiphone Les Paul uke after it was announced at one of the NAMM shows. I ordered it from Sam Ash, and it took quite a while until they finally had stock to ship around the middle of June.

So why would I even bother with something like this? After all, it's more or less a novelty uke made with laminated wood. Well, the reason is simple. I've always been a fan of Les Pauls. No, I can't play guitar, but I've always thought Les Pauls looked cool in the hands of guys like Slash. I once bought a Kiwaya K-Wave ukulele because it resembled a Les Paul, and I've wanted an Earnest La Paula for the same reason. A Les Paul shaped ukulele made by Epiphone, no matter how bad an instrument it turns out to be, would be an actual, genuine Les Paul, and that's enough for me to want to get one. The fact that these sell for $99 made it a no brainer.

So now I've had this ukulele for a little while, I will do a quick review of it. First off, the stock strings that came with it are complete garbage. The ukulele sounded pretty bad and dead out of the box. I don't know what those strings are, and frankly I don't care, as they probably sound worse than my dental floss would have sounded strung to this uke. So my initial impression wasn't good. I thought I had bought a $99 novelty. At that point, I figure it wouldn't hurt to slap some Aquila strings onto this uke. I'm not a fan of Aquila strings, and pretty much every uke I have that came strung with Aquilas got a string change in quick order. So I had plenty of Aquila strings on hand. I know Aquilas were at least good for bringing low end laminated ukes to life, so I gave it a shot. I wasn't expecting much, but to my surprise, the Aquilas significantly improved the sound of this uke. With the Aquila strings installed, the ukulele actually sounded pretty good. In fact, I liked the sound better than some lower end solid wood ukes I've played before. This was quite a pleasant surprise, and immediately made the ukulele worth the $99 and more.

The next thing I noted was the action. It's setup probably on the high side of acceptability for me. I have no problem strumming on it, but finger picking beyond say the first 3~5 frets takes a little bit of an effort. Do keep in mind I'm pretty used to playing some custom ukes with very easy playing actions, so it's probably better than what I've described. I've read that the nut and saddle are plastic and rather crudely finished, and that was the case on mine. On the saddle, there is a mold line right on the edge where the strings contact the saddle. Pretty terrible place for a mold line in my opinion. So I took a sandpaper and sanded off that mold line. The nut slots also looked a bit crude with some burrs on the sides of the slots. However, other than looking bad, I didn't think there was enough of an issue for me to work on it. The overall action was acceptable for me, so I didn't do anything to lower it. It does have a bolt-on neck, so if needed, it should be rather easy to adjust the action.

Reviewing this backwards, let's talk a little bit about the package. It comes packaged in a trapezoid box with Epiphone graphics on it. Beside the ukulele, it comes with a very thin gig-bag and a chord to plug it into an amp. The box also contained some Epiphone catalogs and an Epiphone bumper sticker. Not a bad package for $99.

The Les Paul uke has an undersaddle pickup installed. I only used it once so far, but I thought it worked really well. The volume was pretty balanced from string to string, and it was fun playing it using various effects on my amp. So as an electric uke, it seems to do the job.

While the sound, once the Aquilas were installed, surprised me, the looks was what I expected. The sunburst on the body looked great, as is the curls in the laminated wood. The workmanship besides the nut and saddle looked good to me. The uke is on the heavy side, but that was expected as I've read that the body (besides the top) was routed from a block rather than glued together, making the sides and back fairly thick. One quirk I found is that the normal ukulele position dot at the 10th fret is now at the 9th fret, which is where they place a dot on the guitar. This does screw me up a bit because I usually look at the side markers (the Les Paul also have side markers) when I play, and having the one at 10th fret moved to 9th fret will take some mental adjustment. It's not a huge deal, but it would have made the uke more playable for me if the dot was at the 10th fret.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the Epiphone Les Paul. As long as you make sure to change out the crappy stock strings, I think it's a pretty fun ukulele that sounds surprisingly good. I've actually played it a lot more than I thought I would. I think it makes a good knock around ukulele, one that you don't need to worry too much about humidifying and can just leave anywhere in the house. It looks cool, sounds pretty good, and is cheap. In my book it's well worth the $99 price of admission.

Front shot

Back shot

Hey, it's a Les Paul!

The bolted neck.

Bridge & saddle.

Pickup plug.

Back of the headstock. It's made in Indonesia.

Notice the position dot at the 9th fret.

Comparing a few concert ukes

2011-05-07T16:02:00.001-05:00

Since receiving the Mya-Moe concert ukulele, I've been meaning to do some sort of a demo between it and some other concert ukes I have. I got some free time this weekend so I decided to make a video playing it and three other ukes: William King ls-concert, Glyph mezzo-soprano, Collings UC-1.

Each of these ukuleles were strung with different kind of strings, so perhaps the comparison isn't as un-bias as it could be. But I have found that at this level of ukulele, strings don't really change the basic dynamic of their sound anyway. These ukes pretty much should sound good with any reasonably good strings. The string setup:

Collings UC-1 (Aquila strings)
William King long-scale concert (Southcoast medium tension)
Glyph mezzo-soprano (Worth CD)
Mya-Moe concert (Worth CM)

Besides sharing the same scale length (the King is 1" longer than the rest), all of these ukes have radiused fretboards. The Collings have a 1-3/8" nut while the other three have 1.5" nuts. The string spacing are also all different, with the Mya-Moe being the widest followed by Glyph, King, and Collings. This made it slightly challenging to quickly play the same things on these ukes in succession, as you will see a few mess ups and messy playing on the video. But I think it gets the point across.

I won't make any comments on what I personally thought about the sound of each of these ukes, so you can form your own opinion. I'm actually not sure if this exercise is of any benefit to anyone, but I guess it could just be a fun excuse to post a video featuring four different ukes or something.

Anyway, here's the vid:

Curly Brothers

2011-05-06T21:18:00.000-05:00

My Glyph mezzo soprano had been back at Dave Mean's shop the last month for a little fretboard issue caused by winter dryness. The issue occurred during the winter and caused me to play the uke a lot less than I would have liked (I wanted to wait until the weather warmed up a bit before sending it back for repair). So in effect I basically have not played it for what seems like 4-5 months.

The repair is a minor one and the ukulele returned today. Man I really missed playing this ukulele. When it's right, it's perhaps my favorite sounding ukulele, certainly one of the very best I have. Like the great custom built ukulele it is, it plays effortlessly and feels really alive while I play it. It's hard to explain but the notes really bounce out of this thing. I guess I better pay better attention to humidifying it next winter so I won't be without it for an extended length of time again.

Anyway, as I've been playing the Mya-Moe myrtle concert a lot lately, I just had to compare the curly wood found on these ukes. The Glyph was supposed to be AAAA curly koa, and next to it, the Mya-Moe looks to be similarly curled. I like this type of curly appearance very much, and I'm very happy with the appearance of both of these ukes.

One thing I noticed is that the scale length of the Glyph mezzo soprano is exactly the same as the Mya-Moe concert. The mezzo is sort of a "long-scale" mezzo soprano in that it was joined at the 14th fret and Dave Means make the scale longer to place the bridge at the ideal spot. I thought the scale length is just a little less than a concert scale but at least when compared with the Mya-Moe concert, it is exactly the same. So I guess the mezzo soprano is something of a large bodied super-soprano, or a small bodied concert. Or a long-scale mezzo soprano...

Ok, enough of that, a couple of more pictures of the curly bros:

Curly sides

Curly backs

What do you get with your Mya-Moe?

2011-05-06T15:00:00.000-05:00

I've had my Mya-Moe myrtle concert ukulele for about a week now and for most of the past week, I've been playing it almost exclusively to get accustomed to it and also kind of start the break-in process. So far it's proven to be a nice and robust ukulele and I've enjoyed playing it. I plugged it in a few days ago and am very happy with the performance of the pickup. This is the first ukulele I have with a K&K twin spot pickup. The three other acoustic ukes I have with pickups all have Mi-Si. I plugged it to my cheap acoustic amplifier through an L.R. Baggs DI and I thought it sounded pretty good. All strings sounded loud and clear through the speaker, and that's all I pretty much ask for. I'm still hoping that in time the sound will open up a little more, but even if it stays the same, it is a good sounding ukulele and I can't really complain.

So what else do you get with a Mya-Moe besides the ukulele itself? If you ordered a Tradition model, which is the least expensive model they have, you're supposed to get a canvas foam case. However, mine came with an upgraded Uke Crazy case. I did upgrade the wood to curly myrtle and added the pickup, so perhaps they just threw in the case upgrade. I don't know. It's a pretty nice case, but the latches it has makes me just a little bit nervous. They are the flip open type (you can see that they are in the open position in the above picture). There are only two of them and they strike me as being easy to open. They are probably just fine, but they just don't feel as secure as the "hook & latch" type found on Ko'olau and Ameritage cases. I guess I'll just take extra precaution if I ever take the case out of the house.

Besides the case, you get a Mya-Moe micro-fiber cloth, a small bottle of lemon oil, a Mya-Moe sticker, and a spec sheet. The micro-fiber cloth has the Mya-Moe logo on it, so you know which uke it's supposed to wipe. The lemon oil is used to maintain the finish on the ukulele. The spec sheet contains the build specifications and serial number on the uke, so if you ever pass it down to your kids, they know exactly what they're getting.

Anyway, I thought the stuff they included with the ukulele are pretty cool. I will be spending more time with the Mya-Moe concert and post some random stuff about it from time to time.

Spec Sheet

Lemon Oil

Bohemian Rhapsody on the Mya-Moe

2011-04-30T14:14:00.002-05:00

I've been playing Bohemian a lot in the last month or so, in hopes of being able to play it better than I did when I posted a video of this song a couple of months ago. I definitely feel like I've improved (I mean, I better be after practicing for two months right?), but it's still a work in progress. Then again, I'm not sure I can play any song cleanly, especially in front of a camera. With the arrival of my Mya-Moe concert, I thought I'd post a couple of videos up with it, and Bohemian Rhapsody is the first one.

Early Bird

2011-04-26T21:23:00.004-05:00

In my last post, I said that Mya-Moe has completed my myrtle concert ukulele ahead of schedule. Well, it appears that UPS also got into the early bird act because two days ago while checking the tracking number, UPS indicated that the package will be delivered ahead of schedule, on 4/26 instead of the original 4/27 date. Lo and behold, the ukulele showed up today! I'm not sure if I'll experience this kind of ahead-of-the-schedule-ness for the rest of my life, but I'll take it this time! I must say the Mya-Moe experience has been really exceptional. Their awesome uke tracker kept me up to date on the progress of the uke. The build was complete ahead of schedule. And they even upgraded my case to a deluxe case (the Uke Crazy case seen in the picture above). Before the build, Char even checked with me to see if I was interested in another piece of curly myrtle she found in her shop. She could have easily just built the ukulele using the piece of myrtle I've already chosen, instead of making the effort to check with me on the new piece of wood. I really think they provide exceptional service, which is consistent with everything I heard about them before deciding to place an order.

Since I've only had this ukulele with me for half a day, I can only share some early impressions. The first impression is very good. I opened the case and saw a very well made ukulele with some seriously curly myrtle. I love curly wood and this makes me happy! (hey! get yer head out of the gutter!) The Mya Moe headstock, which I have to admit wasn't exactly my cup of tea from all the pictures I've seen, looks really good in person. The headstock is well executed and there is a thin layer of ebony between the veneer and the mahogany, giving it a nice higher-end look. I have not gone through the ukulele with a fine-tooth comb (and probably won't. I generally don't do that.), but there are no noticeable cosmetic issues on the exterior and the interior looks clean. I ordered a K&K pickup and it is neatly installed and wires are affixed to the side of the ukulele so it doesn't dangle around. The neck is of a one-piece construction, which is something I personally really like. I just really like it when a ukulele doesn't have a stacked heel and multi-piece headstock construction. Gimme a neck carved out of one piece of wood! Dammit! (LOL!) Anyway, going onto the fretboard, it appears to have a bigger radius than any ukulele I currently own. But as with my other radiused fretboards, it isn't something that's consciously noticeable, so the radius isn't too large and it feels comfortable. Another detail that I like a lot is the small angle carved into the outer edges of the fretboard. It is meant to prevent the fret ends from ever sticking out far enough to cause discomfort. It's a nice little touch, and hopefully the fretboard is well seasoned so it won't shrink in the dry winter here to cause any fret-end sticking out issues. This ukulele feels relatively heavy, at least compared to my feather light Collings concert. I was kind of expecting it to be super light like the Collings, but the weight isn't anything that bothers me. After all, it is still lighter than my heavy duty William King ebony concert that remains my favorite ukulele.

So the Mya Moe is pretty much a homerun in terms of looks and workmanship. As for the sound and playing feel, the first impression is not quite as rosy. This ukulele certainly sounds good, and when picked, it seems to be in the same level as my other custom concert ukes. However, when strumming it, I felt that it seemed a bit tight. I don't recall ever thinking that playing any of my other custom built concerts or the Collings. Played side by side with the William King concert and the Collings concert, those two did feel more open when strummed. Of course, Mya Moe did send a note saying that the ukulele should open up with consistent play over several months, so hopefully this slight tightness in the sound would go away in time. As is, it's still a very nice sounding instrument, but playing it next to my other ukes, I think it would do well if it opened up a bit in the future.

The ukulele came with about average height setup. I didn't measure it, but it feels that way to me. Given that it's a concert scale, I didn't need it to be super low because the string tension is relatively low. It is easy to play and the vibrations while playing it feels good, as it should on a luthier built instrument.

Overall, my first impression is very positive for this ukulele. The only improvement I would like to see is for the strummed sound to be more open, and I'm hopeful that it will open up a little bit in time. If that happens, this would truly be a great ukulele. I will try to record a video or two with it soon. Until then, here are a few more pics of the new addition to my stash 'o ukes:

The back of the myrtle concert. I like it!

The sides have matching curls.

Hanging out with a couple of other concert ukes with one-piece necks.

Mya-Moe is completed!

2011-04-21T16:30:00.001-05:00

How about that! A custom ukulele actually completed ahead of schedule! Woohoo! Ok, so I don't actually consider Mya-Moes to be true customs, since you don't get to design every aspect of the ukulele's look and you can't really get custom inlays on it, but they are still bespoke instruments made by two people only, so they can't be considered a factory instrument either. Either way, my Mya-Moe concert is now completed. The original promise date was April 27th, and they've beaten that by almost a week. If you look at the uke tracker for my uke, it appears that they even took a vacation between April 6th and April 19th, so it could have been even earlier. Anyway you slice it, I'm impressed by how accurate they were on their promise date.

And another word about their Uke Tracker. It has to be the coolest thing any ukulele luthier has ever put on their website. It's so nice to be able to punch in your ukulele number and follow the progress as it builds. There's no guessing on where they're at with your instrument. No need to email for updates. And it's just plain cool to have this level of traceability for a bespoke instrument.

Anyway, it's supposed to be shipped out today, so I should be seeing it sometime next week. Judging from the pictures, I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I love tight reflective curls and this is pretty much what I envisioned when I went with this piece of Myrtle. I trust that the uke will sound and play wonderfully, but I'm still very anxious to try it out. This will be the least adorned custom ukulele I've ever ordered, with no bindings or even position dots on the fretboard face, but I was going for a basic look with this one, and I like what I see on the pictures.

Since I have not learned any new songs since posting my rather broken Bohemian Rhapsody attempt, so maybe I'll try to make a video playing Bohemian Rhapsody (hopefully a better attempt) and perhaps something else that I can play in my sleep (maybe Gently Weeps) as a demo of this ukulele. Anyway, I will probably try to post a couple of videos with this ukulele.

Well, I will have more to post once this uke arrives. Until then, here are the other pictures from the Uke Tracker:

Eddie Vedder's ukulele album

2011-04-05T17:00:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago I noticed on the forums that Eddie Vedder will be coming out with a solo album titled Ukulele Songs. While I can't say that I was especially excited, since these days I'm more into ukulele instrumental music, I was certainly happy to know that Eddie Vedder will release a ukulele-centric album. I've been a Pearl Jam fan since I was in high school (that's like 20 years ago! Damn I'm old!) and the very first song I learned to play on the ukulele was Eddie Vedder's Soon Forget, so this is a album I'll be getting for sure. The release date is May 31st.

In other happenings, it appears that my Mya-Moe custom concert ukulele is ahead of schedule. In this day and age of delays after delays, it's pretty refreshing to see someone meeting a promise date, much less improve upon it. The pictures on the uke tracker is looking really good. The curly Myrtle is looking great and I look forward to checking it out to see if Mya-Moe is as good as advertised.

Start Date

2011-03-22T23:22:00.003-05:00

Well, time sure flies. I ordered a Mya-Moe ukulele last November and the start date was set for March 23rd. Here we are on the eve of March 23rd, and looks like it will start on time. I don't know if I've ever ordered a custom ukulele that started on time. I think the William Kings were pretty close, but the other ones were way off the projected start (and finish) date for one reason or another. So it's kind of refreshing to have a custom started on time.

Anyway, since I ordered it, Mya-Moe has added some nifty stuff to their website. Namely the Uke Tracker. I find the Uke Tracker to be insanely cool because you can enter your uke number and follow the exact progress, complete with pictures, of your ukulele. I imagine it's a lot of work to keep it up for them, but so far they haven't missed a beat. My Mya-Moe is #423. Check it out on the Uke Tracker if you'd like. It will be cool to follow the progress of this ukulele. I have pretty high expectations for it. Hopefully it delivers.

Bohemian Rhapsody played badly...

2011-03-03T00:00:00.002-06:00

....but hey, at least I played it!

Anyway, Bohemian Rhapsody is a song that was very familiar to me. When I was in junior high, I watched MTV all the time because I loved watching music videos. Back then they have these video countdown show and when the movie Wayne's World used Bohemian Rhapsody on the soundtrack, they released a video of the some with footage from Wayne's World mixed in with Queen's original video. It was a hit and was played over and over on MTV back then. It wasn't really one of my favorite songs but I always thought the middle part where they sang a pseudo opera was pretty funny. For some reason even though this song wasn't exactly one of my favorite songs, it was imprinted onto my brain pretty good. I think I can literally recite all the lyrics in the opera section. Which tells me I might have watched too much MTV back then...whatever.

Now Jake Shimabukuro has composed a version of this song on the ukulele, I have taken interest in this song again. After all these years, I still know exactly how this song goes. So it's pretty amazing to hear how closely Jake's version follows the original. That's a good thing when trying to learn this song because it is really long at almost six minutes. If I didn't know exactly how the song sounded like, I probably would have no shot at learning it.

As usual, I searched Youtube for videos to learn this song from. There are a few videos of Jake himself playing this song, but I did most of the learning from this video by Greyboy78. That's because he played it quite a bit slower than Jake and it was easier to follow. His camera angle made it a bit hard to see finger positions, but I was able to figure most it out by ear after seeing the approximate finger positioning on the fingerboard. It turned out that this song really isn't difficult from a technical sense. There are really no really difficult parts to play, but the difficulty lied in the sheer length of the song. As I mentioned, I knew how this song is supposed to sound like, so it helped me remember how to play it, but it definitely wasn't easy to remember how to play through this song from the beginning to the end.

The video I'm posting today is not a very good attempt, as it contains more mistakes then even by my low standards. But I am pretty excited that I can even play through this song entirely at all, so I thought I'd post an attempt. Hopefully I can play it better in the near future and be able to upload a better video.

So here it is, a ghetto attempt at Bohemian Rhapsody:

Hallelujah

2011-02-27T01:14:00.005-06:00

Maybe it was the fact that the start date for my Mya Moe concert is approaching soon, but maybe a couple of weeks ago I felt a jolt of motivation to learn some new songs on the ukulele (kind of bad to have UAS as a source of motivation to learn new stuff. Gotta change that...). Having been listening to Jake Shimabukuro's Peace Love Ukulele quite a bit lately, it's only natural that I wanted to learn some of the new stuff from the album. Bohemian Rhapsody has always been on my wish list to learn, but I have not really gave it a shot until just a few days ago because it seems too difficult (trying to piece it together now, realizing that the difficulty is not in the technical aspect, but rather how long the song is). So I tackled Bring Your Adz. This song seemed to be manageable for my playing level but while I was able to learn it fairly quickly, I still have a long ways to go before I can play it smoothly enough. While browsing Youtube videos to learn Adz (my primary way of learning new songs these days), I saw a related Hallelujah (Jake's version) video. I viewed a couple of those and decided to try and learn it. To my pleasant surprise it was pretty easy and I was able to play it reasonably well in a few days. I had some time on my hands yesterday so I decided to shoot a video of this song. As far as number of takes go to get a presentable video, it wasn't too bad. So here is Hallelujah.

New wood

2011-02-23T00:58:00.003-06:00

Char from Mya-Moe emailed me yesterday regarding the wood set for my concert ukulele. She had found another set that she thought was closer to what I had originally asked for and sent me a picture of it. This set of myrtle had some really nice curl, more so than the set I had picked out before, so I went for it. I love me some curly wood, and this one should be pretty good looking. The uke is scheduled to start around the end of March, so it's definitely closing in. I guess I need to have a few songs ready (just learned "Bring Your Adz" & "Hallelujah" and about to tackle "Bohemian Rhapsody") so I can make some videos with it soon after it arrives.

Here's what the wood set looks like:

What was that about UAS again??...?

2011-02-19T00:23:00.002-06:00

So much for my contention that I don't have any UAS right now. I browsed the Ukulele Underground forum briefly today and read a post about the Epiphone Les Paul ukulele. That was all it took for me to place a pre-order for one of these babies with Sam Ash. Pretty crazy. Then again, it is only $100. To me, just the fact that this is a Les Paul shaped ukulele with an Epiphone logo on it makes it worth the Benjamin, even if it sounds like something that should only be purchased by clueless tourists on Waikiki. I've always loved the Les Paul shape, and have once owned a Kiwaya K-Wave just because of its shape. I've also lusted after the Earnest LaPaula since basically when I started playing the ukulele. So to have an "official" Les Paul ukulele is pretty cool, I think. It is supposedly coming out in March, so hopefully I'll get to see how good or bad it is. But whether it's a decent beater uke or a piece of crap, I will be able to say I own a real Les Paul uke! That's gotta be worth something right???....ok, maybe not, but it's still cool!

Cobwebs!

2011-02-17T21:39:00.003-06:00

Whoa! It's been quite a long time since I've posted here. Cobwebs have definitely been growing in the ghetto!

Well, since the last holiday season, I guess my attention have been quite divided. Besides having 3 kids to handle, I've also been getting back into a couple of other hobbies. I didn't get any new ukuleles for Christmas, but I got myself (people my age basically use Christmas as an excuse to buy stuff for themselves. At least I do, har!) other stuff that occupied my attention for the last couple of months. Ukulele kind of taken a backseat in terms of me learning new stuff and following what going on in the ukulele world. My temporary UAS binge (Lanikai zebra and Kala pocket) totally went away, and while I busted the ukulele to play most days, there were a few days where I didn't even get around to playing the ukulele. I still enjoyed playing the ukulele, but it was kind of a "time away" from my ukes. I think that's good though, because I know ukulele is pretty much in my blood, and I will always be interested in it and come back to it.

I've been listening to Jake's new CD in my car fairly often of late, and sure enough, I got an itch to learn something from that disc. I know I would like to play his version of Bohemian Rhapsody someday, but it's really long and probably not that easy to learn, so the next song I really wanted to learn was Bring Your Adz. I have no idea what "Adz" means, but the tune is pretty cool. I started messing with the opening section last week and kind of figured out how it was played. Then a couple of days ago, I decided to tackle the song hard and dug up a few Youtube videos to attempt to learn it. It isn't a hard song to learn, so I more of less got all the parts down. But it is pretty hard to execute (for me anyway), so now it will just take some time to refine it the best I can. I guess there is no shortage of songs I would like to learn, sometimes the motivation is there, and sometimes there isn't. I'm definitely feeling the urge to learn a few new songs now, so hopefully I'll have something to share soon.

On the UAS front, although I have not felt any urges to get new ukes, there is one on the horizon. That is the Mya Moe I ordered last year. I think it was slated to start in March and be completed by April. Mya Moe appears to be the most "on-time" builder around, so I'm thinking I'll be getting the uke sometime in April. I hope it doesn't trigger another UAS binge, but I guess we'll see about that.

Anyway, all is well. I still love the ukulele very much, although I just don't have as much time or things I could share here right now. Hopefully I will continue to be able to put of semi-useful or halfway entertaining stuff here.

Until next time, I leave you with a quick picture of the myrtle wood set I recently choose for the Mya Moe:

"I Love Hawaii"...

2011-01-07T23:07:00.009-06:00

And now for something a little different (yet still have a little bit to do with ukes!)...

So tonight I took my family to a local mall. While there, I went into a store there called "Tomodachi", which sells mainly Japanese toys and collectibles. The Japanese love "candy toys", which are these little boxes containing randomly inserted little models of various subjects and usually a piece of candy or gum. The subject matter of these "candy toys" range from the usual Japanese Animation stuff such as Dragon Ball Z and Gundam, to some really bizarre stuff such as miniature furniture and food models. This store sells a lot of these "candy toys" and this time I decided to check them out while pushing my baby son's stroller through the small store. Since the Japanese love to travel to Hawaii, I guess it wasn't a shock to see this:

You probably didn't have to guess that the ukulele on the front of this box immediately caught my eyes (yes, sad but true...). Knowing what these boxes are, I knew the ukulele was probably one of the random items packaged inside the box. I grabbed it and turned it over, and sure enough, there are 9 different sets of "Hawaii" items that you can get:

As you can see, set 3 contained the mini ukulele I so very much wanted (I guess UAS knows no size limitations or make any distinctions between real and fake). Now, being full of items imported to the USA from Japan, everything in the store carried fairly ridiculous prices. This little box, which measures about 4 inches tall, costs $4.50. So I wasn't going to get a bunch of boxes in hopes of scoring the mini-uke. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for me, there were only two boxes left. I thought about just letting it go, but as I left the store, I was like "what the heck, I'll just get one and see what I got". I was thinking as long as I didn't get set 8 (golf clubs...that's supposed to remind me of Hawaii???) I'd be OK with it. So I grabbed one box, paid for it, and left (OK, so I also grabbed another box containing an insanely detailed 1/24 Suzuki racing motorcycle).

After getting to my car, I opened the "I Love Hawaii" box to see what I got, not really expecting to get set 3 with the mini-uke. Lo and behold, I did get set 3! (This is when you get to say "what a nerd!")

As you can see, it came with a few other things other than the mini-ukulele. There's a card that tells you what they are:

Besides the ukulele, we have a glass of "Blue Hawaii" cocktail, a pair of Beach Sandals, and a Lei. So I have absolutely no interest in the other 3 items (especially not the pink sandals!), but hey, they are pretty cute. The mini-ukulele probably was modeled after a Martin, but being so small, the headstock actually looks more like a Gibson. Whatever. It's actually looks pretty decent, and it has 4 strings (painted on a piece of clear plastic) and 4 tuning pegs. Pretty accurate representation of the ukulele if you ask me.

So just how small is this little guy? Remember the Pocket uke?

It's the size of the Pocket uke's bridge! (for those of you who have sharp eyes, yes, the Pocket uke developed some seam separation at the soundboard. It works fine, but I'll need to try to do something about it at some point, I think.)

I think this just might be the smallest model of the ukulele ever. I mean, any smaller you might not be able to see it!

So there you have it. Something totally out of the left field. I guess I was pretty lucky to have scored this fake mini-uke. Too bad I don't have such luck with lottery tickets...(like I have a 1 in 9 chance of winning the lottery...) But now that I have this little fake ukulele, what do I do with it??? Hmmm....I think I know just the guy to give it to:

Kamen Rider DECADE!

Yeah baby! He rocks the ukulele and the Lei! Isn't that perfect or what??? (OK, I'll go away now...)

I hope you've enjoyed this little ukulele odyssey. Until next time, keep strumming... (yes, you too, Decade...)

Peace, Love, Ukulele

2011-01-06T00:08:00.006-06:00

It's no secret that I'm a big Jake Shimabukuro fan, so when I learned that I could pre-order his upcoming CD, titled Peace, Love, Ukulele, I did just that.

The pre-order indicated that the CD would be released on January 3rd, but I actually received the CD on that date, so it was a pleasant surprise.

I've only listened to the CD a couple of times so far in my car (where I do most of my music listening), but I do like it. There are 2 tracks worth of Bohemian Rhapsody, one recorded in studio and one recorded live. I thought it's a cool arrangement. A few other songs got studio recordings after being released on the Live album from a couple of years ago. There are not a ton of new materials but most are pretty fresh.

Anyway, I'm not much of a reviewer of albums, so I'll just share a few more pictures of it. If you're a Jake Shimabukuro fan, you've probably already bought this in the form of the CD or MP3 from iTunes. If you're just discovering the ukulele and find Jake's music to your liking, this is a good listen.

Back of the CD

Inside of the case

Folded insert. On one side it has a picture of Jake holding a Kamaka soprano (he doesn't play sopranos!) and a couple of chord charts.

Other side of the insert with track listing and thank you's.

Location, Location, Location

2010-12-06T16:30:00.001-06:00

No, I'm not into the real estate business. I'm talking about where my ukes are built. Just for fun, I thought perhaps I'd track where all of my current ukes are made.

-Hawaii (6): Kamaka tenor HF-3, Koa Works tenor KW-4, Kanile'a super-soprano, Ko'olau CE-1, KoAloha Pineapple Sunday, Aaron Taylor milo/spruce tenor.

-Texas (3): William King spruce/koa LS-tenor, William King macassar ebony/spruce LS-concert, Collings UC-1.

-China (2): Kala Acacia Pocket uke, Bushman Cedartone baritone.

-Japan (1): Kiwaya KTS-7 soprano.

-Indonesia (1): Lanikai zebrawood concert.

-Indiana (1): Bluegrass cigar box tenor.

-California (1): DaSilva Santos reproduction soprano.

-Maryland (1): Glyph koa Mezzo-soprano.

-Vermont (1): Kepasa Gypsy Rose concert.

It's not very surprising that the greatest percentage of my stash has originated in Hawaii. After all, it is a Hawaiian instrument. But I thought I had more China made ukes. Texas coming in second is a slight surprise, but I guess I'm a William King fanboy, so that explains it. Unlisted is the upcoming Mya-Moe that's going to be made in Washington.

Anyway, I guess this kind of shows that ukes are being made all over the place, not just in Hawaii or China.

Shore Break

2010-12-03T23:05:00.004-06:00

Ever since I heard Kalei Gamiao's Kiss by a Rose and Mach 4, I've been interested in his music and bought his self titled CD. The CD contains all ukulele instrumentals and proved to be very enjoyable for me. Most of the songs have accompaniments by other instruments but there are a few ukulele solo arrangements as well. One of them is the 2nd track called Shore Break. It is one of my favorite songs from this CD and I recently decided to try to learn it. I've usually learned ukulele solo arrangements either by finding tabs or watching videos of the song I'm trying to learn to try to figure out how to play them. Since this is very much an unknown song, there is no videos or tabs I could find. So the only way to learn it is by ear. Luckily for me, this is a pretty simple song and I was able to learn it by ear relatively easily. I was pleasantly surprised by this and hopefully I can get better with learning by ear as I continue to play the ukulele.

For making a video of this song, I was thinking about using the William King LS-concert, which I've been reconnecting with recently after a couple of solid months of almost exclusively playing the new Glyph. But when I was ready to do some takes, I decided to try it with the Koa Works tenor as I have not played it in a while and wanted to give it some playing time. I was able to play it on the Koa Works tenor so I figure I'd take a video with this ukulele. This uke is probably the best sounding tenor in my stash o' ukes, so it deserves to be played more often and be featured in more videos.

By the way, I hope you like this song. I probably didn't do it justice, so if you like Kalei Gamiao's music, be sure to check out his CD.

(*It seems Youtube is acting a bit wonky when I uploaded this. If you can't see it on this page, try double clicking it to open it on a separate page)

Pocket Uke craziness

2010-12-02T22:37:00.003-06:00

I promised trying crazy stuff on the Kala Pocket Uke, and here is the first attempt. I've become somewhat of a Mach 4 junkie and have been playing it all the time, so I thought I'd try it on the Pocket uke! If you watch the video below, you'll probably agree that it ain't a pretty sight. But hey, I tried. No, the Pocket Uke definitely is not suited to play solo arrangements, but it is fun to try, even if I look and sound bad doing it. :p

Without further ado, here is Mach 4 on the Kala Pocket ukulele. Don't say I didn't warn you...

Mini-Me or Tiny Tim???

2010-12-01T23:57:00.010-06:00

Uke-crack arrived yesterday in the form of the Kala Acacia Pocket ukulele. While I have tried to find as many reviews, pictures, and videos of it as I awaited its arrival, I must say that I was still not prepared for just how friggin' small this thing is! No, it doesn't actually fit in your pocket, but it is a really really small ukulele. It is definitely smaller than I expected and I don't think seeing pictures of it next to other ukes would really drive that point home (Although I do present a couple of such pics at the end of this post). You need to see this thing in person to appreciate its smallness.

Aside from the small size, my other first impression upon picking this ukulele up is that it is pretty heavy for its size. It's built like a tank, which isn't necessarily a good thing when talking about ukes. I don't know if it's because the body is so tiny and therefore the wood seems thicker, but it sure feels that way. I held my Collings UC-1 on one hand and this uke on the other, and I can't really tell much difference in weight. Granted, the Collings is really built very light, but it's like 5 times the size (OK, I'm exaggerating) of the Kala. So perhaps this pocket uke is a bit overbuilt, but maybe it needed to be built this way, I'm not sure. It does look well built. Perhaps not the most perfect workmanship (some glue and a little bit of wood shaving is visible on the inside of my copy), but I would rate it as very good. The acacia wood body looks nice, with some very faint curls in the wood. The headstock has an inlaid Kala logo in maple and an overlay of what appears to be clear plastic, which gives it an interesting effect.

The sound is predictably thin and not especially loud. I tried CFAD, DGBE, and GCEA tunings and decided to stick to GCEA for the time being. In CFAD and DGBE, it didn't seem to sound much better than GCEA and most songs I tried didn't sound that great in those tunings despite the strings are all "spaced apart" the same. It does seem to have pretty good intonation, but the Aquila strings are still stretching so much it's hard to tell since the strings seem to go out of tune as I play. Speaking of tuning, I used my brand spanking new Peterson StroboClip to tune this baby and it was surprisingly easy. I thought given the sensitivity of the tuner and the short scale of the ukulele, combined with friction tuners, I was going to be in for a workout to tune it. Turns out I was able to get the strings dialed in fairly quickly using the StroboClip, so I'm definitely happy with the new tuner.

While the sound of the pocket uke is not really all that great (yes, it's super tiny, but even if you consider it good for its size, it's still not that great in absolute terms), it IS fun to play. It is somewhat difficult given how small the scale length is, but there's something inherently fun about playing a tiny ukulele that actually produces all the right notes (unlike cheapo toy ukes you can get at ToysRUs or Hawaiian tourist shops). I've read a few reviews of the pocket uke where the reviewer says it's fun to play, but I didn't really understand what they meant until I played it myself. This ukulele is all about its tiny size. If all else is equal and this is a standard sized soprano, I'd probably return it. But its size makes it a keeper, which is probably difficult for people to understand unless they've handled one of these. Once you've handled it, you would probably either love it or hate it.

So the biggest problem most people will have with the Kala pocket uke is the price. The street price for the mahogany version is $210 while the acacia version is $280. To put the $280 price for the acacia in perspective, you can buy the Kala acacia TENOR for $21 more from most dealers. That uke is like 10 times bigger than the pocket uke!! (ok, exaggerating again. It's only 6 times bigger) It doesn't take a math major to realize that the value quotient for the pocket uke is extremely low. The only reason I went for the acacia version is because I found one for $240 shipped and decided "what the hell" on the $30 premium over the mahogany version because I really wanted the acacia. Now, I don't really have a problem with the pricing on these ukes because I believe that it may actually be more difficult for Kala to make these. Dave Means of Glyph once said that it's most challenging to get good sound out of a small soprano box, and it doesn't get much smaller than these. Also, I think it's more difficult to ensure good intonation on a shorter scaled instrument. I imagine Kala needed tighter quality control to get these to intonate correctly. So personally speaking, I can understand why these ukes carry such relatively high price.

So who will buy these things? I kind of doubt too many are sold over the internet. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't see many people shelling out $210~280 for these pocket ukes just by looking at pictures or even videos of them. Like I said, you can almost get the acacia tenor for this money, and there are a slew of nice imported solid wood ukes of all sizes at this price point. So I think it's a tough sell over the internet. However, I'm willing to bet quite a few gets taken home when people actually handle them. It's just so damn cute you almost can't help it. It's like seeing a puppy in a pet store or something. And if you think the price is too high, there are basically no alternatives. There are several sopraninos out there made by the likes of Ohana and KoAloha, but I assure you the Kala pocket uke is much smaller. So you must pay to play, basically.

I've only had mine for under 24 hours as I type this post, but so far I am happy with this purchase. That's not to say I recommend you jumping online and order away. I think you really needs to handle it to determine if you love it or hate it. Either that or you need some money burning a hole in your pocket to give it a try. I have to admit I basically had some hot cash to blow on it, but right now I fall in the camp of those who love it, so I guess the gamble has paid off.

So that's the first impressions/semi-review from this crack, I mean uke addict. I will be attempting some songs that probably should not be played on this ukulele, so stay tuned for some vids!

Peace, love, and ukulele baby!

Headstock with Kala logo inlaid in maple:

Front of the pocket uke:

Back of the pocket uke:

Next to the Collings UC-1. I swear the pocket uke feels smaller in person:

Side view next to the UC-1:

Next to the DaSilva Santos Repro. The Santos is almost sized like a sopranino:

Side view next to the DaSilva:

The Kala is actually a little thicker than the DaSilva:

New (to me) gadget: Peterson StroboClip

2010-11-29T15:16:00.006-06:00

Sometimes reading online forums can be a costly thing. A couple of weeks ago I saw a post on FleamarketMusic Forums about a clip-on tuner made by Peterson. I had never heard of this company before and it was the first time I've heard of the term "strobe tuner". I've bought a few clip-on tuners over the years, sometimes buying one for no reason other than to try out something different from what I already have. I think I've bought 2-3 different kinds, but I've always like the Intelli IMT-500 (and later the Oahu branded version where they tightened up the buttons so they don't rattle) the best. It had the best form factor and was pretty quick and easy to use. So after reading about the Peterson StroboClip, I guess I got a case of the TAS (Tuner acquisition syndrome) and did some research online about this tuner. It turns out the StroboClip is a relatively new product and boasts several features that typical chromatic tuners lack. The biggest selling point is that it has superior accuracy, capable of being accurate within 0.1 cent. That's pretty good considering on most clip-on tuners, the resolution of the display is usually much lower than that (the Intelli IMT-500 has ticks spaced 5 cents apart on it's scale). Another selling point is that Peterson has this thing called "Sweeteners" where it gets you to tune your instrument to instrument specific "offsets" so that it sounds better. I tried reading the reasoning behind the Sweeteners and could not really understand it. If you're interested, check the Peterson website. Anyway, there are over 30 Sweeteners on the StroboClip, including one for the ukulele. That pretty much sold me on the tuner. Now, the StroboClip has a street price of $70, so it is way more expensive than any clip-on tuners I've every purchased. But I figured it probably would be worth it for the superior accuracy, so I pulled the trigger on it.

The StroboClip arrived today. It came in the above pictured square tin can with the tuner situated inside on a form fitted piece of foam. It came with a sheet with instructions in several languages. Since I had already read a lot about this tuner before its arrival, I skipped the instructions and immediately put it to work. The way the strobe tuner works is that when you play a note, a checkered field will scroll around above the note display on the tuner screen. The field will scroll to the left or right to denote whether your note is flat or sharp. For example, if you're playing the C note, and the checkered field scrolls to the left, it means you're flat, the degree of which is denoted by how fast it is scrolling in that direction. Likewise, if you're sharp, it will scroll to the right. When you get it to be perfectly in tune, the scrolling should stop. In practice, getting it to stop completely might be pretty difficult, since it is accurate to within 0.1 cent. It took only a few tries to get the scrolling field to more or less "freeze", so while it is different, I didn't think it was too difficult to use. There is a "sustain" mode that's designed for use with instruments that has fast decay, such as a ukulele, and it worked well for me. I set the tuner to the "ukulele Sweetener" and tuned the uke in this mode. It didn't seem to be much different than the standard tuning mode. The G-string might have been tuned a tick down, but I'm not sure. My ears aren't sharp enough to pickup the difference it made, but maybe in the long run I will. Who knows. The ukes I tuned using this tuner all sound very much in tune, and checked out with my other Intelli/Oahu tuners, as expected.

Before I conclude this post, let me go over the construction of this unit a little bit. The casing of the tuner is made of aluminum with a rather coarse brushed texture. The sides of the main casing is silver colored plastic as well as everything else, which includes the stem and the clip. Being made out of mostly aluminum and plastic, it feels light enough and the casing should prove to be durable. I do wish the stem connecting the casing to the clip is also made of aluminum though. It may end up being durable enough, but it certainly looks like it could be beefier. I would have preferred the casing to be plastic and the stem to be metal. Come to think of it, it would have been fine with me if the tuner came in a cardboard box and the tin used to make the tin can is used to make that stem. The casing is well articulated and you should be able to find a good viewing angle while its clipped onto any headstock. Overall I don't think the construction is cheap or anything, even for its high price, but I guess I get a little nervous when the bigger part between two interconnected parts is the one that's metal while the smaller one is plastic. To me it's safer if it's the other way around. But it does feel relatively sturdy now, so hopefully it will last. Before receiving it I read many comments saying that they wished it was black instead of silver. I would tend to agree that a black tuner clipped onto a headstock looks better, but having it clipped to my ukes in person, I think the silver looks pretty good. This is just a personal opinion though.

So the big question is, is this thing worth $70? For the vast majority of recreational ukulele players, I'd say it is not worth it because you can get a ukulele tuned accurately enough using a $15 clip-on chromatic tuner. However, if you have great ears and want the most accurate clip-on tuner available, this is probably the best choice. It has a lot of features for a clip-on, and it is very accurate. Compared to a normal strobe tuner, $70 is actually pretty cheap. As for me, while I certainly don't need this type of accuracy, I think it's nice to know that my uke is close to being perfectly tuned and while I can't really tell how the "Sweetener" function impacts the sound, perhaps someday down the road I can. For these reasons, I'm pretty happy with this purchase. Again, I can't say I would recommend this tuner to most people, but if you know what you're getting into and have the money to burn, it's not a bad addition to your collection of ukulele related gadgets.

Back of the tuner:

StroboClip in action, tuning the C-string:

Showing the amber colored backlight:

Uke-crack!

2010-11-25T15:34:00.002-06:00

No, I'm not talking about cracks found on ukes that have been left dehydrated in a dry environment. The uke-crack I'm talking about here is like when one is addicted to drugs (or suffering from UAS). That is, a small dose of ukulele to help calm the urge to acquire more ukes. I guess I've had my some recent UAS flare ups in the form of the Lanikai zebrawood concert and the Mya-Moe order. Apparently I'm in need of more uke-crack because I've just pulled the trigger on a Kala Acacia Pocket Uke! (it's for my son! Honest!)

As with any UAS induced uke-crack purchase, I must come up with a few excuses for it. First off, I've always wanted one of those Kala Acacia ukes because the Acacia comes from Taiwan, my home country. I've always thought I'd get one of those slotted headstock Acacia tenors to fulfill this desire, but by the time it came out, I have already had too many tenors and I've become more of a concert-scale guy. So I've been able to resist that one. However, I don't have any sopranino (or smaller) sized ukes! So the Pocket Uke fits the bill. The main problem I have with the Pocket uke is that it seems to cost too much for what you get. The street price for the mahogany version is $210 and the Acacia version is $280. You can get a Acacia tenor for not much more than that! Now, I understand that these little guys are probably harder to build than tenors, but as with most human beings, I tend to want bigger when I spend more money. Still, since I believe the Pocket uke isn't necessarily easier to build than bigger ukes, I consider the price tag to be somewhat justifiable. Some research into it on Youtube and various forums seemed to suggest that it is a worthwhile addition despite the relatively high price. So I thought I'd probably get a mahogany one because the Acacia one just seemed to be over the top expensive. But I found one on Amazon for $240 so I went for it.

So I guess this is probably the purest form of uke-crack. Small dose of uke to hold down UAS for awhile. Hopefully there won't be any more uke-crack before the Mya-Moe is completed. My expectations for the Pocket uke is actually pretty low, despite some good reviews I've read about it. It will most definitely be a novelty item for me, but hopefully it'll sound decent enough to me that I would play it once in a while. I guess I can always have my younger daughter (3 years old) play it if she wants to learn ukulele. Either way, it should be interesting, and I'll have pics and stuff here once it arrives.

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Ouch!

2010-11-21T22:22:00.003-06:00

Accidents happen, and that's no different when it comes to ukuleles. Having owned quite a number of ukuleles so far, I have actually been able to avoid serious damage to my ukes so far (knock on wood). However, it seems that lately I've been causing some damage to my ukes at a much higher rate than before. I'm not sure what's causing the sudden bout of clumsiness, but it is a little annoying. My personal feeling toward scratches and dents to my ukuleles is that these instruments are meant to be played and normal wear and tear comes with the territory and usually doesn't bother me much. However, when I cause damage to a uke, it still hurts for a day or two. I actually am more bothered when something happens to a production uke than a custom built uke because I know the customs will always stay with me but damages, even minor ones, to a production uke shaves off a lot of dollars when it comes time to move them.

Anyway, here's a quick account of my recent mis-adventures with my ukes:

Several months ago, I knocked the back of my Collings UC-1's back against the corner of an open drawer. The result is the dent you see below. It was a really dumb move on my part as I was carelessly holding the uke while opening that drawer. This ukulele is a bit of a collector's item since it's one of the prototypes built by Collings when they started making ukuleles. It has a "haircut" headstock that's only on UC-2 or above after these initial prototypes. I guess this dent will take a chunk out of its value, but I don't really foresee selling this uke anytime soon, so I wasn't too bummed about it.

A couple of weeks ago I had the Kanile'a super-soprano in its case without the latch closed while it was on the passenger seat of my car. When I arrived home and went to grab the case, I had completely forgotten that the case was not latched and as I picked up the case, out tumbled the ukulele. I managed to catch it before it fell out of the car and hit the ground, but it had hit parts of the car and the damage had been done. A nice big dent on the lower bout edge was the result of this genius move by me. Because Kanile'a uses a UV cured polyester finish, it essentially has a plastic coat around the ukulele. Having this dent means the plastic is dented too, and you can see some plastic that turned white around the wound (the upper bout edge also has a little bit if whitening of the plastic). I knew there is no repairing this type of finish before, and looking at this dent confirms it. While there is no crack or other structural damage to this ukulele, I was quite bummed when this happened because I had been planning to sell this ukulele. Now, I pretty much had been planning to sell this uke for the past year or so, but I was really getting ready to put it up for sale because the recent arrival of my Glyph had made this ukulele pretty redundant. Even so, I dragged my feet on selling it because it's got some pretty nice and unique looking curly koa and it is a very nice sounding ukulele. So when this accident happened I knew the dent probably cost me close to half of the value this ukulele had. Oh well, it still makes a great "beater" and I guess I probably secretly wanted to keep it anyway.

Yes, I actually caused some damage to my Glyph! Just last week while grabbing it from the side of my couch, I somehow whiffed and scraped the back of the neck with my thumbnail on my left hand. The result was a visible wide scratch on the back of the neck. Because this ukulele is French Polished, this type of damage is possible from one's fingernail. No, my thumbnail was not especially long or sharp, so I guess it means I need to be a bit more careful with this ukulele. While it sucked looking at this scratch at first, I got over it pretty quickly because as I mentioned earlier, this is a uke I'll always keep (it's not like I can sell it with my initials on the fretboard) so scratch and dents will just be treated as "character marks".

Well, I sure hope I stop causing damage to my ukes in the future. Scratch and dents to ukes isn't the end of the world, but they are sure annoying.

Mighty Uke: More random commentary

2010-11-19T21:21:00.003-06:00

Before I wrote some comments on the movie Mighty Uke! in the last post, I had watched it a couple of times. I watched it again after that and I figure perhaps I can post some more personal comments from watching the movie. I think what I'll do is just post random comments about various things I thought while watching the movie. Some of these thoughts might make more sense if you had seen the movie, but here we go:

-Befitting a proper ukulele film, there are plenty of nice ukuleles in it. I don't remember all of the makes in there, but let's see, I remember seeing: Kamaka, Kala, Pohaku, DaSilva, Glyph, Martin, Fluke/Flea, G-String, National, Compass Rose, and many more I don't recall. Strangely, I don't think there were any KoAlohas, Ko'olaus, or Kanile'as in the movie. So it appears that the "Hawaiian K's" is only represented by Kamaka and "G"-String. But I could have just forgot about seeing the other K's too.

-James Hill has a lot of ukes for being a virtuoso. In my mind, most virtuosos tend to stick with one instrument. But apparently not him. I think he played two or three different G-String James Hill signature models in the movie. For sure he played a slotted headstock version and a Telecaster headstock version. He also has a DaSilva James Hill Signature model and I know he has a few lap steel ukes, including a Mya-Moe. Come to think of it, he probably leads the ukulele world in signature model ukuleles.

-That British lady who worked for some rock magazine talks in a rather "interesting" way: "...(some rock stars) played ukes, loved ukes, had ukes." & "...people you took seriously, took it seriously, but in a not-serious way..." I don't know, maybe I'm just strange, but the way she spoke weirded me out a little bit.

-I could hardly believe it when I heard the words "Hip-Hop Ukulele". Remember "Jazz Yodoling" from the McGriddle radio commercial???

-I guess that hip-hop ukulele dude is kind of interesting. His name is Jon Braman, and it turns out he is the father of hip-hop ukulele! I guess I've always thought pretty much anything can be played on the uke, and this proves it. While I don't think this kind of music is my cup of tea, I have to admit it takes a lot of talent (and a good memory) to perform this stuff. Just check out some of the lyrics of his music on his website. It almost reads like a novel.

-In my last post I said that the movie kind of pinned the downfall of the ukulele on Tiny Tim. Well, I suppose after seeing his performance in the film, most would probably agree too. :p

-The Langley Ukulele Ensemble is friggin' talented! I didn't realized just how insane their skills are until maybe the second time I watched the movie. I think the first scene of them is when they are rehearsing "Flight of the Bumblebee". That is really difficult stuff! At least for me. I'm guessing I would not come close to making the LUE if I tried.

-The first time I've seen Uni was on Pohaku's website, where her custom ukulele is shown. I had never heard her music until this movie and I have to say I like her music. I haven't ordered her CD or downloaded any of her music yet (it seems like I haven't bought any music outside of ukulele instrumentals for quite a while now), but what was in the movie sounded really nice.

-I don't know, there were a few scenes that had probably close to a hundred ukes all strumming the same thing, and I was not enjoying that sound. When multiple ukes all play the same thing with the same strum, it always sounds like a lot of droning to me, and that's not too enjoyable. Maybe I'm the only one who feels that way, but I much rather hear multiple ukes all playing different parts of a song. Of course, that becomes really hard when you have a hundred ukes playing together...

Anyway, that's all I can remember for now. I guess if I think of anything else I'll add to it. Having watched the movie several times now I will say that I think it's pretty entertaining. Try to watch it if you haven't!

Mighty Uke!

2010-11-11T14:25:00.004-06:00

I might be late to the party on this, but I've only recently seen the ukulele documentary, Mighty Uke. I don't know exactly when this movie premiered, but I think it was close to a year ago. Anyway, since it's a ukulele documentary, I figured I must watch it so I ordered a DVD. I got it a few weeks ago and have watched it a couple of times. The main point of the movie is to discuss how the ukulele made it's "comeback". I would say that I've enjoyed the movie quite a bit, I mean, it IS about the ukulele. It gave some history of how the ukulele came into being and discussed the ukulele through many interviews with various people having to do with the ukulele as well as sort of a case study of the Langley Ukulele Ensemble. I did wish there were a few more things they covered with this documentary. Specifically, I would have liked to see more about the fall of the ukulele. I think the film basically pinned the fall of the ukulele on Tiny Tim and rock 'n roll music. I felt there should have been more devoted to the fall of the ukulele since the film is about the "comeback". From the movie I didn't feel like there was all that much to "comeback" from for the ukulele, to be honest. I think it would have been more fascinating if more time was devoted to why the ukulele fell out of favor in parts of the world outside Hawaii. I would have also liked to have seen some interviews with the Ukulele Underground crew to represent some of the younger generation of ukulele players. But in fairness they can't cover everything ukulele so it's understandable that not everyone could be included. Aside from the main feature, there are also 10 short films about various ukulele related people and things. Those short films are pretty interesting and are a pretty nice bonus.

All in all, I found it an enjoyable viewing experience, especially since I am a ukulele nut. I'm not exactly sure if it's a movie that would convert the non-uke fans though. But for anyone with any interest in music or musical instruments, it should be an interesting watch. Check it out if you haven't yet.

Thoughts about the Jake Shimabukuro signature model...

2010-11-09T21:26:00.004-06:00

How about a little controversial post from the Ghetto???

A few days ago someone posted about the receiving the Jake Shimabukuro signature model (video here) tenor ukulele on the Ukulele Underground forums. It is the 25th example in a limited edition of 100 ukes build by Kamaka and sold via a lottery system several years ago for the price of $5500. Assuming this is either the latest one, or close to the latest one completed by Casey Kamaka, they have over 70 of these still to be built and delivered to owners who won the right to purchase this model.

It doesn't take long from reading this blog that I'm pretty much a Jake Shimabukuro junkie. I try to learn every Jake song within my playing capability (still can't play 3rd Stream, I'm afraid). I order custom ukes that pay homage to Jake's uke. I attend Jake's concert almost every time he comes to town. So it's a little weird that I really have not felt much desire or jealousy for this Jake Shimabukuro signature model. Yes, I think it looks great and despite never having played it (not many people on the face of this earth have), I have no doubt that it should be a superb sounding instrument. Why do I not feel much lust toward it? I guess it might make a semi-interesting post to examine it.

Ok, so the first thing that throws me off would be the $5500 price tag. Although judging from my stash o' ukes it might look like I'm a pretty extravagant person, in reality I rarely lust after something I can't afford. Yes, I've spent much more than the asking price of this ukulele on ukes, but I've never spent that in one shot. I actually don't think $5500 is too outrageous for one ukulele, but up to this point I haven't been truly interested in a uke in that price range because I don't consider it something I can comfortably afford.

Now let's take a look at what that $5500 buy (without having actually examined one in person, of course, so we're dealing with some hypotheticals here). You get a tenor sized ukulele with some seriously nice master grade koa that's trimmed with the same abalone and red piping around the purfling and rosette. You get an ebony fretboard with the "JS" monogram logo inlaid on it. You get a solid headstock in the same shape as the one found on Jake's previous ukulele with what looks to be some Schaller tuners on it. Also part of the package is a nice Ameritage case and some documentation telling you it is a Jake Shimabukuro model. The first problem I would have with this is the fact that this uke does not have a slotted headstock. Slotted headstocks have become wildly popular with uke fans because of Jake Shimabukuro. I find it a bit disappointing that his signature model does not come with one. Sure, the Kamaka slotted headstock takes a lot more work than the regular solid headstocks. And the Gilbert tuners found on Jake's actual ukulele costs $160 per set. But you'd figure $5500 would be able to cover that. My guess is that they want to keep Jake's ukulele unique, and I can understand that. But how about doing a modified slotted headstock without the binding around it? People buying this uke want to pretend to be Jake (I certainly would), why not provide them with the full slotted headstock fueled experience?

Another fundamental problem with this program, in my opinion, is that Kamaka is essentially building 100 identical custom built ukuleles and discontinuing their custom program for the general public (I think they build a few for some artists). I believe the lottery occurred in 2006, so assuming they've built 30 of the 100 ukes so far, it will be another 8 to 10 years before they are able to accept custom orders again. So instead of some cool and special one-off custom Kamakas out there, we get 100 cool and special but identical custom Kamaka ukes for the next decade. Sure 100 ukes is but a drop in the bucket in the ukulele universe, but it seems to me the world would be more interesting if people got to order specially designed customs from Kamaka. As much a Jake fan as I am, I really would rather have my own initials on a ukulele I paid $5500 for instead of Jake's (you didn't see me putting "JS" on my Glyph did you?) regardless of how much of a hack I am at playing the ukulele.

I know some people would argue that having a proper Jake Shimabukuro signature model would make it hold its value a lot more instead of true customs, and I completely agree. These JS signature models could be turned around for a minimum $3000 profit today by the lucky winners who got to purchase these ukes from Kamaka. But speaking personally, the more I spend on a uke, the more I'd want to play it (i.e. put dents and scratches on it) and the more I would feel like having it as a family heirloom. So at least for me resale value would be a non-issue. I know many people treat expensive instruments with kid gloves and want to keep them pristine, but I feel that if an instrument is truly worth the high price, it must be a great player and therefore needs to be played. One of these JS ukes in my hands probably would lose value from all the strum marks I'd put on it.

It may sound like I'm bad mouthing this ukulele. I hope you can read carefully and understand my point, which is not at all bashing this model. I think it is a great ukulele and I would certainly take one if I could. But I'd really rather have a proper Kamaka custom with a slotted headstock, my initials on the fretboard, and other custom appointments I'd want. And I guess that would the point of this post. Thanks to the existence of this model, that's not going to be an option until perhaps a decade later.

So, if you own one of these babies and you're reading this, please don't feel offended. I truly think you're very lucky to own such a great ukulele and you should be ecstatic to pretty much own a piece of Jake Shimabukuro. But I will gladly strum away on my custom Kings and Glyph in my little corner of the ukulele world.

Peace, Love, and Ukulele baby!

It's Mya-Mine!!!

2010-11-05T16:10:00.001-05:00

In a totally predictable move, I have placed an order for a Mya-Moe ukulele. As of now it will be a concert sized "Tradition" model with a 14-fret neck join and a body made with curly myrtle. I also asked for a 1.5" nut width, no markers on the fret-board face, and an extra side dot at the 15th fret (usually they don't put a side dot on 15 for concert size).

So this will be the 6th custom ordered ukulele in my stash '0 ukes, not counting the Aaron Taylor that I bought second hand. It goes without saying that UAS is a pretty lethal disease. Just when you think you're done with it, you buy two more ukes without sell off any....

I guess in my defense, I believe I'm getting something that I have not gotten before. That is, a made to order ukulele from a large scale custom builder. As I wrote a couple of days ago, I do think their approach to building should yield fast refinement of their instruments and from all the positive comments on their ukes, I believe the quality will be there. I also finally get that myrtle ukulele I've wanted. The fact that myrtle is a local wood for Mya-Moe also makes this a little bit more justifiable. In my mind anyway.

My promised start date for the ukulele is March 23rd, with an estimated completion of April 27th. I have yet to have a custom built ukulele come anywhere close to the original estimated completion date, but it seems that chances are good that this one will make that ETA. Mya-Moe tweets progress pictures on their Twitter account, myamoeukuleles, so you can always just follow them to see everyone's Mya-Moe progress pictures, including mine.

Anyway, I look forward to checking out the Mya-Moe myrtle concert. Hopefully my interest in them is justified.

Arrival of a zebra...

2010-11-04T11:42:00.004-05:00

Well, the Lanikai SZW-C I've ordered a few days ago has arrived. I haven't gotten around to playing it or anything but I thought I'd share a few initial observations.

First impression when I took it out of the case is that it's fairly heavy. For some reason I was imagining a fairly light ukulele. But I think I did read somewhere that zebrawood is pretty dense, so it makes sense that it has a little heft to it. One surprise so far is that the fretboard is actually bound with either ebony or rosewood. I've seen some ukes at this price range with plastic bound fretboards, but I don't think I've encountered one bound with wood, so that's pretty nice. The workmanship seems to be pretty good. I'd say above average for an Asian factory instrument. The slotted headstock is extremely chunky, more so than any slotted headstock I currently have, and I consider that a plus because one of the reasons I like slotted headstocks is because they are usually chunkier than solid headstocks. In that respect this one definitely delivers. The neck and headstock are well shaped. I'm guessing the neck is a 5-piece construction with skunk-stripe down the middle made by a 3 piece rosewood/maple/rosewood stack sandwitched by the neck wood (mahogany?) rather than laminated in, but I'm not sure. The heel is not stacked so it has the appearance of a one-piece-neck whether or not the skunk-stripe is laminated in or part of a 5-piece construction. The zebrawood grain pattern looks good and I didn't find any glaring issues upon initial examination.

I will probably comment on sound and go over this ukulele a bit more later, but I'd give it a Ukulele Ghetto thumbs up for initial quality.

Here are a few quick unboxing pics:

That pesky UAS....

2010-11-04T00:08:00.003-05:00

I've been pretty much free of UAS for the past year or so. However, I knew UAS never really goes away and I think I'm getting a little bit of the UAS itch again. I have already ordered a Lanikai Zebrawood concert that I really have no business getting (should be arriving on today). And now I'm getting intrigued by a relative newcomer to the ukulele world. Mya-Moe.

Mya-Moe (pronounced "Mai-ya, Mo-eh") came onto the scene with some interesting resonator ukuleles in 2008. While I found them kind of interesting, I had pretty much no interest in them when I first learned about Mya-Moe because I had already went through a National resonator and decided that resonators weren't for me. I really had not paid too much attention to this builder after some initial surfing of their website. They did build traditional ukuleles, but they were not true customs in the sense that you can design whatever you want, but rather more like built to order models with options limited to wood choices and appointments.

Fast forward to now. Since the arrival of my long awaited Glyph mezzo-soprano, I had gotten a jolt of motivation to learn some new songs and also started checking out ukuleles again (it also helped that I had acquired a "grail" in the "other" hobby). Mya-Moe has been getting some serious buzz on the Ukulele Underground forums, so I've been taking a closer look. What I found intrigued me quite a bit. For starters, I've long wanted a ukulele made with Myrtle wood, as forecasted before. Mya-Moe seems to have made Myrtle one of the main options for their ukuleles, as their location makes Myrtle a local wood. Even though I have a Myrtle Ko'olau CE-1, it really doesn't count because I think the wood on these ukes are purely decorative. Another thing that intrigued me about Mya-Moe is that they build using a "production line" approach and their output of about 140 ukes a year gives them the unique opportunity to refine their ukes in rapid order. This makes sense because compared to a typical custom ukulele luthier, they build much more ukuleles and can try and learn more stuff in a shorter period of time. Yet the output isn't so huge that they can't individually work on each ukulele. While the ukes still aren't true customs in my book, they receive individual attention from the luthiers and the end product promises to sound as good or even better than a typical custom built ukulele.

So I've been contemplating the possibility of adding a Mya-Moe myrtle concert to my stash of ukuleles. I'm not sure how realistic it is at this point, as I REALLY don't need another ukulele, and I'm low on play money at the moment (3 kids sure costs a lot of moola! LOL!), but if I really wanted to order one, I think I can sell off some of my collection of "stuff" to fund it. I guess since I'm even writing this post, the possibility of it happening is kind of high. We'll see. Haha!

In the event this does happen, you can be sure I'll write something about that here. I guess UAS resides in my blood....

143 means I Love You...

2010-11-02T18:56:00.006-05:00

Jake Shimabukuro is in town for a concert tonight (The Cedar in Minneapolis) for the 4th time in the last 3 years. That's almost mind boggling when I think about it. The Twin Cities isn't exactly a hotbed for ukulele yet each time I went, the shows were sold out. Sure, the show at the 1500 seat Ordway a couple of years ago wasn't actually sold out, but considering there was a big snow storm that night, the turn out was pretty phenomenal. I think during the last time he was here, he mentioned that his manager has some ties to the Twin Cities, so I guess that explains why he has been here relatively frequently.

Anyway, I wasn't able to go this time, as I didn't find out about it until fairly late (although that was a couple of months ago) and decided against making arrangements to go. The three shows I've been to by and large were the same. I never did get to see Jake play Going to California or Thriller, which I wish he would have played, but I did enjoy the show each time. I bet he will play some songs I have not heard him play live this time. Maybe even Bohemian Rhapsody. Oh well. Hopefully he has a few more trips here in the future and I can catch another show.

Oh yeah, I guess I should get to the title of this post. I had some time alone with my baby son tonight at home, and I had been planning to take a video of me playing 143, so I tried playing it while holding the baby. He is almost 6 months old now and he has been a pretty good little boy so far. I did about 3 takes playing this song and he was pretty good sitting through them. You definitely can't do that while playing a guitar! LOL!

143 is a very simple song. The fact that I can actually play it halfway decently while holding a baby kind of proves it. It might be the easiest Jake Shimabukuro song I've tried to learn. I'll throw out some of the fingering for this if you are interested in learning. The only difficult part has to do with the opening "chorus", where your middle finger has to do a pretty severe bend to hit the A-string. My hand actually hurts after playing this song, so that's no joke!

Anyway, the chorus goes something like this (it would probably make more sense if you sound out the stuff I'm writing below and compare with the video above):

Strum
2400

Alternate strumming between
2400
2404
2404
2400
2405
2405

and

2400
2404
2404
2400
2402 (This hurts!)
2402

Then it's:

Alternate strumming between

2200
2204
2204
2200
2205
2205

and

2200
2204
2204
2200
2202
2202

strum
4220
4222
slide up to
6444
back to 4222

Picking part:

Out of this chord

2240

Pick in this string order
C, E, G, A, G, E, C

Then out of this chord

1120

Pick in this string order
C, E, G, A, G, E, C

Then these three chords picked in the same string order as above
2240
4440
6654

The "interlude":

strum
6400
4300
3200
2100

On the way back to 6400
strum

4200

The "ending":

a) strum
2100
4200
6400

b) then strum
6400
7600
9800

c) then strum
11-900
9800
7600

d) then strum
9800
7600
6400

Repeat

At the very last run through the ending, after part c):

strum
11-900
13-11-00
14-13-00

That's pretty much the entire song. I don't know if the above makes any sense. If not, please leave me a comment here if you have any questions.

Headstock lust!

2010-11-01T17:27:00.001-05:00

I have been relatively UAS free over the last year or so. Other than a Mainland slotted headstock concert and a Ko'olau CE-1, I have not bought ukuleles at anywhere near the pace I once did. The Mainland was basically bought because I loved slotted headstocks and it was so rare to find one attached to a concert sized ukulele I had to get it. I've since done an incomplete Smackdown comparison of it and the Collings UC-1 and sold it off. The CE-1 was purchased during a trip to Oahu earlier this year. It's safe to say if I did not go to Hawaii this year, I would not have bought that one. I mean, how can you resist buying a uke when in paradise??? So, I think I've been relatively restraint when it comes to UAS.

Lately, however, I've been very interested in a certain Lanikai zebrawood concert. The first reason I noticed this ukulele is the zebrawood body. It is solid zebrawood and that got my attention. My very first ukulele was a Leolani laminated zebrawood supersoprano. I can't say I had any special interest in zebrawood back then, but now when I see zebrawood, it reminds me of that very first ukulele (which is probably collecting dust at a friend's house right now. I suppose I should get it back). That's a pretty fond memory so I was excited to see solid zebrawood ukuleles appearing from Ohana a year or so ago. Since I'm currently more into the concert sized ukulele, I was interested in the concert version of the Lanikai zebrawood. The second thing that got me interested, of course, is the slotted headstock. As far as I know, other than the aforementioned Mainland, this Lanikai and its Monkeypod brother are the only concert sized ukuleles on the market with a slotted headstock. Slot heads are right up my alley and I find the shape of Lanikai's better than the Mainland's slot head (I've come to realize that I'm not blindly in love with all slotted headstocks. The actual shape has to be pleasing to my eyes). The third reason I wanted this ukulele is because that it supposedly came with a 37mm wide nut. That's pretty close to my preferred 1.5" width and most of the imported ukes are 1-3/8", including all other Lanikai's outside of the Zebrawood/Monkeypod family.

So that's basically the weak reasoning I gave myself to pull the trigger on this ukulele. I think I've mentioned around here that I have no excuse to buy any more ukes, and I can't really come up with any now. The main thing is that this ukulele is pretty affordable-I've seen it between $200~$250-so the price is right to experiment. I have no idea how long I will end up keeping this one, but I will plan to review it in some way once I have it in hand. I'm hoping that it will be up to par sonically. To me, it has the looks part covered.

Stay tuned...

Kiss From a Rose cover

2010-10-28T23:38:00.003-05:00

As mentioned previously on this blog, I've been digging a couple of Kalei Gamiao's ukulele arrangements. I started trying to learn his version of Kiss From a Rose but ended up getting Mach 4 down first. After taking the Mach 4 video yesterday, I practiced Kiss From a Rose a bit tonight and did a few takes with the camcorder. I got a take I thought was decent so it was uploaded.

Unlike Mach 4, there really aren't any parts that are technically difficult in this song, but overall I think it's a little harder to play. Maybe because there are more parts in this song, but it took me longer to memorize how it goes.

I decided to play this using the William King LS-concert because I have not been giving it much love lately and because there's a pull-off at the 15th fret that was kind of hard to execute on the Glyph mezzo-soprano. While playing this ukulele during the 4 or 5 takes for this video, I was reminded how great this ukulele sounds. The notes really ring out when you play it and the sustain is very nice. While I have to admit I'm currently more partial to the type of sound coming out of the Glyph, the King LS-concert is still great and doesn't really take a backseat to any ukulele as far as sound quality is concerned.

Anyway, here's the video. I hope you find it to be decent.

Mach 4 cover

2010-10-28T00:07:00.003-05:00

OK, so since I figured out how to play Mach 4, I've been playing it whenever I'm playing my ukuleles. So after posting Mach 3 a couple of days ago, I tried a few takes playing the whole thing. Since I don't think I've ever been able to make a video playing mistake-free ukulele, I thought a couple of the takes were passable so I uploaded one. This is without a doubt one of the most enjoyable songs I've ever played on the ukulele, and it's not really that difficult once you know how to play it (of course, if you're aiming to play exactly like Kalei, then it's pretty friggin' difficult/impossible). I find it strangely relaxing to play despite the speed it's supposed to be played.

Anyway, here it is.

Mach 3...because it's not quite Mach 4...

2010-10-26T00:09:00.007-05:00

Since I found the Kalei Gamiao video Mach 4 (posted right below this post) last week, I've been working hard at learning it. When I first saw it I thought there's no way I could play it. It seemed like a song that's totally over my head and beyond my playing abilities. Still, I attempted playing the rather challenging looking and sounding intro and after a couple of days of noodling around with it, I actually could play a decent facsimile of that intro part. So I watched the video more intensely and figured out how to play it for the most part. I'm by no means any good at it yet, as there are a couple of sections that are really challenging and totally kicks my butt (as you can obviously see). But I'm pretty psyched that I'm even on my way to learning this one, so I've made a video of it. Since it's mistake filled and not very smooth yet, it's not quite Mach 4, so I present to you its ghetto brother, Mach 3:

And by the way, the ukulele in the video is the Glyph mezzo-soprano. I'm really loving this ukulele right now. It's got such a crisp and thumping sound and I'm finding myself liking the matte French Polished finish a lot more than I thought I would. With apologies to luthiers who made some of the other fine ukuleles in my collection, I must say right now the Glyph mezzo-soprano is my favorite.

Kalei Gamiao: Awesome!

2010-10-25T17:06:00.000-05:00

I must admit I haven't really looked up many professional players out there. Other than Jake Shimabukuro, Aldrine Guerrero, and a few others, I haven't been exposed to too many ukulele virtuosos out there.

Last week I stumbled upon a video of "Kiss from a Rose" played by Kalei Gamiao. I thought it was a cool arrangement and began working on learning it. Later I checked out another video of him playing his own composition called "Mach 4" and I was floored by it. So now I'm trying hard to learn that one too. Perhaps I'm one of the last ukulele fans to discover Kalei Gamiao's stuff, but if you haven't seen him play, check it out.

Ukulolo?? Burger??? ????

2010-10-14T17:00:00.004-05:00

One of my all time favorite ukulele compositions is a nameless song found on Youtube that's composed by Tyler Gilman of the Waikiki ukulele shop Ukulele Puapua. I've wanted to learn this since I first saw it, probably a couple of years ago, but it looked so far over my head at the time that I never really gave it much of a try. When I was in Hawaii this past March, I got the urge to try this song after visiting Ukulele Puapua a couple of times. I kind of figured out the first passage of the song but gave up shortly after that because it still seemed pretty daunting and I didn't feel like trying that hard to learn it. Fast forward to yesterday. For some reason I was looking for that video again and found a couple of covers for it as well. I checked out one of the covers done by a couple of Korean guys (well, the video had Korean words in it so I assume they are Korean) and it had a pretty clear shot of the fretboard so I figure it would be easier to try to learn from it.

After working on it a little bit, I noticed that there are a couple of other covers on the Youtube page and clicked one that had the title "Sharing a Burger". It was the same song and I soon discovered that there are a few covers out there covering this Burger cover (one rather funny cover has a couple of guys playing this while walking in a grocery store). I then went to Ukulele Underground forums and searched for Burger to see if anything turns up, and sure enough there's a thread with tabs to this song (if you want the tabs, just do the same thing I did, search for Burger in the UU forums' tabs section). It turns out the guys from Sharing a Burger covered the song, which is actually called Ukulolo (CD available at PuaPua), and called it Burger because the Youtube video didn't have a name for the song. I was pretty happy to locate the Burger tabs because it would make learning the song quicker than trying to figure it out from watching the videos. Since I already could play the first passage, the rest of the song came surprisingly easily armed with the tabs (pretty decent but not completely accurate) and the clearer videos. By the time I went to bed yesterday, I more or less got the solo part of the song figured out. The weird thing is that the backing chords seem harder to decipher and I'll need to figure that out some other time.

I think I'll try to make a video playing this song because I think this is such a great sounding tune. Too bad I can't really play a duet with myself, so I might have to just post something with either the backing chords in the background or just play over the CD. This would be fun to play with another ukulele player. Hmm...maybe sometime when I could make it to StrumMN again I could have someone try it???

Trapped!

2010-10-10T21:30:00.007-05:00

One of the songs I've been learning in recent months was Jake Shimabukuro's Trapped. (Yes, I realize the instrument I'm playing is called the uke, not the jake, but I guess I'm a fanboy...) This is the first song on his Live album and I've heard it at his concert twice. I think he explained that it's some sort of an Egyptian beat that kind of goes like 1,2-1,2,3, 1,2-1,2,3 or something like that. It's pretty catchy and I've always liked it. It's a very short song and didn't sound too difficult so I tried to play it based on how it sounded to me. I was able to figure out something that sounded pretty close by playing the first passage this way:

GCEA
x4x2
x4x0
x43x
x42x

where I pluck the 2 strings using my thumb and index finger. However, a while later I decided to pay closer attention to the song and noticed that toward the end it didn't quite sound the same as the way I played it. So I looked up a few Youtube videos and upon examination it looked like Jake was playing the song out of a completely different position as I've been playing it. So I tried to mimic it and ended up playing the first passage this way:

I:
x47x
x45x
x43x
x42x

This is played with my index and middle fingers plucking the 2 strings and the thumb picking C-4 after the x47x chord. Playing it this way made the whole song sound more like what the CD sounded like. The rest of the progression look like this:

II:
x57x
x58x
xx57
xx55
x57x
x58
x55x
x57x

III:
x47x
x45x
x43x
x42x
x47x
x48x
x45x
x47x

IV:
x37x
x35x
x33x
x32x
x37x
x38x
x35x
x37x

V:
x00x
x02x
x03x
x05x

VI:
x22x
x23x
x25x
x27x

strum
2322
2323

That's basically everything except for the ending, which was the main difference between how I originally played this and how I play it now:

x47x
x45x
x23x
x22x

x22x
x23x
three times

x00x
xx3x (hammer on)
x00x

x22x
xx5x
x22x

x23x
slide to x47x

strum 0477

Anyway, I don't know if any of the above make any sense, but if you want to give this song a shot, it might help. Below is a video of an attempt at this song.

Evolution of the Glyph mezzo soprano

2010-10-09T22:10:00.004-05:00

I mentioned in the last post that the Glyph mezzo soprano started out way different from what it ended up looking like. Here I will go through how it kind of evolved from the original design I had in mind to the final completed ukulele.

This picture below is the first draft of the Glyph design:

As you can see, it obviously looked nothing like the completed ukulele. Well, I guess the tail graft and the headstock inlay made it to the final build. When I drew up that picture, it was April of 2007, and I was young and stupid. Ok, so I was just stupid. But anyway, at the time I played the ukulele for all of 3 months and really didn't know a heck of a lot about custom ukes. I didn't really know what I would come to prefer in custom ukes, but the sketch was based on what appealed to me at the time. I wanted a curly koa uke, and I liked rope style bindings. Because I barely knew how to play the ukulele, I didn't pay much attention about how many frets or where it joined at the body. I had just found Uke Cast and thought the smiling ukulele logo was kind of cool so I asked for a "smiley" bridge. The crown shaped headstock was a play off my last name which means King in Chinese. Had I kept this design, I would have at least specified 18 frets with the neck joined at the 14th fret, and probably would have changed the position markers by either removing them or changed the shape. The original shield shaped position markers were "inspired" by the NFL logo, and let's just say it really doesn't quite fit the design.

Sometime in either 2008 or 2009 (I forgot when), I decided to go a completely different direction with this custom order and sent Dave this sketch:

As you can see, this sketch bears much more resemblance to the actual ukulele. By that time, I had became a huge Jake Shimabukuro fan (I don't think I knew about him when I first ordered the Glyph). Because it was still so early in the process, I could have changed the order to a concert or tenor sized ukulele. But since I already had a couple of custom ukuleles at that point and several concerts and tenors, I thought it would better compliment my stash of ukes if I kept it at the mezzo soprano size. I also did not want to increase the cost more than necessary. Anyway, I got the idea to make this a homage to Jake's ukulele, and made the above sketch. It was not meant to be an exact copy and I didn't particularly study Jake's ukulele that closely. I did notice some red pin-striping around the abalone purfling & rosette so I specified that. And instead of Jake's initials on the fretboard, I obviously went with my own initials. I sent the sketch to Dave and he confirmed that the design is doable. I know some luthiers do not do slotted headstocks for ukes smaller than the concert size, but Dave had already made a few mezzos with slotted headstocks so I knew it was fine with him.

Here is the side-by-side shot of the two sketches:

Quite different if I say so myself. This is actually the only custom ukulele order that I've drastically changed the design on. But then again, this is the only one that had a 3+ year leadtime.

In April of 2009 (as you can see on the picture), I sent Dave a small update:

That was around the time my William King LS-concert was delivered. While I was extremely happy with that ukulele, as mentioned in the last post, there was a detail that got missed when the uke was finished. It was a wave shaped fretboard end. Disappointed with that missing detail, I decided to add it onto the Glyph. In addition to that, I asked Dave to make the bridge into a wave shape similar to the fretboard end. A third detail change had to do with the top of the slots on the headstock. I had noticed that Jake's uke had these slanted slot ends on both the top and bottom of the slots, and decided to add this detail to the top of the slot on my uke. I don't remember why I didn't ask for both the top and bottom of the slot to be slanted, but I'm guessing I was concerned that doing the bottom of the slot would be too difficult or something. I wasn't sure if Dave would be on board with the wave shaped bridge, but I figure it would be fine since he was OK with the smiley bridge from the original design. Dave confirmed that all three changes were fine, so I was happy.

Sometime after that, I asked about using Gilbert tuners in place of the Waverly tuners Dave normally use on his slotted headstocks. I had ordered these tuners with the King LS-concert and they really blew me away. These tuners offered superior feel compared to anything else I've used. Of course, the fact that Jake had these on his uke drove the decision to have them on that King LS-Concert in the first place, but their performance really won me over. Dave checked on sourcing these tuners and agreed to add them to my mezzo soprano. If I'm not mistaken, I believe I ordered the first King and first Glyph with Gilbert tuners. No, it does not make me special, but just thought I'd mention it.

That was basically the end of my modifications on this ukulele. The final product more or less turned out as I've specified, minus a couple of minor things I mentioned in the last pose. Here's a picture of the ukulele next to that first sketch:

I'd say it turned out great. And that fretboard inlay designed by Dave was light years better than anything I could have come up with.

So there's a glimpse into how my Glyph mezzo soprano ended up looking like it does today. I hope you've enjoyed this little documentary.

Custom regrets???

2010-10-08T18:00:00.002-05:00

As most of you who read this blog knows, I've ordered a few custom ukuleles. The current count of custom ordered ukuleles in my stash of ukuleles is 5. While I've enjoyed each of these custom ukuleles very much, on every one there are probably things that can be improved upon or done differently based on what I know after the completion of each ukulele. I think ordering a custom ukulele is far from an exact science and a lot can be learned from one order to another. Of course, not everyone is insane like me and order multiple custom ukes. I know for many people a custom ukulele would be the end-all ukulele in their collection, so I think it might be of some help to some of you out there to learn about what I think I could have done differently with each of my custom ukulele orders.

I will present this in chronological order of ukulele received.

1. William King Long-scale Tenor

This was actually the 3rd custom ukulele I've ordered, but it was the first one completed and delivered to me. When I placed the order for this one, I had already ordered a Glyph mezzo soprano and a Kepasa Gypsy Rose, so while I had never received a custom built ukulele at that point, I had some experience with ordering one. For this ukulele, I wanted a tenor with a slotted headstock that resembled Jake Shimabukuro's Kamaka headstock. I wasn't going for an exact copy of the headstock so I just specified a flat top design with a custom inlay. Later on I learned that Jake's ukulele had Gilbert tuners that contributed to the chunky look that I loved so much about his ukulele's headstock. This would remain my biggest regret for this ukulele. I really wish I specified Gilbert tuners at the time. What I should have done was at least checked with William King on that possibility (turns out he was willing to go with Gilberts when I ordered my second King ukulele). As it stands, the uke has Waverly tuners, which are really nice but I found that I vastly prefer Gilbert tuners in both functionality and look. With Waverly tuners the headstock felt a bit thin and narrow.

Another lesser regret with this ukulele would be the lack of abalone purfling on the top. I guess this wouldn't have mattered because I would have likely ran out of funds to add that detail anyway. But I've found over the years that I really like abalone purflings. Other than the tuners and the purfling, I think this ukulele turned out very well. It's obviously a great instrument and really has everything else I want in a uke.

2. Kepasa Gypsy Rose

This was the second custom ukulele I ordered and also the second one to arrive. I ordered this one because I liked the Maccaferri style this ukulele offered. I decided to skip the extra cost on a slotted headstock and went with a custom design headstock. I basically drew a picture of the headstock shape and sent it to Kevin Crossett. The headstock turned out better than I could have hoped for, so that was very good. The only thing I kind of regret on this ukulele is that I didn't ask about the possibility of adding fretboard bindings. I'm not sure if Kevin actually build any ukes with that option, but this uke kind of needed it because the fret wires stick out ever so slightly. Since it doesn't have fretboard bindings, I ended up trying to file down the fret ends but to this day it still sticks out a little bit. It isn't terrible, but it's there. Other than that, the only other thing I might have done differently with this ukulele is perhaps pay a little more for more highly figured walnut. I'm not sure if it would have even been available, but some curly walnut would truly make this ukulele look special.

3. DaSilva Santos Replica

This ukulele is not truly a custom because Mike DaSilva builds many of these. One can specify a couple of different things here and there, such as headstock decoration and color of the pins, but they are all more or less the same. One thing I specified was a wide 1.5" nut because that's my preferred nut-width. The finished ukulele had a 1-3/8" nut despite Mike confirming at order placement that 1.5" nut is OK. I wasn't overly thrilled with that at the time, especially since this uke took about 6 more months to build than promised, but now that I think about it, a 1.5" nut on this uke probably would be a little too wide. So really, there isn't much regret for this uke. I think it looks fantastic, and it's really loud for such a puny ukulele. But maybe the regret with this one is that perhaps I shouldn't have ordered it. I think it's a really nice ukulele, but I really don't play sopranos too much so this one hasn't seen much playing time. Still, I think it's a keeper. It's simply very well made and very unique, even if it has several cousins sprinkled around the world.

4. William King LS-concert

This was the 4th custom ukulele I've ordered and by this time, I've had some experience in both ordering custom ukes and buying off the shelf ukes. So I had a pretty good idea on what I wanted. The finished ukulele was pretty much spot on except for two details. William had missed the bound fretboard and a wave shaped fretboard end I had specified. Initially I was pretty bummed about the lack of bound fretboard, because I really like them and feel that a custom ukulele really should have bound fretboards. I also am worried that the frets would stick out like the Kepasa Gypsy Rose. William did offer to build another one given the errors are not correctable by the time the uke was finished, but I thought I'd just live without them. The lack of fretboard bindings turned out to be a non-issue, because the ebony fretboard was well seasoned and never developed any shrinkage. The sides of the fretboard remain very smooth to this day, so functionally the fretboard bindings aren't missed. In fact, I think the uke might look more "together" without the koa bindings I had originally specified. Since I went with no position markers on this uke, an ebony fretboard without bindings might offer a better look.

As for the wave at the fretboard end, it wasn't a big deal to me since I wasn't sure how it would look anyway. Given the serious and somewhat classical appearance of this ukulele, I think it was probably good that the wave did not make it. Other than these two things, I don't think there are any regrets with this one. By the time I ordered this ukulele I had quite a bit of knowledge about ukuleles and pretty much specified it with everything I'd want in a custom uke. Perhaps if I had more funds I would add some abalone purfling to the back of the ukulele, but that's about it.

5. Glyph Mezzo Soprano

Well, this was actually the first ever custom ukulele I've ordered. Of course, at the time I ordered it, I knew it would be about a 3 year wait. The first sketch I sent to Dave Means is completely different from the ukulele pictured here, because halfway through the waiting time, I decided that I want a small uke that resembled Jake Shimabukuro's Kamaka. (I plan to dig out the sketches for this uke and do a post on it) After the design change, I made a couple of minor changes that included changing the tuners to Gilbert tuners from Waverly tuners and adding the wave-shaped fretboard end that my King concert was supposed to have to this ukulele. I also asked Dave about making a wave shaped bridge to match the fretboard end.

As you may have read from the last few posts I made, I really love this ukulele. However, there is one thing I wish I had added. That would be pinstripes on the sides of the bindings. I did get red pinstripes bordering the inside of the abalone top purfling and on both sides of the abalone rosette, but I should have also asked for pinstripes on the sides. It would have made the uke look more high end. Also, perhaps I could have asked about headstock bindings, as Jake's uke has them, but it was something that did not cross my mind at all. Other than these, the ukulele turned out great. Dave did miss a couple of minor things though. The "wrap-around" position markers was deleted by me at one point, but the finished uke have them. I was going for a cleaner look when I deleted them, but I guess I kind of like them now, so much like the items William King missed on my King concert, it may have turned out for the better. I had also at one point changed the fretboard binding from maple to koa, but the finished ukulele has maple bindings. When I made that change I figured that maple has a bit too much contrast to the ebony fretboard, but it turned out OK and did not stick out as much as I thought it might.

Even though there has been plenty of "regrets" in my custom ukulele ordering history, one thing that's certain is that each of these ukes have sounded great to me. And I think that's the main reason to get a custom, to get a great sounding uke made and tuned by a master builder.

One question you might ask me is that why don't I order fewer customs and put more features and details in to them? I'm not sure. Each of these custom orders occurred at a point where I had enough funds for them and had something fairly specific in mind (well maybe not when I ordered the Glyph), so I'm not sure if they could have been consolidated into fewer more decked out customs. But one thing is for sure, I've had a lot of fun ordering and designing these customs and even more fun playing them!

Anyway, if you're thinking about ordering a custom ukulele, perhaps you can learn a thing or two through my "regrets" above and order the most ideal custom possible. If nothing else, perhaps it would get you thinking about what you might have overlooked when putting together your specs. It usually takes quite a bit of patience when you order a custom ukulele (did I mention that the Glyph took 3.5 years?), but the satisfaction and joy of receiving a ukulele you've sketched so long ago really can't be described until you've experienced it.

Glyph mezzo soprano sound sample (Hula Girl)

2010-09-21T21:42:00.009-05:00

NatoUkulele on Youtube is a very talented ukulele player. Not too long ago I saw a video of his arrangement of Jake Shimabukuro's "Hula Girl" and thought it was pretty cool. I really liked the original song, but because it's meant to be played with backing music and percussion, I had not played the song much on my own. NatoUkulele's arrangement of it is a solo version and soon after seeing it I tried to learn it from watching his video. It's a bit of a hand twister in spots and as with most songs I learn I have not been able to consistently play it smoothly. However it's quite short so I could at least play it through reasonably. I took a video of it played with the new Glyph mezzo soprano using an HD video camera so you can see my screw ups more clearly. The Glyph has sounded good to my ears since I've gotten it, and I think the sound from the video is a reasonable representation of its sound.

Alternate tunings

2010-09-18T11:23:00.003-05:00

When it comes to the ukulele, I've been pretty much a traditionalist in terms of tuning. I had tried some low-G tuning, but currently every one of my ukes is tuned re-entrant C (GCEA). I guess part of it is because all the songs I know uses re-entrant tuning, but for some reason I've been reluctant to learn more low-G songs.

A couple of days ago someone at Ukulele Underground asked me to try tuning my Koa Works tenor to EAC#F#. He also owns a Koa Works and found this tuning to bring the best out of the ukulele. I figured I'd give it a shot and tuned the Koa Works down to EAC#F#. I liked what I heard but because the Koa Works already has pretty low string tension and very low playing action, the strings felt too loose and slappy. I thought perhaps the 18" scale on my William King tenor would handle this tuning better, and sure enough, it gave about the same sound without the loose strings of the Koa Works tenor.

This tuning made the King tenor sound like a mini-guitar. There is more sustain and more warmth to the sound. I thought it sounded pretty cool. The person who referred this tuning to me said he tries to tune many of his ukuleles (he has more than I do!) with a tuning that maximizes the potential of the particular ukulele. I don't think I know enough about sounds to do something like that, but I think I'll be experimenting with a couple of my ukes for sure. It's pretty cool to hear a different character from ukes you've played for a while.

I just learned the Beatles' Imagine as played by Aldrine Guerrero from Dominator's tabs, and I thought this song worked pretty well with this tuning. So I shot a quick video of it this morning. I only had time for about 2 takes and I was far from perfect (as usual), but maybe this will give you some idea what EAC#F# sounds like. Try it at home today!

Some shots of the Glyph "Mini-Jake"

2010-09-16T15:00:00.004-05:00

While taking the comparison shots for the previous post, I took some pictures of the Mini-Jake by itself. I'm really digging this ukulele right now. Besides nailing the looks for me, the ukulele is also sounding great to my ears. It sounds similar to my Koa Works tenor and Kepasa Gypsy Rose in that it has a fairly boomy but crystal clear sound. I guess it's a sound typical of a high-end koa ukulele, which it is. The scale length, being pretty much the same as a concert sized ukulele, is easy for me to play, although the high frets past the 12th is understandably more cramped compared to my King long-scale concert (by far my most played ukulele since its acquisition). But it should be easy to get used to that.

Let's go to some pictures:

This shot shows the monogram of my initials on the fretboard as well as the matte looking sheen the French Polish gives off for the surface finish. You may see a different reflection at the upper bout. That's from the clear pickguard Dave installed for me. I tend to scratch up the upper bout quite a bit, and this being a really thin French polish finish, I figured some protection is a good idea.

The tail graft with custom inlay. At one point I thought about replacing the inlay with a pickup, but decided later to keep the inlay. I have enough other ukes with pickups anyway, and I figure on a smaller ukulele it's better to not have more things inside than necessary.

The slotted headstock with the Gilbert tuners. I'm a huge fan of Gilbert tuners, and had to have it for this uke. But they do require a rather thick headstock. While I love the thick look, I was a little worried that these tuners would be too big for a mezzo soprano. Now that I have the uke in hand, that concern proved to be unfounded. I personally think the headstock look great and well proportioned for the uke.

I thought the slotted headstock might make the weight bias toward the head too much, but the ukulele turned out really well balanced. I feel pretty much no head-heaviness while playing it.

The wrap-around fret markers. I had actually asked Dave to go with just traditional side markers so that the only thing on the fretboard would be the monogram, but I guess he missed that detail. It might be good that he missed it though, because I like these wrap-around markers. I think they're pretty cool.

A shot of the body. I asked for red lines around the purfling and rosette because Jake Shimabukuro's uke had red highlights in those areas. Yes, I'm a fanboy...

The back. I think the koa looks nice on this ukulele.

That's a quick introduction to the Glyph "Mini-Jake". I will try to post some videos with it soon. Stay tuned!

Size comparison of Glyph Mezzo Soprano

2010-09-15T18:05:00.004-05:00

So exactly how big is a Glyph mezzo soprano? To answer that question, I took a few pictures comparing several different sized ukuleles:

From the left, it is: Kiwaya KTS-7, Glyph mezzo soprano, Collings UC-1, & William King ls-concert. As you can see the body size of the mezzo is somewhere between a standard soprano (Kiwaya) and standard concert (Collings). The scale length is just a little bit shorter than the concert.

Compared to a Kanile'a super soprano (right), the mezzo soprano has a slightly larger body and longer overall length.

I guess technically this ukulele is a long-scale mezzo soprano, since the scale length is lengthened a bit over the regular mezzo soprano because I wanted the neck join at the 14th fret. Dave builds 14-fret ukes with a longer scale length to get the bridge at the sweet spot on the sound board.

So now you know how big a Glyph mezzo soprano is. I'm not sure how useful that information is, but just in case anyone wonders...

Glyph Mezzo Soprano: The unboxing!

2010-09-14T11:01:00.007-05:00

So the Glyph Mezzo soprano has arrived! I don't think I've ever ordered something three and a half years in advance, but I guess there's a first for everything. Anyway, the ukulele is sweet and let's go into the unboxing right away. I'll post some initial thoughts at the end of the post.

The shipping box. Get those bubble wraps out of there!

There is the case. The Glyph is so close I can feel it.

Cool little touch. The case has a Glyph logo plate on it.

There it is, the Glyph "Mini-Jake" in all its glory!

Closeup of the body. The koa is nice and curly. Notice the matching wave pattern on the bridge and fretboard-end.

Slotted headstock on this bad boy. It is somewhat modeled after Jake Shimabukuro's slotted headstock, with the same Gilbert tuners. The Chinese character of my last name appears pretty much exactly as the graphic I sent to Dave. Very impressive.

The monogram on the fretboard. Dave Means totally nailed it. I don't think I could have imagined it being any better then what he came up with. Also notice the wrap-around fret markers on this and the last pictures. It's pretty cool but does take a little getting used to.

Another shot of the koa body.

Soundhole label. It looks like this was the 18th Glyph Mezzo Soprano made.

This ukulele is for all intents and purposes, a super-soprano. I compared it with my Kanile'a super soprano and found the body size to be about the same while the scale length is maybe a few millimeters less. The Glyph's total length is longer than the Kanile'a thanks to the slotted headstock. Despite that big headstock, the Glyph feels pretty well balanced to me, with no detectable weight bias toward the headstock. The entire ukulele is pretty light too, which I knew was a hallmark of Dave Means' ukes. It definitely feel nice to hold. I will try to post some pictures of the Glyph with other ukes to give an idea of it's size soon.

It sounds really nice too. The uke came strung with Aquila strings, which I normally do not use and will probably switch to Worths sometime soon. But it still sounds very nice with those string. It has a very resonant body and the notes really ring out. I think the sound is similar to the Kanile'a super soprano but it is tighter and seems more focused. Sound is always hard to describe for me, so I will post a video impression of this uke sometime soon.

Overall, this uke is definitely worth the wait and I think I'll be playing it very often. Is it my favorite? It's too soon to tell, but my guess it will reside at the very top of the rotation with the King long-scale concert in the long run.

Glyph is finished!

2010-09-08T20:17:00.004-05:00

Well, almost three and a half years after placing an order for the Glyph ukulele on April 4th, 2007, it is finally completed. Dave has sent me the final set of construction pictures and it is set to ship to me at the end of the week. Woohoo!

When I placed that order in 2007, it was only about 2 months after I played a ukulele for the very first time. I was already well on my way to an out of control UAS wild ride that has seen over 20 (maybe even 30) ukuleles pass through my hands to this day. At the time, I recognized that a custom Glyph was quite a bargain and I figured that by the time the ukulele is complete, I'd be somewhat proficient at playing the instrument to justify a nice uke. Now that I think about it, it was quite a big leap of faith. I mean, I was only 2 months into playing the instrument and ordering the Glyph was basically an instant 3 year commitment to playing it. It turned out that sticking with playing the ukulele was never an issue for me, but I could have easily lost interest during the time between order placement and now. Luckily for me, here we are, I'm still addicted to playing the ukulele, and I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of this "mini-Jake" ukulele!

Here are the final set of construction pics:

Leveling the frets

Checking the frets with precision straightedges of different lengths

Dressing the fret ends

Gluing on the bridge

Front of the ukulele after stringing up (Notice the wave shaped bridge to go with the wave at the end of the fretboard)

Back of the ukulele after stringing up

Home stretch for Glyph!

2010-08-29T00:42:00.005-05:00

I just got an update from Dave Means last night about my Glyph mezzo-soprano. It sounds like we're a couple of weeks from completion. Things are looking pretty good for my "mini-Jake" ukulele. It's been a while since I've bought a uke, and I can honestly say I haven't felt any UAS for quite a while now, but I'm getting a little excited to finally get my hands on this one. After all, it is three and a half years in the making. I guess I got to get going on getting proficient on a new song so I can post a halfway decent video with it once it arrives.

Anyway, onto the pics:

Fine tuning the fit of the neck to the body

Pressing in the frets

The fretted board

Gluing on the fretboard

Gluing on the headstock overlay

Drilling the holes for the tuner shafts

Cleaning up the headstock slots

Ramping the headstock slots

Test-fitting the neck

The uke after fitting the neck

Close-up of the headstock (the tuners are not screwed in yet)

Glyph Update!

2010-07-24T00:08:00.007-05:00

It's been a while since I've been able to post the progress of my Glyph, but today I received another set of pictures from Dave Means, so I can finally make another post.

Looking at this set of pictures, it dawned on my just how custom this one is going to be. It has the Chinese character of my last name in two places (headstock & tail graft) and my initial on the fretboard. It's safe to say that even if I wanted to sell it someday (which is, of course, not an option!) , I most likely won't be able to. But that's OK, because this ukulele is meant to be a family heirloom anyway.

Dave mentioned that he is starting work on slotted headstock. Once that's done, I think all the parts of the ukulele will be complete. Then it will be onto finishing. Since Dave uses French polish for the finish on his ukes, it will take quite some time before it is done. I guess I'll be lucky to see this uke by the fall. But I'm nothing if not patient. Besides, I've waited over 3 years for this uke, what's another few months?

Anyway, without further ado, here are the pics:

Preparing to rout the binding/purfling ledges

Inlaying the abalone purfling

Spraying the ebony binding with water in preparation for bending

The bindings coming out of the bender

Installing the top bindings

The body after sanding and wiping with one coat of shellac to reveal spots requiring more sanding

Slotting the fretboard

Thicknessing the fretboard

Cutting out the Glyph inlay with a jeweler’s saw

Cutting out the custom inlay for the headstock

Experimenting with positioning the inlays on the ebony headstock overlay

Binding the fretboard

The fretboard after binding

Experimenting with the position of the monogram inlay (I must say, Dave did a great job with this inlay design. I wanted something similar to Jake Shimabukuro's "JS" logo on the fretboard but with my initials and I had no idea what it should look like. I really like what Dave came up with here)

Routing the inlay cavity

Radiusing the fretboard

The fretboard after inlaying the position markers and sanding them flush

Well, that's it for this round of Glyph progress pictures. Looks like my mini-Jake Shimabukuro homage ukulele is now coming along nicely. It will be cool when it is finally completed. When the next round of progress pics show up, I'll be sure to post it right away. Stay tuned! I know I am!

Yeah Baby!

2010-06-06T14:04:00.003-05:00

Well, my son was born a day after I made the last post, so I've been busy with the new addition to the family. His name is Logan and in his 3 weeks of existence he's already been to Vegas!

Anyway he's been a pretty good baby, pretty easy to care for. I've tried to play the ukulele for him a few times, but I guess it is too early to have an effect on him. Maybe he'll grow up to like it (or he might think daddy is too noisy with his little guitar). After having two girls it's a fairly new experience with a boy. It's been fun so far and hopefully when he grows up we can have more father-son type of fun (playing ball, ukulele, passing down my "guy" stuff to him, etc...)

Little babies grow fast and as you can see from the picture, he's about to outgrow the size of my DaSilva. Haha! I hope you guys enjoy the quick picture.

In other ukulele happenings, I think I've figured out how to play Jake's "Trapped". Pretty simple tune really. When I get a chance I'll try to post a video or something.

Thanks for reading!

Checking in

2010-05-10T18:00:00.000-05:00

I didn't really realize that I have not posted in almost a month and a half. I guess part of it was that the copyright infringement thing left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. But as it usually goes when the weather heats up, I tend to spend less time on this blog. I also don't really have much to post about at the moment. I have not had UAS for a while, and my Glyph is not done yet. I'm not sure when I will have new pictures of the Glyph but it may be a while as Dave Means ran into some health issues. I hope he is doing better now. I can wait as long as it takes for that uke. I mean, it's already been three years right?

I will also have a new baby boy any time now, so that will mean even less time to post in the near future. We did get a new HD camera not too long ago so maybe I'll try posting some video sometime down the road. So it will be slow going around the Ghetto for a while. It does appear that there are people checking out the contents of this blog though, so that's cool. Hopefully some of the info here is still helpful to people who just found this blog.

I'm still playing my ukes on a daily basis. I'm a uker for life baby! I just figured out one of the songs from Bruce Shimabukuro's album called "On My Way", so that's pretty cool. I have not been learning new songs at a good clip, so hopefully I can get that going a little more. But perhaps that will be a little difficult with a new baby...

Anyway, keep having fun strumming the ukulele. I know I am!

Hey, I received a copyright infringement notice on Youtube!

2010-03-30T16:39:00.003-05:00

Well, I guess the video I posted on Youtube playing an instrumental of Desperado is deemed copyright infringing and I have received a warning. So I must take it down (or maybe it has been deleted already). Apparently Cass County Music is cracking down on covers of their music. I have no idea how many of the covers I've posted are copyright infringing, and to be honest I don't really give a crap. So if one day all of my uploaded videos are gone it's probably because Youtube shut me down for more copyright infringement. Since pretty much everything I've posted are covers, the possibility of that happening is actually kind of high. I've always found this type of crackdowns puzzling because in my opinion these types of covers do more to help the stupid record companies than hurt them. I mean, there are music that I only went out to buy after seeing them covered on Youtube and/or other places online. But I guess there are stupid people running record companies out there so what can I do?

Anyway, hopefully my Youtube account doesn't get shut down in the future, but if it does, you know what happened.

Lineup update. Finally!

2010-03-21T10:00:00.000-05:00

It's been quite some time since I last posted a lineup update. I finally found some time to take some pictures. Let's see, since the last update, I've shipped out the Honu concert, the Uklectic, the Fender Koa Nohea, the Kanile'a super tenor, and the LoPrinzi mahogany tenor. Additions since then are the Mainland slotted headstock concert and Ko'olau CE-1. Hmmmm, as you can see, I actually managed to keep the UAS rate in the negative! Woohoo! OK, so no one cares....

Anyway, there's a Glyph mezzo soprano still being built, but I don't anticipate adding any more ukes in the short term. In fact, a couple more will surely find their way out of my collection before I add any more.

Below are some group shots and back shots for your viewing pleasure.

Group back shot.

Sopranos. These are likely going to be the only 2 sopranos I have for quite a while.

Back of the sopranos.

Tenors.

Back of the tenors.

Concerts.

Back of the concerts.

Cognito Town

2010-03-20T19:00:00.006-05:00

While I was in Oahu at the beginning of March, I took a ukulele lesson with Bruce Shimabukuro. He taught me a song called Cognito Town. He went over the main picking parts and the chords with me during the lesson. I thought it was a pretty easy song to learn and picked it up within the one hour lesson. Later during that trip I decided to buy Bruce's album called Incognito that had this song. When I heard it from his actual album, I realized that he taught me the song at about a quarter of the speed he played it on the CD. It also had some drums and bass parts too. I decided to try and learn it at the speed it was played on the CD and also the few extra parts Bruce didn't cover during the lesson. The end result is what you see below.

For this video, I played the chords on the Ko'olau CE-1 and recorded it using Audacity. I then played it back on the laptop speaker during the video and played the picking parts over those chords. To be honest the sound quality coming out of the speakers was pretty crappy and while I picked the melody, I thought it didn't sound too hot. But I think after it's picked up by the camera's microphone combined with the picking, it actually sounded like an OK approximation of the song on the video. I think. But hey, you don't get to learn a song from the guy who wrote it very often right?

Anyway, I think Bruce's CD is pretty good, and if you want to check out Cognito Town with the full ensemble with bass and drums, be sure to track down a copy of Incognito.

Glyph update II

2010-03-15T20:21:00.028-05:00

Dave Means has sent me another batch of build pictures for my Glyph mezzo soprano. Looks like it's coming along pretty good now. I have no idea when it will be completed, but I guess it's done when it's done. Onto the pics!

The finished back.

Roughing out the Spanish cedar neck.

Cutting slot for carbon fiber reinforcement rod.

Gluing the carbon fiber rod and neck attachment barrel nut.

Cutting out the tail graft inlay with a jeweler's saw.

Inlaying the character onto a piece of ebony.

Test fitting the tail graft.

Gluing the back linings.

Roughing out the neck on a band saw.

Sanding the sides and linings on a 12"-radius dish to match the dome of the back.

Routing the rosette channel.

Cutting out the soundhole.

Inlaying the rosette.

Sanding the arch in the bottom of the soundboard braces.

Gluing the soundboard braces & rosewood bridge patch.

Notching the back linings to received the ends of the back braces.

Gluing on the back.

The neck after carving and rough sanding. (note: this will be a slotted headstock)

Profiling the soundboard braces with a finger plane.

Ramping the brace ends with a paring chisel.

The finished soundboard.

Gluing in the top linings.

So that's it for now. Looks like most of the parts are complete or nearing completion. The fretboard will have a Jake Shimabukuro style inlay of my initials and the rough design by Dave looked great to me. This should end up being a pretty cool little uke.

Stay tuned!

New uke day!

2010-03-12T12:34:00.004-06:00

Well, the CE-1 I picked up in Hawaii has finally arrived. For your reference it takes 5 business days for UPS to deliver from Oahu to Minneapolis.

Anyway, I snapped a couple of quick pictures of it. It still looks great, with a nice piece of Myrtle and ebony fretboard, bridge, and faceplate. It is pretty much impeccably made. Everything looks first class. Sounds very nice unplugged too. I'm probably going to swap out the low-G Ko'olau Gold strings for a set of high-G strings. I've got a couple of packs of ORCAS black strings that I might put on this thing. Gold does look good on this uke, but alas, I'm not a low-G player at this time.

I will try to put up some comments about it after playing it for a while. I also have some plans for videos with it. Hopefully I can execute it soon. Stay tuned.

Hands on uke testing in Hawaii

2010-03-08T00:07:00.005-06:00

Over the past week, while I was in Oahu, I was able to check out some ukes at a couple of shops. However, I didn't really spend much time trying out any particular instrument, and the little time I did spend were between the two Ukulele Puapua shops and Hawaii Music Supply. Having said that, I did check out a fair number of instruments and I'm just going to put my thoughts on what I tried here.

@ Puapua Waikiki:

-KoAloha concert: I think every KoAloha concert I've ever tried were pretty awesome, and the one I picked up to strum here was no exception. Basically if you want a really good concert sized ukulele, it's difficult to miss with one of these.

-G-String concert: I couldn't say the same about a couple of G-String concert scaled ukes I tried here. Maybe it was the Hilo strings they come with, but they didn't impress me too much with the sound. G-Strings are very well made instruments, but I think you probably needs to try one in person to be sure that you are getting a really good one.

-I'iwi Gold Series concert: This is one expensive ukulele at $2030, but it sounded very impressive. It has a one piece koa top and nice headstock and soundhole inlays. It seems to be well built and had great sound. Excellent volume and punch. I'm not sure I'd drop this kind of money on this uke (there are better values out there), but it's definitely a top level instrument.

-Japanese transparent plastic ukes: There were a couple of Chinese made, Japanese brand transparent Maccaferri copies hanging at the back of the store. I tried them out of curiosity. I had thought their $125 asking price was ridiculous, but I must admit I was kind of surprised by these babies. They are heftier and more solid than I thought they would be. And they didn't sound too bad either. They are at least as good as the Maccaferri Islander I had, and seem more durable. $125 is a lot to pay for made in China plastic, but I think they are actually worth the price for what you're getting.

-Kala travel ukes in soprano & tenor: I tried a couple of these flat ukes. They sounded decent and looked pretty funky from the side. I don't really think they are that much more portable than standard thickness ukes though. I mean, if I can carry my ebony King concert from MN to Hawaii and back in a Kiwaya concert rectangular foam case while dealing with a couple of heavy suitcases and carry-ons without any issues, a thinner body doesn't really add that much portability in my opinion.

-KoAloha 6-string Imaikalani: I've wanted one since visiting KoAloha 2 years ago and trying one they had on the wall. The one here sounded nice but not magical like that one. I guess it could be that I'm harder to impress now, but this uke probably dropped off my want list for now.

-Ko'olau model 1 sopranos: There were a few Ko'olau model 1 sopranos and pineapples there. I tried them very briefly as I'm not that interested in sopranos these days. They seem to be good but nothing special. Perhaps they would sound better if I spend more time on them, but I didn't. The workmanship on all Ko'olaus are first rate though.

-Ko'olau CE-1 koa: I tried this one unplugged and plugged in. It's a very nice semi-hollow body ukulele and sounded great plugged in. There is also decent volume unplugged. I became very interested in this model after trying it here.

-Ko'olau contemporary series tenor: I think this one was made with koa and spruce. I didn't try it for too long, and it didn't make a big impression on me. I'm not sure why. It looks great and I thought it sounded nice enough, but it didn't sound special. Certainly not superior than several tenors I have at home.

@ Puapua Pacific Beach Hotel:

-KoAloha concert Sceptre: The Sceptre is a model I've been interested in, but I was a little disappointed in this particular example. The sound just didn't seem as good as I remember (I last played on about 2 years ago). I think the volume is there but the tone didn't cause me to want one. I guess that's good because I don't think I'll be looking to get one anytime soon now.

-Puapua brand cutaway concert: This is an interesting uke. It is built in Vietnam for Ukulele Puapua. I thought it looked like it was built by the same place as Honu ukes, as it had that general Honu vibe and also had koa tuner buttons like Honus. The guy at the shop told me they were actually built for them by Ayers. I don't know anything about Ayers other than having head the name before. I guess they are more common in Japan. My guess would be that Honu & Ayers are built at the same factory in Vietnam. Anyway this was a pretty good uke. It looked nice and sounded pretty good. There aren't many concert sized cutaways available now, so this is a good option if you favor the concert size but would like a cutaway body.

-LoPrinzi sunburst tenor: I think it was a model A, but I didn't look. The sunburst looked nice enough, but it sounded nothing special to me, so I put it back on the rack pretty quick.

@ Hawaii Music Supply:

-Kala Acacia tenor: I had wanted to get one of these since it had a slotted headstock and Taiwanese acacia wood. But by the time it came out my UAS was more or less in remission and had come to prefer concert sized ukes. So I decided against getting it. I think it's a nice looking instrument and sounded pretty good. Definitely worth the street price these go for ($300 or so).

-Ko'olau model 1 tenor: I thought it was made out of koa, but it could have been another wood. This one sounded OK. I was actually kind of disappointed by it. I thought the T-1 would be a great sounding but affordable Ko'olau, but this one just didn't impress me.

-Ko'olau series 100 concert: This one had some nice koa grain, but again the sound was just OK. The KoAloha I played a Puapua was definitely better sounding. I'm not sure what to think of the lower end Ko'olau models at this point.

-Pono ebony deluxe concert: I was surprised to find one of these here. The price is killer too, at $399. I've been wanting to try this model because on paper it's very similar to my William King ebony LS-concert (Macassar ebony back/sides, spruce top). I wondered if the Pono could actually sound close to the King. After playing it for a bit I was relieved that this uke will never be mistaken for the King. However, that doesn't mean that it's no good. I thought it sounded fine and for its great looks (I love macassar ebony), the price was a steal. If someone (YOU) doesn't get it, I just might have to figure out a way to bring it in. It's a nice little uke.

-Ko'olau Deluxe series Hawaiian mahogany tenor: This is more like it. A slotted headstock deluxe model, this one sounded great. I played it for a while and was very impressed with it. Great mahogany sound and typical Ko'olau workmanship. The only thing is I don't like the looks of the mahogany on this one. It looks similar to the mahogany found on most Pono models, with some striping that I dislike. The only mahogany I find attractive is the ones used by Martin & Collings, with the darker color and no striping. Still, I would say this uke is worth the $2k or so asking price.

-Ko'olau CE-1 Myrtle: This was fresh off the production line and features an awesome looking piece of Myrtle. It also has upgraded gold hardware and ebony fretboard and saddle. It played and sounded as nice as the CE-1 koa I tried at Puapua and is much nicer looking. It was also much cheaper and I ended up buying it.

-Ko'olau Contemporary series macassar ebony/spruce tenor: This is a great uke. It was also hot off the production line and I had the pleasure of being the first to try it out. I was immediately surprised by how light it felt. Previous macassar ebony ukes I've handled are all very heavy, including Pono models and my King concert. I confirmed that lightness by holding the CS in one hand and a Pono ebony deluxe tenor they had on the wall. This CS tenor sounded and looked great. Definitely on par with the best tenors I've played. If I didn't already have too many tenors, I'd seriously consider getting this one. I think someday I might need to get a macassar ebony/spruce tenor from Ko'olau. This one is definitely high on the want list now.

Anyway, that's what I remember from this trip to Oahu. I think my Myrtle CE-1 will probably arrive this Friday, so look for pics and more impressions this weekend.

Aloha!

Playing ukulele by the ocean

2010-03-07T08:54:00.004-06:00

I mentioned in a recent post that I took a video of me playing the ukulele on a balcony by the beach in Oahu. The video is now uploaded. To me, playing the ukulele in Hawaii is simply something that must be done when I visit the islands. I'm very glad that I have taken the King LS-concert along for the trip and it served me well. I'm not sure when I'll be visiting Hawaii again, but whenever that may be, a ukulele will definitely come along for the ride.

King on the beach

2010-03-05T18:28:00.006-06:00

Today I brought my King LS-concert to the beach. It was actually the first time I have ever taken a uke to the beach. Some kind of "beach uke" huh? We rented a cabana with a canopy on the beach. It's pretty nice lying in the cabana while looking out to the beach and strumming a ukulele. The picture on the left is the beach reflected off the back of the King. I guess the gloss finish was pretty mirror smooth.

We got the cabana for the whole day so we'll be spending more time down there today as we close out the vacation.

Hanging out at the beach cabana

The King LS-concert is beach and baby tested (baby is my neece)

UAS in Hawaii

2010-03-05T09:32:00.000-06:00

Well, I guess trying not to buy a ukulele while in Hawaii is like trying to watch TV without turning it on....or something....

Anyway, even though I did not intend on buying a ukulele on this year's trip to Oahu, I succumbed to UAS once again when I picked up a new uke yesterday from Hawaii Music Supply. The uke in question is a Ko'olau CE-1. I had brought my William King LS-concert along on the trip and did not expect to actually buy a ukulele. To be honest I really had not played any acoustic ukes on this trip that caused me to want to buy it. At least among the ones that's within the realm of affordability (about $1000 and under). However, I had been thinking about a Ko'olau for a while now, because it's the only Hawaiian "K" brand that I have not owned yet (I had a G-String soprano that I consider part of the Hawaiian "K") and after checking one out at Ukulele Puapua, I really thought hard about getting a CE-1. I mean, I've never had a Ko'olau ukulele and I don't currently have a solid (or in the case of the CE-1, semi-hollow) body ukulele, so I thought the CE-1 made sense, especially since it's obtainable for around $800 online. I thought perhaps I would get it from online sources later on, so even though I liked it quite a bit after some hands on tests at Puapua, I didn't expect to get one during my stay at Oahu this week. That is until a visit to Hawaii Music Supply.

Unlike the Waikiki shops, Hawaii Music Supply caters to the locals as well as the internet, which means much better prices than Waikiki (tourist prices). There was a CE-1 in Koa hanging on the wall with a price tag of $750. I was impressed with that price and while I tried out other ukes there I was thinking about maybe picking it up. Andrew, who runs the store, was helping out another customer and while talking to them he brought out 3 Ko'olau ukes they had just received. One was a CE-1 that has a well-figured Myrtle top as well as head-plate/fingerboard/bridge upgraded to ebony and gold tuners/hardware. It is a great looking uke and I had in fact wanted a Myrtle topped one over a koa topped one. Andrew mentioned that even though it has some upgraded materials, it would sell for the same price as the koa one hanging on the wall. That pretty much sold me on the uke right there. It had better materials than what I was looking for, and costs less than what I expected to pay for a standard CE-1, so to me it was a no brainer. They even ship anything over $200 for free, so I had them send it to Minnesota as I did not have any room to take on more luggage on the way back home. It was simply a deal I couldn't refuse.

Regarding the CE-1 itself, it was a beautiful example (yes, pictures will be posted once I have it) and it had a very nice sound plugged in as well as unplugged. Obviously it is pretty quiet unplugged, but it sounds good, and should be great for quiet practice. This is the 4th solid/semi-hollow type of ukulele I've owned (the others being a Risa uke solid, BugsGear Eleuke, & a Uklectic), and I expect it to be far and away the best.

So I ended up getting a uke in Hawaii after all. In each of the last 4 years, I had picked up a ukulele in Hawaii. I guess it's something that's bound to happen whenever I'm in Hawaii. When you are in the land of the ukulele, it's so hard to not end up bringing one home.

Oh, and I want to put in a quick plug for Hawaii Music Supply. If you are interested in a ukulele you think they might have, give them a call for an accurate quote. On some stuff they actually can't advertise their lowest price online, so it's worth while to call and check. I saw several other ukes on sale at oh-so-tempting prices. They are biased toward Ko'olau and Pono ukes (Andrew is Ko'olau owner John Kitakis's son), so they should have some of the best selection and prices for those.

I will post pics of the new acquisition as soon as it arrives to me in Minnesota. Until then, I need to think hard about possibly making room for it in my collection....

My first actual ukulele lesson

2010-03-04T00:54:00.007-06:00

So, I finally took my first ukulele lesson today at the Ukulele Puapua shop located at the Sheraton Waikiki. It was a lesson with Bruce Shimabukuro and the lesson costs $45 for about 45 minutes. I had to travel quite a ways to make it to Waikiki, so I budgeted about an hour driving time thinking that I would arrive in plenty of time. Well, for some reason, there was some serious traffic jam around Waikiki around noon so it took all of the time I had budgeted for driving and then some, and I was late to the lesson by about 5 minutes.

Bruce was at the shop tuning up a bunch of Kala sopranos as I arrived. He greeted me and finished up the tuning of those ukes before we began the lesson. It turned out that I was the only one who signed up for his lesson today, so it was more or less a private lesson. He asked me what kind of music I played and how I learned to play in general. I told him I liked to play his brother's music and had learned a lot of songs from Dominator's tabs. He asked me to play a little bit of what I currently play so I played a little bit of Piano Forte. He pointed out that I can make the notes come out more by playing near the sound hole instead of around the neck-joint as I usually pick or strum. He went on to share some thoughts on different picking positions and why it is important to make each note mean something. While this does not teach me how to fast pick 3rd Stream, I thought it was very helpful and enlightening. I'm sure picking at different positions isn't anything special, but it is something I have not given any thought to, so it was great to have it pointed out to me.

He went on to go through a song called Cognito Town with me, starting with the picking parts and then the chord strumming. While leaning the picking and strumming parts, he talked about knowing the individual notes on the fretboard and how knowing some music theory could help me being able to play with others just by knowing what key they're playing in. Throughout the process he discussed how the things I learned during this lesson should be applied to everything I played.

One thing kind of funny happened during the middle of the lesson. Tyler Gilman, who is a manager at Ukulele Puapua (and a friggin awesome uke player himself, just look at this video, he's the one on the left), stopped by and asked what kind of ukulele I had. He asked to look at it and remarked that it was from Bill King (aka William King). He played it for a minute and then asked me if he could take some pictures of it. I said yes and he handed me a glossy Kanile'a to continue the lesson. (I think it was a super-concert, but not sure) I thought it was pretty amusing that someone wanted to take pictures of my ukulele. I guess Mr. King builds rock star ukuleles or something. LOL! As an aside, when I resumed the lesson with the Kanile'a, it was immediately obvious what an awesome uke the King LS-concert is. The Kanile'a sounded really nice, but it was very obvious that it wasn't in the same class as the King. Well, at least to me. It could be that I was biased, but I was assured once again that the King was a sound investment.

I think the lesson actually lasted a full hour, so I guess I got my money's worth. I thought it was very enjoyable, and Bruce is truly a great ukulele teacher. It's too bad I can't take his lessons on a regular basis. I'm sure that would do wonders for my ukulele playing skills. If you are visiting Oahu, I would highly recommend taking a lesson with Bruce. I'm sure you will pickup something worthwhile.

My first ukulele lesson coming up

2010-03-03T04:27:00.003-06:00

Well, after playing the ukulele for just over three years, I will finally be taking my first real lesson! I have booked a lesson with Bruce Shimabukuro at Ukulele Puapua in Waikiki. The guy and lady who was at the shop asked me to play something to determine my playing ability. I started playing some Guava Jam and they decided I would be intermediate. That's what I felt I was probably at. I mean, pretty much anyone at these ukulele shops can play circles around me, so there's definitely a lot more I can learn.

Since I have never taken ukulele lessons, I have no idea what to expect. If others signed up for a lesson, it would be a group lesson. If not, it would be a private lesson just for me. I guess I'm pretty much after the "ukulele lesson experience" at this point so it'll be all good. I do hope to pickup something useful toward improving my ukulele playing though. Hopefully there's still room left for me to improve. I guess if nothing else, it'll be another excuse to go to Puapua to drool over ukes! But if you've read some of my past posts, I REALLY would like to be able to play 3rd Stream one day.

This is the life!

2010-03-02T12:42:00.005-06:00

That would be my William King LS-concert sitting on the balcony in Oahu and sipping some Pina Colada to the left. LOL!

Yes, it's Hawaii time again. I learned a lesson during last year's trip to Maui that one should not be without a ukulele when going to Hawaii. During that trip I did not get to play a ukulele until the next to last day on the trip. I think I was beginning to suffer from ukulele withdrawal syndrome by the time I finally acquired my Kamaka tenor. So this year, I decided to bring a ukulele with me so I won't suffer from any withdrawal. The uke of choice for this trip, if you've read this blog before, is the William King LS-concert. I just thought what could be better than playing my favorite uke in Hawaii? So far so good. Playing this uke on the balcony facing the ocean is just soooooo enjoyable.

I've already been to Waikiki and checked out some ukes at the second Ukulele Puapua shop as well as a couple of other shops in Waikiki. It's so awesome to be able to browse ukes at a shop like that, but so far nothing has caused UAS to raise its ugly head. I guess maybe it's because nothing has really came close to the King concert for me to want to bring it home. But then again I know enough not to buy ukes in Waikiki. What has interested me is the lessons offered at Ukulele Puapua. Bruce Shimabukuro teaches 45 minute lessons there from Monday through Thursday and I'm seriously considering taking one. I mean, I have never actually had a ukulele lesson, and maybe I can learn some fast picking techniques to help me learn how to play 3rd Stream or something.

Anyway, I have finally taken another video playing the ukulele, this time at the balcony shown in the picture on this post. But the upload speed here is seriously slow so I'm not sure if I'll be able to have it up during this trip. I guess we'll see. If I do get a chance to take that lesson, I'll try to report back about how that went. Until then, mahalo for reading!

Proof that I was there too!

I can smell it now...

2010-01-22T22:17:00.017-06:00

I have alluded to the fact that I had a Glyph mezzo-soprano on order for almost 3 years now. The order was placed in April of 2007. And now, I finally have tangible evidence that the uke will be in my hands soon!

Dave Means has sent me the first of the construction progress photos for my custom ukulele. Although I have received 4 custom built ukuleles so far, I have never received in-progress pictures from the luthier building my uke. So this is a new experience for me, and it definitely builds excitement in anticipation of the upcoming ukulele.

So I guess there's finally something semi-juicy at the Ghetto! On to the pics!

This is the joining of one of the bookmatched plates. I guess the sandbag applies the force to keep the plates flat while the clamps hole the two plates together.

Sawing out the plate profile. The koa is looking gooooooood! I opted for AAAA koa when the order was placed. This set of koa definitely looks good to my eyes.

Thickness sanding. It still looks great!

Spraying the sides with water in preparation for bending. Nice looking sides too.

The sides coming out of the bender.

Bent sides drying in the mold.

Gluing the heel and tail blocks.

Sanding an arch to the bottom of the back braces in the 12' radius sanding dish.

Gluing the braces in the go-bar deck.

Profiling the back braces with a finger plane.

Ramping the brace ends with a paring chisel.

Gluing the back graft.

So those are the first of the pictures Dave sent me on my uke. He is gluing the back and sides together and routing the cavity for the tail-graft next, as well as starting the Spanish cedar neck. This uke will be highly customized with custom shapes and inlays, so it will be basically be mine forever. It's certainly cool to follow the progress of the build. I'll post photos to share the progress as I get them.

What to bring to Hawaii???

2010-01-21T12:05:00.000-06:00

The last poll I posted was about which uke I should take with me on my upcoming trip to Oahu. I let the poll run for 10 days and as a result there were 54 votes placed on the poll. About 3/4 of you voted for buying a uke at Oahu instead of bringing one. I was kind of expecting that since it makes too much sense to just buy a uke at ukulele paradise, but I was hoping there would be more opinions on which uke I should actually bring. While I appreciate all of your opinions, I'm pretty set on bringing one with me, because I don't think I'll have all that much time to shop for a uke. Last year, when we went to Maui, I didn't get my Kamaka tenor until the next to last day of the trip. I REALLY wished that I could strum a ukulele from day one. Of course, I never say never, and even if I bring a uke with me, there is still a chance I could buy one there under the right circumstances. Say if I run into a KoAloha concert Sceptre for a very good price, I might not be able to resist....

Let's see, of the 14 votes that went for bringing a uke to Oahu, 6 went to the King LS-concert and 4 apiece went to the DaSilva and Mainland. My original thought was to bring the DaSilva, since it is the most portable uke I have and is very nice in its own right, but the more I got to thinking about it, the more I thought maybe I should just take the King. As nice as the DaSilva is, I vastly prefer playing the King. And the thought of taking the King to Hawaii appealed to me. I mean, it is a ukulele, so it should visit Hawaii at some point of its life right??? Ok, maybe not.

So as of now, I'm going to bring the King LS-concert with me to Oahu (yes, those 6 votes actually helped me solidify the decision). It's a slight risk bringing such a high-end uke on the road with me, but I went on a trip to Taiwan last year with my Collings without issue (well, except I almost left it at the Taiwan airport...), so I think it'll be fine. It will be great to play the King while sitting at the balcony facing the ocean. I thank all of you who voted on the last poll.

Oh, by the way, there is a decent chance that I'll be posting some in-progress pictures of my Glyph this weekend! Stay tuned for that!

Ukulele usage analysis

2010-01-19T18:00:00.000-06:00

I'm curious about the actual usage of each of the 14 ukuleles I currently own (I don't count the Sunny D tenor because it's cracked and I've essentially wrote it off as a total loss), so I'm going to analyze right here how each uke has been played in the last several months or so. Ukes are listed in random order, pretty much as they come to mind:

William King LS-tenor: This uke was my favorite before receiving the King LS-concert. Now that I'm on a bit of a concert kick, this uke actually has not been played all that much. I think I've played it about once every two weeks or so on average, which is entirely too little playing time for such a fine instrument. But I'm finding myself a little lazy to stretch out my finger on a long scale tenor lately, so I guess it may be on this playing schedule for a while yet.

William King LS-concert: This uke is my current undisputed favorite and gets played probably at least 5 days per week. A lot of times it gets played every day.

Kepasa Gypsy Rose: I play this about the same frequency as the King LS-tenor these days. So that's about once every two weeks. When I remember that I own ukes other than the King concert, this usually gets a spin because it really is an awesome sounding uke.

Kamaka HF-3: Lately I think this uke got played maybe once every 3-4 weeks. The last couple of times I played this uke, I really felt that it's a notch below most of the other tenors I have. Of course, those tenors are mostly customs, so it's not unexpected. But I'm basically keeping this uke because it's a Kamaka.

Koa Works tenor: I've been taking this one out for a spin about once every two weeks. I'm re-developing an appreciation for this one lately. It has such a pleasing sound and is the easiest playing tenor I have. I actually thought I'd try to sell it at some point, but I think I'm hanging on to it now.

KoAloha Pineapple Sunday: It was being played maybe once a month, but lately, after reading a post on Ukulele Underground, I've gained new appreciation for this one and it has been played more often. My copy of the P.S. has super low action and is from the first production run that has the pointy bridge, ebony fretboard bindings, and de-bossed pineapple grid pattern (new P.S. has a KoAloha concert bridge, koa fretboard bindings, and laser cut grid pattern). It's always been a nice sounding uke, and I'm re-discovering it a little bit.

Kiwaya KTS-7: Believe it or not, I'm playing it a little bit just about every day. Not because it's become my favorite or because I've become a soprano guy, but because it's the uke I keep at my office at work! It is a nice uke though, and I really like the Martin style 3 styling. One could do worse than having this little guy around for a few strums each day at the office.

DaSilva Santo reproduction: This uke gets played maybe once a month. It's a wonderful little guy, but for whatever reason the sound doesn't quite grab me as much as the concert & tenor ukes. Probably just a personal preference thing. It might be the best looking uke I have though. I should probably take it out more often just to admire it or something. I just changed strings on it last night though, so it'll get some extended play at least over the next week or so to settle in the strings.

Aaron Taylor milo/spruce tenor: This uke gets played about once a month. It has very nice sound but the action seems just a tad high and there isn't any room to lower it at the saddle, so it hasn't been a uke I reached for often. I wouldn't say the action is too high, but just a bit higher than where I like it and feels like a little bit of a chore to play compared to say the Koa Works tenor. I love having a milo uke in my collection and it has my last name on the headstock, so it's not going anywhere.

Bluegrass Ukes cigar box tenor: I think I've played this uke maybe twice in the last half a year or so. It'll always be in my collection as it has Jake's autograph on it and my name on the label, but it's not a uke I'll favor over the other ukes I have for playing purposes. That actually says more about the other ukes I have than about this uke. It's really a very nice sounding uke and has great playability. It does have fretwire that sticks out a little bit and that has always been the one thing that's bothered me about this uke.

Bushman Cedartone baritone: I don't think I've played this more than once or twice in the last year. I'm not a baritone guy and have felt no urge to play this uke other than for a couple of curiosity strums. But I do like having a baritone in the collection, and since it's more or less worthless in the open market, I'll probably always have it.

Collings UC-1: Since the last post about the Smackdown between the Collings and Mainland, I haven't played this uke a whole lot. Maybe once every 2-3 weeks. I do plan to finish off the Smackdown (sometime, I promise!), I'll need to play it more often to get a better opinion on this uke. It's a fine uke, but not quite at the level of my customs.

Mainland slotted headstock concert: Same playing time as Collings. It's a great uke for the money, but the King concert has a strangle hold on my ukulele playing time, so it doesn't get a lot of play.

Kanile'a Custom SS: I think I've played this one maybe once in the last half a year. It's kind of weird because I really feel that this is a great sounding uke. I'm not sure why I've played it as little as I have. And it has some really nice looking koa too. I'm puzzled. And I've thought that I would sell this one to make room for the upcoming Glyph mezzo-soprano, but I guess we'll see. It's such a nice uke.

So there it is. I guess the moral of the story is not to buy too many ukes because you end up not playing them enough. And to think, I have an upcoming trip to Hawaii and a Glyph coming in the not too distant future! Seriously though, I think I do need to play some of these nice ukes more often if I'm keeping them around.

Jake Shimabukuro coming to MN again

2010-01-12T11:17:00.003-06:00

I was just checking the Jake Shimabukuro website for the first time in quite a while last night and noticed that he is scheduled to come to Minneapolis again on May 23rd at The Cedar. That makes it three straight years that Jake is making a stop in Minnesota during his tour. Three years ago I was thinking that I might never be able to see Jake play in person, so it's really cool that he has come here as often as he has. I guess either he must like it here or there are a lot more uke fans around these parts than I thought. The first time I saw Jake in concert was at a Jazz restaurant. I sat in what was essentially the "nose bleed" section as I was so far away from the stage I could barely see him. The second time was at the Ordway theater. I had a better view of him on stage but since it was a 1500+ seat venue, I wasn't close enough to see his techniques up close. This time, the show is at a 465 seat venue and no assigned seats, so hopefully I can finally see Jake play the ukulele up close. Oh yes, I definitely plan on going again!

An update!

2010-01-08T10:45:00.004-06:00

Someone on Ukulele Underground reminded me that I have not updated this blog for quite some time. I guess I just have not had much in the way of interesting ukulele contents to post. But since I fully intend to keep this blog going, I'll discuss what has been going on with me with ukuleles and what plans I have, as well as whatever ukulele related items I can think of to post here.

First off, I have not really learned any new songs for a few months now. I think the last song I learned was $5 Unleaded. Since then, I have not sat down and really tried to learn a complete piece. I wouldn't say it's a lack of motivation because I still want to learn new songs, but perhaps because what I want to learn is too difficult. As I've posted before, I want to learn 3rd Steam, and right now I feel that my skills are light years away from being able to play that song passably. Now days I seem to just play the same songs over and over again (Gently Weeps, Piano Forte, Blue Roses, etc, etc...). I guess I'll need to learn something new eventually. Gotta find some motivation!

I have been free from UAS for the most part for the past 6 months or so. Other than the Mainland slotted headstock concert, which I really got because of my desire to do that Smackdown comparison with Collings (I will finish it off, I promise!!), I have not had the desire to acquire new ukuleles. I look at what I have right now and I'm thinking about how I could thin the herd, but the problem is just about everything I have left are keepers for one reason or another (the current "collection" picture is outdated, I'll need to take another group shot at some point). I'm sure I'll end up with some new ukes down the road (heck, I have a Glyph that was ordered almost 3 years ago that's about to be started soon), but I'm really satisfied with the ukes I have now and it's pretty much impossible to justify anything more unless I sell off more ukes. It seems that right now is a great time for me to NOT be wanting to buy new ukes because it appears that prices are still rising. It would suck if I wanted to buy a uke that I know I could have gotten for less not too long ago!

It's been eons since I last did a lineup ranking. Truth be told, the longer I play ukuleles, the more difficult it is for me to distinguish the sound quality of the ukes I have. I seem to hear the good from lesser ukes more than I used to, so everything sounds pretty good to me. That said, the elite ukes still sound elite and there's always aesthetics and playability to consider. Hmm, I think I'll do a quick top 5 right now! Keep in mind I have sold off the awesome Kanile'a super-tenor, otherwise it would probably be in the top 5.

1. William King LS-concert: It has such a high fidelity sound and is so easy to play, I tend to reach for this uke 9 out of 10 times. I think the sound has improved since I first got it too. Seems a little more full-bodied and even more "alive". Awesome!

2. Kepasa Gypsy Rose concert: Well, I'm more or less a concert guy now, and this uke has always sounded awesome to my ears. It gives me a near-tenor sound in a concert-sized package. I still love the custom headstock that I drew too.

3. William King LS-tenor: Since the arrival of the King LS-concert, this one really has not been played a heck of a lot. But whenever I bust it out, it still sounds great to me. I really wish I had specified Gilbert tuners on the headstock of this one. That would have made an even better looking (to me) ukulele.

4. KoAloha Pineapple Sunday: For quite a while I had not ranked this uke very high on my list. But I've always liked the styling and I think I'm appreciating its great sound more than before. It sounds pretty similar to the King LS-concert with perhaps a touch less "liveliness". But it's just as easy to play and I'm digging the fact that it was a first run Pineapple Sunday that's getting a little rare.

5. Koa Works tenor: This ukulele strikes a balance between the thumping power of the King LS-tenor and the crystalline high fidelity sound of the King LS-concert. When I play this uke it still strikes me by how good it sounds. I had neglected this uke for some time now, but the bottom line is that it's still one of the best I have.

OK, so that's a quick current top 5 in my collection. I would say the King LS-concert is my clear favorite right now, while the other ukes are all kind of in 2nd place. It's hard for me to rank them and the order probably would change depending on the day I rank them.

What else? My Glyph mezzo-soprano could be started this month. I very much look forward to its completion, but I don't have any feeling of anxiousness about it. I guess what's another couple of months after a near three year wait right? I'll be posting progress pics here if I get them from Dave Means.

Anyway, that's it for this in-coherent update. I hope to have more interesting things to post here in the not to distant future.

Ukulele prince?

2009-12-26T21:24:00.004-06:00

I took my two daughters to watch "The Princess and the Frog" today at the movie theatres. To my surprise, the Frog is an ukulele playing prince named Prince Naveen. The ukulele is represented correctly with four strings, and at one point in the movie, the Princess told him that he could play the ukulele at her resturant.

Anyway, I just thought that it was pretty cool to have the ukulele represented like this in a fairly major motion picture. It's true that this is a cartoon, but at least the uke is correctly represented and even called out by name, so it's all good right?

Still here!

2009-12-02T16:53:00.002-06:00

I didn't even notice that it's been over a month without posting on this blog! For the two of you still checking this blog, I have not abandoned it! And I still plan on finishing off that Ukulele Smackdown. But I have not had much time to post here for a while and I've got lots of other things occupying my time, so it may be a bit slow going around here for a little while yet. I'm still playing the ukulele daily, so it's not because I've lost interest or anything.

Anyway, just thought I'd throw a post up on the o'l ghetto blog to show that's it's not abandoned. For those who stop by, have a safe and happy holidays!

Grail ukes

2009-10-27T19:01:00.002-05:00

I think for most people who collects stuff, or has a hobby that involves buying physical objects (such as ukuleles!), there usually exists a "Grail". From what I've gathered it's a term used to describe the ultimate prize in a particular hobby/endeavor for a particular person. There can be one grail or multiple grails. And the acquisition of one grail doesn't necessarily end the chase, often resulting in the formation of another grail.

In terms of ukuleles, one can certainly argue that I've had several grails already. At different times in the past couple of years, I coveted (I know, though shall not covet) the KoAloha Pineapple Sunday, William King customs, Kamaka tenor, and other ukes that I eventually acquired. There have also been grail ukes that I really wanted but for whatever reason never got to acquire. As of today, other than a Glyph that's been on order for over two years, I have not felt the urge or desire to get anymore serious ukes. But I thought it would be kind of fun to come up with a few ukes that I considered grails at one time or another.

-Earnest Instruments La-Paula:
The La-Paula is a concert sized ukulele that looks like a Les-Paul guitar. I can't remember if I saw this one first or the Kiwaya K-Wave Les-Paul uke, but I knew I really liked the looks. In fact, the K-Wave was one of the earlier ukes I bought during my UAS odyssey. The La-Paula, especially the sunburst curly maple version, really looked awesome to me. I've always liked the Les-Paul shape, and I loved the idea of playing a Les-Paul shaped ukulele. But at the time I could only justify spending the money on the K-Wave, as the La-Paula cost some serious cash. Had it been $600 like the Earnest Tululele, I probably would have owned one by now. But I eventually sold the K-Wave and kind of forgot about the La-Paula (had my fun with the LP uke). I was looking at the La-Paula last week and kind of thought "wouldn't it be cool to own one of these?" Maybe someday, but the urge isn't big enough right now.

-Moore Bettah custom:
Actually a Moore Bettah is a pretty recent grail uke. It seems to me in the last year or so, MB's reputation has grown by leaps and bounds. I had a chance to play a couple of MB concerts in Hawaii a couple of years ago and came away unimpressed because the ukes were setup super high (so the player can adjust to their liking) and I really could not play them. However, I do recognize the workmanship and beauty of MB ukes. Not too long ago I toyed with the idea of ordering an MB custom concert with a lot of bling. I had even drawn up a sketch of what my MB might possibly look like. But I realistically could not commit to buying such a uke because I already have way too many. What I had sketched would have cost quite a bit of money, and I think the price has gone up significantly in the last half a year or so, so this idea shall remain just that, an idea. Until maybe I win the lottery some day.

-KoAloha 6-string tenor:
A couple of years ago I briefly owned a 6-string Lanikai model O-6. I bought it from Musician's Friend because it was on sale and I was curious. While it had a cool slotted headstock, I wasn't all that enamored with its sound or playability so I sold it not too long after getting it. I have not given the 6-string ukulele any thought until my trip to Hawaii in 2008. While at the KoAloha factory, I played their 6-string model and thought it was absolutely awesome. It sounded great and played well. Since that time I have always had this ukulele on the back of my mind. I know I probably won't play it much even if I did get one, but the sound was truly pretty special and I can't imagine how much better a 6-string could sound. Maybe it's not as great as I remembered, but it would be fun to find out again down the road.

-G-String Sun concert:
My first serious ukulele was a G-String soprano with honu tattoos (I know, it doesn't sound all that serious). It was a great ukulele and I instantly became a fan of G-String ukuleles. Of the models they make, I was most intrigued by the Sun concert. It has that gorgeous abalone Sun inlaid on the fretboard and the uke was surely a great sounding uke (I sort of confirmed this during that 2008 Hawaii trip where I played a few G-String concerts that were outstanding). Back in 2007 musicguymic occasionally had one of these for sale, and I remember a couple of blowouts where he offered another very nice uke for free with the purchase of this one. But again, I could never justify the money at the time so all I could do was drool. I don't think I have seen one of these for sale in quite some time now. If one surfaces, even in my UAS-remission state, I would be pretty tempted by it.

-Another William King custom:
I know, I already have two, why would I want another? Well, one can't really desire too many King ukuleles. At least that's what I think. The reason I still put a King in the grail category is because I wouldn't mind a fully blinged out and feature laden King ukulele. My ebony/spruce long-scale concert is actually pretty close, but if money was no object, I'd have a few more things put onto this ukulele such as abalone purfling on the back and bound headstock & fretboard, not to mention a few more custom touches. Of course, I'm more than happy with my King ukes now, so this will probably just remain a dream.

Anyway, there are plenty of great ukes out there. I'd love to own one of each, but that's obviously not possible. It's always fun to look and think about them though.

(The Ukulele Smackdown will continue soon....)

Ukulele Smackdown: Mainland vs. Collings Round 4 - Video comparison

2009-10-20T23:16:00.003-05:00

Before I try to do some commentary on the sound of the Mainland slotted headstock concert and Collings UC-1, I'll show a comparison video I made playing Going to California using the two ukes. The video is made by cutting and pasting several short videos of each segment of the song. I alternated the two ukes pretty evenly. Both ukes are strung with Worth CD strings. Take a look to see what you hear from the video. I will write more about the sound in a later post, as well as provide more sound samples.

Ukulele Smackdown: Mainland vs. Collings Round 3 - Appearance & Workmanship Part 2

2009-10-20T23:00:00.002-05:00

Before we continue on with the physical comparison between the Mainland and Collings concerts, I would like to briefly discuss the setup of each ukulele. I personally do not consider setup as a characteristic of a particular brand, since it's something that is usually user adjustable and not everyone has the same tastes. I've also personally seen great variations in setup from the same model of ukulele, and I don't think that's a reflection on the builder. The two ukes I have here came with good setup, with identical string height at the 12th fret. I do believe both Mainland and Collings do setup work before shipping out their instruments, so in most cases you should get a fairly playable instrument when you buy one of these ukuleles.

Continuing on with the Ukulele Smackdown between Mainland and Collings concerts, let's take a look at the body. The Mainland features a solid mahogany body with gloss finish. A matte finish is also available from mainland, but I opted for the glossy finish because in my experience, parts of the matte finish usually shine up when handled a lot. Since I knew this uke may be a candidate for future contraction of my collection, I went for the finish that would keep a better appearance. The mahogany used on this ukulele is relatively dark, similar to the Collings. The grain looks good on the front and sides, where it is pretty straight and does not really have the ribbon appearance common to many imports (a plus in my book), but kind of strange on the back, where it doesn't have a uniform straight appearance. I would have preferred that the front and back look a little more similar. Both the front and back are one-piece construction, which is considered a plus in that there is one less joint that can potentially fail. The Mainland's weight seems to be about average, maybe just a little bit on the heavy side.

Front of Mainland.

Back of Mainland. Notice the random grain pattern.

The body of the Collings features a dark mahogany with what I consider pretty attractive grain pattern. There is no ribbon effect to be found and the grain appearance is very uniform. The front and back are bookmatched, but because the grain pattern is so uniform, it's actually kind of hard to see the joint without looking very closely, especially on the front. My UC-1 has a matte finish. I did not have a choice on the finish as at the time of purchase, there are no UC-1's with glossy finish. I'm not sure if there are now, but I'm pretty sure it would cost more and I would still be getting the matte finish since it's already a very spendy ukulele. The matte finish looks really good but as with all matte finishes I've encountered, it shines up with use. The upper bout on my UC-1 has already acquired several shiny strum marks, and the neck appears to be a bit shinier than when I first bought it. This wouldn't be a problem if you do not have any plans to sell the ukulele later on. But if you do, the wear that shows on this finish will likely decrease the resale value, if that's of any importance to you. As of now I do believe I will be keeping the Collings for the long haul, but I'm certainly aware of the the hit it will take if it's ever put up for sale. The Collings is feather light and clearly lighter than the Mainland despite having a slightly thicker body. Collings probably tried to mimic old Martin ukes and built them as light as possible.

Front of Collings.

Back of Collings.

The Mainland features white plastic body bindings with a rope pattern purfling. I can't tell what kind of wood made up the two-color rope purfling, but it is a very light colored wood and a dark, almost black, wood. I suspect the black colored wood is dyed as some of the black color seems to have "bled" onto the surrounding wood a little bit. The rope purfling generally looks good, but I believe the rope binding found on various Pono models have a higher quality appearance. The rosette is the exact same rope design as the purfling.

The rope purfling & rosette of the Mainland.

The only decorations on the body of the Collings is the rosette. It is a simple b/w/b/w/b ring around the sound hole. It does not have any body bindings or purfling. The Rosette looks very well crafted. I think the ukulele would have looked just fine without the rosette, but it doesn't hurt the appearance.

The Collings rosette.

Looking around the inside of the Mainland's body reveal signs that it is a mass production instrument. The body is held together from the inside with solid kerfing as opposed to the more traditional individually cut kerfings. I don't believe there are any big structural differences in using the solid kerfings compared to individual kerfings, but I'm pretty sure it costs less to use the solid kerfings. I'm fairly certain of it because a Kelii tenor I had also had this type of Kerfing, and Kelii is able to offer their ukes at a lower price compared to the other Hawaii "K" brands. I suppose there is a possibility that there are more internal stress in those solid kerfings, but probably not enough to make much of a difference to the structural integrity of the instrument. The workmanship is fair. You can see some glue seeping from the joints in some areas. The bracing I can see does not appear to be sanded. Of course, one would not expect expert craftsmanship from this ukulele, and it doesn't really impact the player.

Inside the Mainland. Notice the solid kerfing and the small amount of glue seeping from the joint.

Mainland soundhole label.

The interior of the Collings is very nearly perfect. It is very clean, with no glue residue that I can see, and everything looks very well sanded and crafted. It uses the individual kerfings that's found in most ukes for gluing all the body pieces together from the inside. This is probably the cleanest interior of any ukulele I've owned with the possible exception of the Honu XXX concert I had. A clean and well executed interior may not mean all that much to the ukulele player, but it does convey a sense of high craftsmanship and I think it can be considered an indicator of the caliber of the instrument. I mean, if a builder is taking the time and effort to make sure something that most people don't even see is nearly flawless, it stands to reason that they are putting in the work to make sure it sounds good too.

The interior of the Collings. Looks almost perfect to me.

Collings sound hole label.

Moving back to the outside of the body, we have the bridge & saddle. The Mainland has a rosewood bridge with bone saddle, which is the same as the Collings. The Mainland bridge is a classical guitar style tie-bridge, where the Collings is a traditional ukulele style slitted bridge where you tie a knot on the string and insert the string into the slits. I don't really have a preference between the two types of bridges. Both work and look good. Neither bridge feature any wild KoAloha-style designs and are rectangular in shape. The Collings does feature a compensated saddle. The compensated saddle is a fairly fancy feature on ukuleles, but in my experience, I can't really tell much of a difference a compensated saddle makes. I do like them though.

Mainland bridge.

Collings bridge. Notice the compensated saddle.

So I've gone through the exterior and interior appearance of the two ukuleles. While it's pretty clear that the Collings hold the workmanship advantage, I would like to point out that the Mainland isn't necessarily bad in that regard. It's pretty solid in most cases and if you're not closely scrutinizing it, it certainly looks very attractive. Below are a couple more side by side pictures of the two ukes.

Backs of the Collings (L) and Mainland (R).

Body thickness. Collings (R) is a little thicker than Mainland (L).

This concludes the appearance & workmanship portion of this Smackdown. To summarize, I think both ukuleles look very good from a distance, but the closer you look at them, the strength of the Collings workmanship becomes clearer. Based on this ukulele, I can see why Collings has earned the stellar reputation it has enjoyed in the guitar and mandolin world. The Mainland, being a budget instrument, does well for itself, especially the overall exterior appearance. Some of the small details that it is lacking such as better tuners and cleaner interior, isn't something that anyone who buys a Mainland is going to be overly concerned about. From my personal point of view, I'm happy with the workmanship of both ukes given their price bracket.

Up next will be some sound comparisons. Stay tuned!

Gypsy Ukulele....finally

2009-10-20T00:12:00.002-05:00

(The Ukulele Smackdown will resume soon)

About a year and a half ago, I mentioned on this blog that I wanted to learn Gypsy Ukulele by Acoustic Soul. I loved that song and thought it would be really cool to be playing it on my Gypsy Rose concert ukulele. I tried learning the song in anticipation of the ukulele (it arrived on October, 2008), but kind of gave up as I couldn't seem to get past the half way point of the song. Even with the arrival of the Gypsy Rose, I kind of lost my motivation to learn the song and moved on to other songs. Recently I saw a post from Mike Okouchi on Ukulele Underground and it rekindled my desire to learn the song. I busted out Dominator's tabs and to my surprise, was able to make it through the song after a couple of days. (...maybe I have improved a little in my ukulele playing....) I then recorded the backup chords, played on the Gypsy Rose, using Audacity and started my attempt to record a video of this song. It was easier thought than done! I must have gone through 20-30 takes before arriving at the video you see below. And it's not all that great either, but I don't think I'll be able to record a better video for the time being. To be perfectly honest, I don't think it's that hard to play anymore, but I keep screwing up various parts when trying to film this video. I guess when you try to get things perfect it just doesn't happen. So anyway, here is the long awaited (by me) video of Gypsy Ukulele on the Gypsy Rose!

Beware of scam artist

2009-10-14T22:33:00.003-05:00

It was brought to my attention on Ukulele Underground that a member by the name of BabiiDrew671 claiming to be from Washington state has copied a picture of several ukes from this blog and posted them up for sale. This is a scam and please do not deal with this person. If you see a "for sale" picture that's taken off of this site, do not deal with that person. I have never actually sold a uke with pictures from this blog. I've always taken fresh pictures of all ukes I tried to sell. It's disappointing to find that someone out there is trying to take advantage of others using pictures I've posted. I sincerely hope that no one has been affected.

Ukulele Smackdown: Mainland vs. Collings round 2 - Appearance & Workmanship Part 1

2009-10-11T23:44:00.022-05:00

Let's dive right in to the appearance and workmanship of the Mainland and Collings concert ukuleles. Starting from the headstock.

The Mainland slotted headstock mahogany concert features, as its name suggests, a slotted headstock. It's a pretty well executed slotted headstock with a nice conventional Martin-esque shape. It is formed with fairly sharp edges, which I personally prefer to the softer edges found on some imports. I think it could have benefited with a bound headstock with rope binding similar to the regular mahogany concert that Mainland offers. I'm not sure how easy it would have been for the binding to be added to the headstock, and perhaps the additional cost would have been prohibitive, but it would have really completed the look of the ukulele. As it stands, it's a good looking headstock that's perhaps a bit plain thanks to the lack of binding and the rather large space between the Mainland logo and the slots. I had some inlay stickers sitting around so I put one in that space as you can see in the picture below. I'm not sure it looks so good but maybe I'll leave it there for a little while.

Front of the slotted headstock (w/ghetto sticker)

Back of slotted headstock

As far as functionality goes, I feel the headstock contains perhaps the biggest weak point of the ukulele, which are the tuners. These slotted headstock tuners are really cheap. My daughter has one of those $30 Makala dolphin ukes and upon examining the tuners on her ukulele, I'm pretty sure they are from similar sources, if not the same source. These tuners do work, but they feel pretty rough in their operation, and each tuner has a different level of roughness to them. They also look pretty rough, as you can see the machining marks on the "stem" of the tuning buttons. I certainly don't expect Waverly or Gilbert tuners on these ukes, but I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect something of similar quality to Grover tuners that are found on plenty of inexpensive imports. On the plus side, these tuner sets appear to be specifically made for ukuleles as they have two tuners on each mounting plate. I guess the bottom line is that they work and hold the tuning, so that is probably all that should matter for this ukulele. But that doesn't change the fact that these tuners are of pretty low quality.

Here is the tuner on the pink Makala dolphin uke.

Notice the similarity between the Mainland tuner and the Makala tuner.

Mainland tuners on mounting plate made for 2 tuners.

Besides the tuners, the slots look good but all four strings touch the slot ramps on their way from the nut to the tuner posts. Some luthiers consider this a no-no since the strings are touching part of the headstock and could rub against the finish and either scrape the headstock or damage the strings prematurely. However, this condition exists on my two William King ukuleles that have slotted headstocks. I'm of the opinion that while it is not desirable to have the strings touch the headstock, and my King tenor does have some scrapes near the slot ramps, it isn't a big issue with nylon string instruments and a trade off for not having the slot ramps being too close to the nut, causing possible weakness in the neck. This is, of course, very debatable and not everyone will share this opinion, but it's something that does not bother me personally and I don't anticipate any problems arising from this on the Mainland concert.

The headstock of the Collings is fairly radical. My copy of the UC-1 has what's called a "haircut" headstock shape. The headstock is formed perfectly and has a rosewood veneer with the Collings logo inlaid with plastic. It also has sharply finished edges like the Mainland, but there's an air of perfection about the work on the edges of this headstock. It's hard to describe in words but it really is perfectly formed like it was made in a precision mold instead of hand carved at the Collings factory (I can't verify this, but as far as I know, Collings has a person that specifically does the haircut headstocks). I find the headstock to be very attractive and unique, and it was a big reason why I bought this uke at the time since future UC-1's after the initial production run has the traditional Martin headstock shape.

Front of Collings headstock

Back of Collings headstock

This headstock features PegHeds tuners that look like violin friction tuners but actually are 4:1 geared tuners. These are some of my favorite tuners because they offer the precision of geared tuners but because of the much closer gear ratio, it doesn't take as long to change strings as a few turns are all that's required to tune it up. PegHeds can look a bit plasticky up close, especially the buttons. But Collings did a nice job in removing the mold lines on those plastic buttons so they really don't appear that much like plastic (I know PegHeds have those mold lines because my Kepasa Gypsy Rose's PegHeds have them). Just be looking at this headstock you can tell how much attention to detail Collings puts into their instruments.

Note the lack of mold line on the plastic tuning button.

Moving down to fretboard, both ukes have a 1-3/8" nut, which is narrower than my preferred 1.5" nut width. However over time I've found that I can manage this nut width just fine. The Mainland has a rosewood fretboard with simulated pearl position dots (I'm guessing that it's not real mother of pearl at this price). The rosewood appears to be of good quality and doesn't seem to be much different than the rosewood used on the Collings. There are no side position dots, which is expected at this price point. However, I can't help but think that it wouldn't take much to have some side dots (the Collings appears to have silver painted-on side dots) and that would really make the Mainland appear more upscale. The fret wires ends are not exposed at the edge of the fretboard, making it something like a pseudo bound fretboard. However, the top edges of the fret wires are not quite finished perfectly, and I can feel a little bit of jaggedness when running my fingers up and down the fretboard. It's not bad, but it's there, and I definitely feel it.

Notice the fret ends are not exposed on the edge

The Collings feature a radiused fretboard. Collings did not advertise the actual radius of the fretboard as far as I know, but I think it's around 16"-18" since it looks about the same as my King concert's radiused fretboard. The radius is supposed to make it easier to fret bar chords by making the fretboard so that it curves with your fingers. I personally like radiused fretboards and believe that it does make a small difference in playability. However, I don't think it's a night and day difference and I can see some people not feeling the effects of the radiused fretboard at all. There are plastic position dots on the fretboard with the dots getting smaller as you go up the frets. There are side markers that appears to be painted silver. These markers are not fancy but are nicely done and do their job. The fretwires are exposed at the edge of the fretboard. However, unlike the Mainland, I do not feel any jaggedness or protrusions whatsoever. This is an exceedingly well finished fretboard.

You can see the side dots and the radius from this view

The neck of the Mainland joins the body at the 14th fret. This makes it a good ukulele for music that requires playing past the 12th fret. Since I enjoy playing a lot of tunes that go past the 12th fret, the Mainland offers better playability in this regard. The neck itself is a two piece construction, with the heel being a "stacked heel", which means it is made from two pieces of wood glued together and then shaped into the heel. The headstock is one piece, which is pretty rare in this price range. But since this ukulele has a slotted headstock, that pretty much prevents the normal two piece headstocks found in most production ukes. Structurally, I don't think there are any differences between a stacked heel and a one piece heel, but a one piece heel/neck is more high-end since the neck is made out of one piece of wood instead of gluing multiple pieces of wood together. The construction of the neck is decent. The neck has a somewhat flat "C" profile and feels pretty good in the hand but does not feel perfectly rounded. I can feel the contour of the neck where the curvature changes very slightly as I run my hand up and down the back of the neck. The heel is also not symmetrical on my uke, which probably can be attributed to lower workmanship standards. Despite the things mentioned above, I don't have any issues with the neck of this ukulele. It's very playable and more than sufficient for it's price.

You can see the seam of the stacked heel on the Mainland

The neck of the Collings joins the body at the 12th fret. I believe this is a nod toward the traditional ukulele such as vintage Martins and Kamakas, where they are also joined at the 12th fret, as well as Collings belief that the 12th fret neck-join places the bridge at the sweet spot of the soundboard. I don't have enough knowledge to say whether a 12-fret neck or a 14-fret neck makes a better sounding instrument, but in my experience, I think 14-fret neck joins can make very good sounding instruments. By having the neck join at the 12th fret, it makes the ukulele a little less friendly if you like playing around the 12th fret region as access is more limited compared to the 14-fret join of the Mainland. I would personally have liked the Collings to have a 14-fret neck, as it would make it easier to play some of Jake Shimabukuro's tunes, but I can also respect the belief that a 12-fret join results in a better sounding instrument. The neck itself is of a one piece construction. Given how relatively expensive this ukulele is, I would have expected nothing less. The heel has a fairly low profile, so it does help slightly with higher fret access. The neck is very well carved with a nice "C" profile. It's smooth up and down the neck and pretty much perfectly rounded. It is comfortable to hold and has a high quality look.

Collings' one piece heel

Well, this post is getting to be pretty monstrous, so I'll end it here and write about the rest of the ukulele's appearance and workmanship in the next post. I think one thing that is becoming clear is that the Collings clearly has the upper hand in terms of workmanship. I doubt this comes as any surprise to anyone, give the big price gap, but it is something to keep in mind as you continue to follow the Ukulele Smackdown.

Ukulele Smackdown: Mainland vs. Collings round 1 - Background and stuff

2009-10-11T18:59:00.006-05:00

So the Smackdown begins! Sort of. We'll start with some background stuff about the two ukuleles.

The Collings UC-1 was introduced by Collings Guitars in April of 2009. I'm not sure why Collings all of a sudden decided to build ukuleles, but one guess is that given the poor economy toward the end of 2008, perhaps Collings was looking for ways to diversify their product lineup. Whatever the case it may be, Collings has a reputation of building very high quality guitars and mandolins. Their workmanship is considered some of the very best among factory guitar builders today. I became immediately intrigued by the new Collings ukuleles because of their sterling reputation and because I thought they could be the "vintage Martin ukes" of tomorrow. I paid pretty close attention to the developments of the Collings ukes and found out that they will be offering several varieties called UC-1, UC-2, UC-3. Each model is more expensive and features more decorations and exotic woods. Collings guitars and mandolins costs a pretty penny and the ukes are no different. The only model I was going to be able or willing to get would be the UC-1, which retails for right around $1000. I found out that the only UC-1's that will have the Collings "haircut" headstock were the first production prototypes, and jumped at one that was on sale at Gryphon Strings as I much preferred the haircut headstock than the Martin style headstock that normal UC-1's will have. I got the Collings in May, 2009 and have owned it for about 5 months as of this writing.

I had been interested in a Mainland mahogany concert since January, 2009, as evident by this UAS forecast entry I had written at the time. Back then I was interested in it because it was pretty inexpensive and I thought the rope binding looked pretty good. I also was still experiencing a lot of UAS. I made it through that UAS stage without getting the Mainland (but quite a few other ones) but when I noticed that Mainland was coming out with a slotted headstock concert a couple of months ago, I was again interested. I love slotted headstock ukes and having it on a concert is even better because it's fairly rare. In fact, I believe this is the first ever factory production concert scaled ukulele with a slotted headstock. One time I had checked with MP Ukulele about a concert with slotted headstock and he said he only makes them on tenor & baritones. Yes, I do have my King concert with slotted headstock, but as far as I'm concerned, you can't have too many slotted headstock ukes. I also had this comparison in mind already. So last week I pulled the trigger on a Mainland slotted headstock concert uke.

For the purpose of this Smackdown, you should keep in mind that since I've had the Collings for quite a bit longer, it may have "opened up", as opposed to the one week old Mainland. However, since getting the Collings in May, I haven't really spent all that much time playing it. I don't have any idea about the actual playing time, but I'd guess somewhere in the 10-15 hour neighborhood. Maybe less. So perhaps that's not much of a factor, but still something to keep in mind.

Coming up next will be some comparisons of the appearance and workmanship between the two ukes. Both ukes have been played a bit the last couple of days and I need to snap a some pictures for the next section, so stay tuned!

Mainland vs. Collings Smackdown: The weigh-in

2009-10-10T10:00:00.006-05:00

To kick off my planned comparison between the Mainland slotted headstock concert and the Collings UC-1, I will go over the vital statistics of the two ukuleles.

Mainland Slotted headstock gloss concert:
-Height: 24"
-Weight: 1.25 lbs.
-Scale length: 15"
-Nut width: 1-3/8"
-Body material: Solid Mahogany
-Fretboard/Bridge material: Rosewood
-Nut/Saddle material: Bone

-Neck material: Mahogany
-Headstock veneer: Mahogany
-Logo: Decal
-Finish: Gloss (poly)
-Tuners: Generic slotted headstock tuners w/pearloid buttons
-Fretboard position markers: 3, 5, 7, 10, 12 (no side position markers)
-Fretboard radius: None
-Fretboard binding: Simulated
-Number of frets: 19
-Neck join: 14th fret
-Binding: Plastic w/rope purfling

-Made in: China
-MSRP: $239.50 (no case included)
-Price paid including shipping: $$249.50

Collings UC-1 (prototype):
-Height: 24"
-Weight: 0.9 lbs.
-Scale length: 15"
-Nut width: 1-3/8"
-Body material: Solid Mahogany
-Fretboard/Bridge material: Rosewood
-Nut/Saddle material: Bone

-Neck material: Mahogany
-Headstock veneer: Rosewood
-Logo: Plastic inlay
-Finish: Matte
-Tuners: PegHeds
-Fretboard position markers: 5, 7, 10, 12 (side markers at 3, 5, 7, 10, 12)
-Fretboard radius: 16"~18"
-Fretboard binding: None
-Number of frets: 18
-Neck join: 12th fret
-Binding: None

-Made in: Austin, Texas
-MSRP: $990 (mine is a prototype w/haircut headstock that cost $1050, Panther case included)

-Price paid including shipping: $1100 (yeah, I got jobbed on the shipping)

These two ukuleles represent a high-end production solid mahogany uke (Collings) and an inexpensive import solid mahogany uke (Mainland). While they do not actually compete in the marketplace, I think it would be interesting to compare them because they are technically in the same category if you ignore price. Both are solid wood mahogany ukes in the concert scale. The Collings is about 4 times more expensive than the Mainland, but is it worth the extra cash? Should someone who owns a Mainland concert be lusting after a Collings? Or should be Mainland owner feel content that his/her ukulele is just as good? These are interesting questions and I hope to have some answers by analyzing these two ukes head to head.

What I hope to do in this comparison is to compare these two ukes in as many categories as I can come up with. I'm not sure about the format I'll do the comparison in, but it'll at least cover the looks, build quality, and sound. I'll try to mix in a video comparison of these two ukes somewhere too.

What this won't be, is a sugar coated evaluation of either brand (something I see entirely too much of in reviews online). I will point out all the good and bad points in my personal opinion and try to give you an unbiased view of both ukes. You may wonder how I could not be biased given that I paid 4 times as much for the Collings. All I can say is that if I'm biased about it, doing this comparison would be both a waste of my time and your time.

So stayed tuned for the first installment of the Ukulele Smackdown between Mainland and Collings! I will start with appearance and build quality and should have something up within the next week.

Mainland arrival

2009-10-09T13:16:00.008-05:00

The brown truck brought me the Mainland slotted headstock concert today. It shipped in a huge rectangular box that contained the small wedge shaped box that held the ukulele. I went for the gloss option because in my experience matte finish shows scratches easily and the parts of the uke you touch a lot tend to shine up. Since this uke is probably a candidate to be moved down the road, I figure I might as well go for the more durable option. Besides, I like glossy finish anyway. I have not had much of a chance to play it but got a few quick pictures of it. Initial thoughts:

-I like the mahogany grain and color. A lot of imports use mahogany/sapelle with ribbon appearance, which I dislike. This one does not have the ribbon appearance is of a nice dark color, similar to my Collings UC-1.

-The slotted headstock is well executed. It has nice sharp edges, which I prefer to rounded edges. The slots are nice and clean, and the overall shape looks good. The tuners are just OK, but I don't expect too much from this price range and they do work.

-Initially I thought it sounded similar to the Kala tenor neck soprano I had, but a little more stumming revealed a characteristic mahogany "pop" in the sound. Pretty good.

-My initial feeling is that this is a pretty good value for $250 shipped.

This uke will be going up against the Collings for some no-holds-barred comparison between mahogany concert ukuleles. I will switch out the strings to Worth CD's and probably do a few rounds between the two. I'm also thinking of putting this Mainland up against the William King LS-concert for some slot-head to slot-head comparison just for fun. So stay tuned to the ghetto!

**For whatever reason I got this picture at an angle where the back didn't reflect any light. The back is indeed glossy like the rest of the uke.

Five Dollars Unleaded??? I wish...

2009-10-08T00:11:00.003-05:00

Well, I guess it's been a while since you could actually move a vehicle with five dollars worth of unleaded gasoline, but that didn't stop Jake Shimabukuro from writing "Five Dollars Unleaded". I think he said this was a song written about when he was a kid and his dad would go to the gas station and tell the attendant to put in "five dollars unleaded" in his car. Needless to say, it's now about $50 unleaded to fill most cars and a lot more for trucks and SUV's. But anyway...

So a couple of months ago I watched a few videos of this song on Youtube, including this fine cover, and decided that I would like to learn it. Since there are no tabs available to my knowledge, I thought I'd try to learn it from Youtube videos. Besides that cover, I found a few videos of Jake playing this song. Between watching the videos and listening to the notes, I think I was able to play a reasonable version of this song, and here is the result. This is a fairly easy song to play, but there are a couple of finger stretcher parts, including a note that reached the 18th fret. I discovered that both of my sopranos do not have an 18th fret while trying to play this on them. The ending passage was also a bit of a challenge, since it has to be played pretty fast. Otherwise I didn't find it overly difficult to learn. That's one thing about most of Jake's songs. They seem pretty hard to play but if you really give it a good shot, they are not too bad. Of course, 3rd Stream is still extremely difficult no matter how I slice it...

UAS-less streak broken...

2009-10-06T10:16:00.002-05:00

I have managed to fend off UAS since the end of April, which represents the longest UAS-less streak since I started the ukulele journey in the beginning of 2007. But that has come to an end. The uke you see above is the latest one, a Mainland concert with a slotted headstock. So why this one? Well, since I learned that such a uke was in the works, I became interested. Obviously, I'm a slotted headstock nut, but I also felt that the price was very good. Something that I can take a chance with without too much financial burden. Another thing is that I'm interested in comparing a Chinese mass produced solid wood mahogany uke such as this one against a high end semi-mass produced solid mahogany uke such as my Collings UC-1. Finally, I happen to have two pretty nice concert sized cases sitting around that I got for free (an Oahu case that came with my King concert and a foam/canvas rectangular Kiwaya I won from MGM in a contest) so this uke should fit in nicely (nice excuse huh?).

Actually, it'll be interesting to compare the Mainland to the Collings. The Collings costs 4X as much as the Mainland, but I'm pretty sure the Collings won't be 4 times the ukes the Mainland is (this is not the same as saying the Collings isn't worth 4 times more). Should make for an interesting comparison.

To be perfectly honest, even with this purchase, I haven't really lusted after any ukes of late. I'm pretty sure this won't touch off a UAS frenzy for me. And with the addition of this uke, I'll be parting with my LoPrinzi mahogany tenor pretty soon. I can't believe I still have 15 ukes! My uke rotation is pretty much down to about 2-3 these days, so most ukes gets some token playing time if even that. But it only gets more difficult when trying to decide what to sell now because most of what I have now are really nice instruments and just about all of them bring something different to the table.

Anyway, stay tuned for the no-holds-barred smackdown between Collings and Mainland in a (ukulele) ghetto near you!

Quick update

2009-09-21T15:11:00.003-05:00

It's been a while since I've lasted posted. I've been kind of lazy but also been kind of busy. So not much is going on. I've been meaning to take a video playing Jake Shimabukuro's "Five Dollars Unleaded", but haven't gotten it down good enough to shoot a video without major screw ups. I'm getting there though, so hopefully it'll happen soon.

I have not bought a new uke for a record 5 month! (last uke was the Collings UC-1) But I think that streak might be coming to an end soon. I'm pretty set to get one of those upcoming Mainland concerts with the slotted headstock. If you've read this blog you know I love slotted headstocks. It's amazing that I have not bought a Kala Acacia tenor yet, with it's slotted headstock, but I think I already have too many tenors and I've been playing the concert scale a lot more lately, so I've refrained from getting the Kala Acacia tenor. One of the things I'd like to do is to do a comparison between the Mainland and Collings concerts. I'm fairly confident that the Collings isn't going to be 4 times the uke the Mainland is (Collings costs over 4 times as much as the Mainland), but it could be fun comparing them in various categories. So possibly look for that down the road if I'm successful in acquiring the Mainland concert.

Even if I don't get the Mainland, the ukeless streak is bound to come to an end soon as my Glyph mezzo-soprano is finally due to get started at the end of the year, I think. It will have an all koa body with, you guessed it, a slotted headstock. Since ordering it over 2 years ago, I have completely overhauled the design once and made a couple other changes, including adding and then removing a Mi-Si pickup option. I think the design is pretty much set now. To give you an idea on what it will look like, it will kind of look like a mini version of Jake Shimabukuro's Kamaka. Hopefully it comes out good and be worth the wait. Check back in, oh 5-6 months to see the results!

Just today I found a new ukulele blog called Ukulele Perspective. The blog owner posted to my last post. It seems to be an interesting blog and should be a fun read for ukulele enthusiasts. There's a survey that gives you a chance to win an ipod shuffle, so be sure to check that out.

Anyway, that's it for the quick update. As fall and winter draws near, hopefully I'll have more to post on this blog. Thanks for reading!

Jay Chou (周杰倫) on the ukulele??

2009-08-15T17:18:00.003-05:00

Several weeks ago I saw a video on Youtube by kenlou1274 playing a song called "Dandelion's Promise" (蒲公英的約定) by Taiwanese singer Jay Chou (周杰倫). I've listened to several of Jay Chou's songs as he is a very popular singer in Asia, but I wasn't familiar with this one. I thought it was a cool arrangement and I actually found this song on my iPod (got tons of Chinese language songs on it that I haven't even listened to). So I decided to try and learn this by watching kenlou1274's video. It was a fairly straight forward arrangement but it wasn't easy for me to learn for some reason. It took a couple of weeks before I can play it all the way through reasonably. Since I got some time this afternoon I decided to give it a shot and made a video playing this song. It's not quite as good as kenlou1274's (check out his skills on his channel. I dream of being able to play 3rd Stream some day.), but I'm happy with it.

By the way, I seem to be more of a visual learner. I have learned a few songs by watching Youtube videos where the fretboard is clearly visible. I don't think I can quite learn by ear yet, but a clear video definitely helps me a lot. A few people have commented to me that they've learned a few songs from watching the videos I've posted, and I'm very happy to have been able to help out a few people out there wanting to learn more ukulele arrangements.

Happy strumming to all!

It's almost like I'm cheating...

2009-07-28T16:20:00.006-05:00

That's how I'd describe playing the William King long scale concert ukulele that I received 3 months ago. Why would I say that? Read on!

It was around November of 2008 when I received an email from William King informing me that he is opening his 2009 build list. At the time I had no intention of ordering another custom ukulele as I had been enjoying my King long scale tenor and I also had a DaSilva soprano in the works. However, that email kind of got me thinking about what I'd order if I had commissioned another ukulele from William. Since I already had a LS-tenor from him, I thought it would be good to have a LS-concert. At roughly 16" scale, it would slot in nicely between a standard concert (15") and tenor (17"). I would want it to have a slotted headstock with Gilbert tuners, 16" radiused ebony fretboard, and a Mi-Si pickup. For the body wood material, I wanted something other than koa since the LS-tenor was already made from koa. It didn't take long for me to make a sketch of the ukulele and send it to William for a quote and some suggestions on body wood. I was interested in an Macassar ebony body since I've seen some pretty sweet ebony ukes from William and KoAloha and William responded that he does have a concert Macassar ebony set left. For top wood, he suggested either redwood or Adirondack spruce. I've read a lot about different species of spruce and liked the idea of having a uke with an Adirondack spruce top, so it was decided that the uke will be made from Macassar ebony and Adirondack spruce. I quickly reserved a build slot and started waiting for the completion of the uke.

The ukulele arrived around mid-April and I was thrilled with its looks (pictures here). The Gilbert tuners required a thicker headstock, which I absolutely loved. The headstock of the LS-tenor always seemed a bit thin for some reason, and now I know why. The Macassar ebony looked very classy, with nice chocolate stripes running evenly throughout the body. The Adirondack spruce top looked great too, with nice silking that makes it look almost like curly spruce from some angles. The rosette looked marvelous as well. I had specified an abalone rosette, but William added a thick Macassar abalone border and some b/w/b lines around it to make it look just outstanding to my eyes. It was built with the Nunes style body shape and looked wonderful. I was extremely satisfied with the appearance of this ukulele. Because the uke was built out of Macassar ebony, a very dense wood, it is significantly heavier than similar sized ukes built out of more traditional wood such as koa or mahogany. Of course, that's all relative and even with its added weight, this is still a pretty small instrument we're talking about and I have no issues at all holding it while playing.

When it came time to play it, I have to admit I was initially a little bit disappointed in the sound. Prior to receiving this ukulele, I had been playing the King LS-tenor almost exclusively. While waiting for the LS-concert to arrive, I imagined a ukulele that sounded a lot like the LS-tenor but in a smaller package. I've read that guitars made from Macassar ebony and Adirondack spruce produces a very powerful sound, so I figured that I could expect it to be similar to the LS-tenor, which offered some seriously powerful sound from its koa and Swiss spruce combination. That was decidedly not the case when I first started playing this uke. The sound was very clear and pleasant, but it was very very different from the LS-tenor. It did not have the punchy percussive quality that the LS-tenor had, and it didn't sound especially loud. Instead of a punchy sounding instrument, it had a more complex tone and crystalline feel that was more similar to the KoAloha Pineapple Sunday. I thought it sounded great. The notes feel like they spring right off the fretboard whether its picked or strummed. I feel that the notes have real depth and the sustain is excellent up and down the fretboard. It just feels alive when being played. Basically, the only thing I wished for was a little more volume, and being a spruce top, I figure it would open up from frequent playing, which is something I planned on doing.

Speaking of playing, I don't think ukuleles could be much easier to play than this one. For me personally, I've always found the concert scale to be the easiest of the standard ukulele scales to play. Adding an inch to the standard concert scale proved to have no effects on playability at all, as far as I'm concerned. William had set it up with very nice and low action, and combined with the 16" radiused fretboard, every song I know just felt so easy to play on this ukulele. To wit, I learned Jake Shimabukuro's Piano Forte, which required some serious finger stretches, earlier this year. Of all the ukes that I own, it was far and away the easiest to pull off on this ukulele. Whether I played it on tenors, standard concerts, or sopranos, I couldn't pull off the song as cleanly as I can on this uke. Perhaps it was a combination of the factors above, but I just know that this ukulele makes every song play with less effort on my part. It is truly a great player.

So now I've been playing it almost daily for 3 months, I appreciate its qualities more and more each time. I'm not sure if it has increased in volume or not (and if I've made it sound like it's a quiet uke, it's not), but I've come to realize that's not what this uke is about anyway. It is all about sublime sound quality and great playability. Since I got this uke, even the mighty King LS-tenor has taken a back seat. This is simply the uke I reach for the most when I want to play. Why do I say that it feels like I'm cheating when playing this ukulele? Because it lowers the level of difficulty of playing songs, and it makes my playing sound better than it is. I'm actually kind of afraid that I won't be able to handle playing other ukuleles if I'm too used to this one and have consciously tried to rotate my other ukes more. So I think this is the highest compliment I can give to this ukulele: I almost feel like I'm cheating playing this uke...

For sound files, check out some videos I've posted with it: Stars & Stripes Forever, Piano Forte, Dragon, ghetto Gently Weeps performance.

The King's throne

2009-07-22T21:10:00.009-05:00

Ok, so it's just the Ameritage case. Well it finally arrived today to house the King ebony/spruce LS-concert. I decided to order a custom Ameritage case because the LS-concert is just a little too long to fit comfortably in the Oahu case that it came with. The order was placed with Finecases on April 17th, so it took 3 full months to arrive from order placement. I had to specify more headstock room for the LS-concert and decided to change the exterior color to make it more of a custom case. The standard Ameritage case has a burgundy handle and trim with a grey body and brass hardware. I thought I'd make this one all black so the trim and body color were changed to black. The hardware was kept brass because I like the gold color against the black case. Most of the black cases I have has silver hardware, so this would be a little more unique. The interior is the standard burgundy color because it cost too much to change the interior color too and I thought the color worked very well with the black exterior.

Even though I had sent in the measurements of the King LS-concert, I was still a little worried that the uke might not fit well. But I thought the worst case scenario would be that the case has the same dimension as the standard Ameritage case. I had test fitted the King LS-concert in the Ameritage concert case I house the Pineapple Sunday in, and the uke fits, with the headstock right up against the case. Fortunately, the dimensions I sent in was right on and the custom case has room to spare in the headstock area (see picture below).

These Ameritage cases really cost quite a bit of money, as much as some decent solid wood ukes. However, with its humidity control system, it gives me the peace of mind of knowing that my custom ukes can make it through the harsh Minnesota winter and its very sturdy construction ensures that the uke will be well protected against just about anything. So for me, this is money well spent.

Case exterior

Case interior

The King fits nicely in the case

Plenty of headstock room