Your story: how ukulele found you?

I've written about it here earlier but I don't mind repeating it. I am primarily a classical piano student but came to the ukulele when I got into classical guitar. Every piano student dreams of a portable instrument so I looked into ukulele as a little guitar to practice on away from home or class.
However I have noted that it is an instrument (soprano scale) to itself so I practice it for the sake of ukulele, not guitar anymore.
I'm always amazed how a little four stringed instrument can have such depth and brilliancy in contributions to music.
 
I had turned forty, reflected on my life and its narrow width and shallow depth, and since I couldn't afford sports cars I instead looked for an affordable (so I thought!), portable, allegedly easy to learn instrument that did not require electricity or a computer to function (wanted to get away from those). No musical background of substance outside of a few organ/piano classes when I was a young teenager, and playing soprano and piccolo recorder in school. I had tried clarinet in my late teens, but couldn't get a sound out of it. I picked up a few kalimbas around the same time as I got my first ukulele. Still like those, too.
 
I had learned piano and a bit of flute when I was in primary school, but I hadn't played anything since then. However, my wife is a singer who has a penchant for collecting various musical instruments, such as okarinas and tin whistles. She plays them a little bit, but not much. A few years ago, she asked for a ukulele for her birthday. I figured she'd give it a go for a few weeks and then it would go in the cupboard with the other instruments. Strangely, I couldn't put it down after we got it, so she got me one a few months later so that I'd leave hers alone. Now, we play together.
 
Tried learning guitar way back in my Uni days but never really stuck with it. I bought a cheap Mahalo ukulele for my girlfriend's birthday a few years back after seeing a group playing at a farmers market. It sat untouched until I decided to pick it up a couple of months ago. I have yet to put it down.
 
About 12 years ago, I was primarily a guitarist obsessed over gear. One day I was surfing Craigslist when I saw an ad for a $190 ukulele. I was wondering why a ukulele would cost so much and did some research. It turned out that the uke cost over $400 brand new! So being a person who didn't pass up a bargain, I visited the seller, talked him down to $160, and bought it. I came home with a Koaloha Pineapple Soprano, my first ukulele.

My guitar-playing knowledge quickly transferred over to the ukulele and I further developed my right-hand strumming technique. I couldn't believe the sound of joy and happiness the instrument produced, and I've been hooked since.

Since then, I got married and had kids, and I got my wife and kids to play too. It's brought lots of goodness to my life.
 
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Bought a cheap ukulele for a four year-old granddaughter. Learned to play a few songs on it, and got hooked! :cool:
 
I got my first uke for my 7th birthday - my best friend had turned 7 the month before, and she got a guitar, so of course I wanted one too. But I was a tiny little thing and my dad opted to get me a ukulele instead; he had a bit of a history in Hawaii and could strum a few chords. But I was never serious about it and moved on to attempts at piano, guitar, and bass, all of which ended less than well because I couldn't get serious about those either. Eventually I decided to leave the music making to others - I've been surrounded by musicians pretty much my whole life - but in my mid-40s I got tired of watching everyone else have all the fun, and decided to pick up an instrument again. It came down to a choice between piano and ukulele, and since I don't have room for a piano, uke it was... and still is, 8+ years later.

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[FYI: This is part 1 of 2]

[edit: after re-reading this and finding some typos, I realized that what I'm writing here is maybe similar to what the Hawaiians call 'talk story', and also wanted to add that missing from all the text below is the fact that because of the ukulele, I have become fascinated by Hawaiian culture and find it all very interesting]


May I invite you to read the bio on my web site [offline currently as of 7/2/2017] for the pre-ukulele timeframe of most of my musical experience.

However, it does not explain how I came to the ukulele.

I will detail that here now.

October 2012 brought Hurricane Sandy, which as many folks know was the worst storm ever to hit the east coast of the USA, with it's reach from the eastern edge of the Atlantic coast, almost to the Mississippi River.

Like many folks, we lost power, land-line telephone, cell phone, internet and cable TV. However I was prepared for 'camping at home' in the most literal sense. Plenty of candles, batteries, portable solar panels, flashlights, blankets, 100 gallons of bottled water for bathing, drinking and flushing the toilet (we have only well water, with an electric pump, so no running water during this time).

Cooking with sterno and the outdoor barbecue was how food was made. Just days before the storm I was stuffing the secondary freezer with gallon ziplock bags filled water that froze solid, kept ALL of our food fresh for 2 weeks, including ice cream, frozen meats, poultry, bread etc. We also had canned goods like tuna fish, salmon, and lots of fruits and vegetables, both fresh and canned, and of course peanut butter and jelly were well stocked...

Well, no computer, no internet no cable tv...how to pass the time?

During the day was mostly making sure that the food did not spoil and carefully planning meals. Keeping up with news via a hand-crank radio in the kitchen and a smaller hand-held radio I kept in my bedroom for listening after dark. I was actually grateful for this time because I rediscovered NPR, and their news was current, compassionate, and all day and night folks were calling in to the radio station to speak with the hosts on air, and report their experiences...it was a real comfort to have NPR run this kind of program.

I no longer felt isolated or afraid. Listening to the stories people told was an eye-opening education in how much a community all people are, and how all of our basic needs are essentially the same.

Keeping batteries charged via solar power was easy as well.

When not listening to the radio, preparing meals or taking care of my elderly mother (who still lives with me), I would pick up my guitar, my old Yamaha classical guitar which I've had since 1985, and always loved to play.

I wrote a new song each day. Yes a whole song. There was nothing else to do really. This was also a huge benefit to me, since I had hit a dry spell with my songwriting and was going through a sort of 'writers block' for the previous 9 months. Hurricane Sandy lifted the block.

I was free of distractions for the first time in a long time. Life was simple: Eat, sleep, bathe, keep the house safe, keep my mother comfortable.

We camped at home for 14 days and lived like folks did before all the modern conveniences...

During the time when I was playing my guitar, I remembered the baritone ukulele that my grandfather had given me when he and my grandmother moved to Florida in 2003.

At the time, I did not know really what to do with it and just put it into the closet.

My grandfather was a masterful Ragtime, Foxtrot and Stride piano player. He did not play professionally, but played all the time at home, and often had short-term weekly gigs at a local hotel bar, lobby or restaurant. It was his passion, along with model airplanes. He would never accept money for his piano performances and was offered it all the time. He was also asked, begged and offered lots of money many times to let someone record him and to release an album, but the requirement to tour in support of the recording, as well as the fact that the music was his pleasure and felt it would be ruined once money was involved, he always declined.

So, I have this baritone ukulele (which I later discovered to be a vintage 1950s Harmony all-solid mahogany), and no internet and no knowledge of how to tune it.

My grandfather passed away in 2009. When he passed I also inherited his collection of sheet music. Must be about 5,000 individual song sheets, all mostly in very-good to like-new condition.(this reminds me that I need to contact fellow UU brother Ian Chadwick)

I promised myself that I would make music with this baritone ukulele as a tribute to my grandfather and the music that he shared with me.

Yes, we played together many times, him on piano, with me on guitar or bass, and sometimes I would sing, but he was not a singer, yet he knew the melody and lyrics to almost any song that had been on the radio or in popular culture from about 1920 onward. If he did not know the song itself, after hearing it maybe 2-3 times and fiddling around on the piano, he would tell me the key it was in, and have the basic chords, and in about a hour later, he would have the exact melody and chords in the proper inversion, and also his own styling of the song, in much the same way that Richard Clayderman does with pop music... I was always in awe of my grandfather's skill. He was always a mentor, inspiration and example to follow. I miss him dearly and think about him, his music and the time we shared every single day.

-

So, after about 2 weeks, we got power, telephones, internet and cable TV back, and there were all the concerts on TV to benefit the victims of Hurricane Sandy who had lost everything, and there were folks who were lucky to be alive.

In one of the concerts, one of my lifelong musical heroes was performing - Sting.

But he was playing this tiny guitar, it was not an ukulele, but in fact like a small 22" scale guitar. I became obsessed with this guitar and now wanted to have one like it, and saw it maybe as a bridge to learning the ukulele.

Well, I came to find out that it was a parlor-size short-scale Martin Terz guitar, and was a limited run of only 100 instruments and Sting owned 2 of them, and when I saw the offering price of $2,500 I almost cried, first because they were all sold out some years ago, and second because I figured that if I could ever find a used one, it would cost even more than that. I dont have that kind of money lying around...

[end of part 1, please continue to part 2 below]
 
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[this is the start of part 2 of 2]

So like with most things, I went online looking for more info on this Martin, or any other Terz or smaller guitar that maybe I could afford, and came across various forms of kiku, guilele, or 'guitalele' as Yamaha calls it. I was thinking that could be my cheaper version of what Sting had. So when on Dec 12, 2012 Musicians Friend had a sale on their 'Stupid Deal Of The Day' with the Yamaha GL-1 for only $59 with free shipping, I jumped on it since the normal price was $99 and all the reviews I read at the time had praised this guitar.

While looking for resources, I kept coming into information about ukulele, all the time, over and over, and it was like the universe was trying to tell me something. Eventually I came upon the video of Jake playing in Central Park, and James Hill doing Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean', and then Li' Rev, Jim Beloff and John King. I was COMPLETELY blown away for before seeing these videos all I knew of ukulele was Tiny Tim and Don Ho, and honestly never really though about it much at all.

Well over the next month, I was like a sponge, I watched every video I could find on YouTube with ukulele. Not kidding you, like THOUSANDS of videos. I often fell asleep in the chair at my desk with some video playing only to snort myself awake and realize that I had to go to bed.

Every day after work this continued. When sleeping, I was dreaming about ukulele. I was hearing all of the music in my head, low-g songs, re-entrant songs, burlesque music, George Formby, Roy Smeck, Joel Eckhaus, Gerald Ross, Sarah Maisel, Kalei Gamiao, Ryo Montoya, Kobyashi, etc...the music kept going in my dreams long after my body went to rest, every night for months...programming my subconscious...

Along the way, of course I learned how to tune the baritone from my grandfather, and realize how similar it was to guitar, but also realized that I wanted something that was NOT guitar, and would put myself on the path, to yet again learn another instrument, and learn it well, no matter the time required or the effort involved...

During my searches for answers to my questions, UU was at the top of nearly EVERY search results list on google. Eventually I came directly to the forum and read almost every single thread in the Beginners, Buying Guide and Uke Talk sections. I had very specific questions now. I created a UU account and asked for help with those questions.

The results of many of them all pointed me to Kala as a good brand to start with, and maybe even never have to upgrade. Also the recommendation to try before you buy was repeated like a mantra for newbies for almost 10 yrs here on UU.

Luckily my local music shop was an authorized Kala dealer. Now it's March 2013, and I went there and played the ukes they had in stock which at the time were only the soprano, concert and baritone, KA-S, KA-C and KA-B but no tenor (KA-T). I tried them all. I knew the equivalent of the C, Am, F, G, G7 chord shapes coming off the baritone which I had been playing every day.

Soprano was way too tight, concert was a little better, and baritone, well I already had a baritone at home so I asked them to order me a tenor and a canvas-covered foam case, I had to leave a $20 deposit to place the order, and I did so with the caveat that if the tenor was not a good fit, I would get the $20 back. Their retail price was the SAME as Amazon ($119), and of course I prefer to support the local shop.

It took 18 painful days before they received my Kala KA-T tenor. I flew to the shop when they called me, and they let me unbox it myself in the 'acoustic room' that had a door you could close so the shredder-types wailing their best Ingwe Malmsteen solos could be shut out and you could actually hear yourself...

They handed me a SNARK which right away I hated it but tuned the Kala, and strummed some chords, and played some scales, and in less than 5 mins, KNEW that 'this is the one' and 'this size'. Mind you I had no other ukes to compare it to, but like many newbie uke players, it SOUNDED and felt good to me. Also keep in mind that I've had almost a lifetime of playing guitar, some very high-end so I could hear the potential, even if it was just a 'budget instrument'.

Once I got that ukulele home I played the snot out of it, every single day, for at LEAST 2-3 hrs per day until my fingers were sore. Needless to say I completely ignored tv and my friends, etc, as my whole world was now the ukulele. I watched almost every video on YT by Ukulele Mike across his 5 YT channels, discovered gotaukulele.com and bazMaz here on UU, and started to make a home here in the forum...

About 2 months after I joined UU, a wonderful UU sister and one whom I have great esteem for, GinnyT11 invited me to 'The Seasons' which I had previously not known about. I looked and thought about it and watched some of the previous Seasons videos and though, sure, why not?

From there, is a more obvious story that might not need be detailed in depth, but I continued on with the Seasons, became afflicted with UAS and SCO/SAS, and discovered this community and all it has to offer as one of the most significant parts of my day.

Yes, outside of UU my world is likely relatively small compared to many of you who will read this, and with only so many hours per day, UU is my refuge.

So many folks here have served as mentors, counselors, and teachers in various ways. I feel that it is my responsibility (though I am not obligated) and to share what I have learned and to try and help others here on UU.

I never knew about the 'Aloha Spirit' before coming to UU, but now try to incorporate it generally in all other areas of my life. Not so much as a spiritual function, but more as a guiding principle.

Doing so has made great changes in the folks around me and the quality of my relationships with others.

Paying forward is very important to me now, and the reward is the journey.

All because of the humble, and for me, magical ukulele. Play On! :music:

[this is the end of part 2 of 2]
 
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When I was 15 in the mid sixties I started playing guitar influenced by The Beatles and the rest of classic rock and roll. I got reasonably good but never completely devoted myself to it. Almost four years ago I was leafing through a Musicians Friend catalogue and saw a Mahalo T-30 ukulele that looked like a Telecaster guitar. I thought it would look cute hanging next to my actual Telecaster guitar so I bought it for the reasonable price of $60 to strictly be a wall hanger, never intending on playing it.

A couple of weeks later I received a postcard from the Los Angeles Music Center announcing their summer Play-Along series, which I had attended a couple of times for guitar, but this time it was for ukulele. Hey, I said to myself, I have a ukulele now, I think I'll try it. I got online and discovered how much was going on with the ukulele; Iz, Jake, Ukulele Underground, on and on. So I looked up some chords and started playing, but very quickly found how difficult it was making chords. In researching I discovered that the Mahalo was a soprano, and that a tenor would be better for me. I ran over to Sam Ash and bought a Lanikai quilted ash cutaway with preamp and practiced the three chords the Play-Along required.

When I got to the Play-Along the first day, there were maybe 300-400 people. I was great fun, and that evening I joined UU, also in the next few days I joined The CC Strummers senior uke group and The Westside Ukulele Ensemble (of which I dropped out a year later, too advanced for me), and took up the bass uke. I haven't touched my guitars and have excelled far more in this time than I ever did with the guitar.


8 tenor cutaway ukes, 3 acoustic bass ukes, 8 solid body bass ukes, 8 mini electric bass guitars

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children's hospital music therapy programs. http://.www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: https://www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/videos
 
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Booli, amazing write up. I'll be reading it again. You really nailed down the musician's spirit and passion.

Thanks for the kind words brother. I was worried it was too long, but in the end decided to post all of it so as to give the full back-story and motivation and a few of the many reasons why the ukulele is such an important part of my life.

I hope it's not too much to read. :) My grandfather was a huge inspiration to me, and the only other person in my family with persistent interest, talent and true passion for music. His legacy lives on in me now.
 
Thanks for the kind words brother. I was worried it was too long, but in the end decided to post all of it so as to give the full back-story and motivation and a few of the many reasons why the ukulele is such an important part of my life.

I hope it's not too much to read. :) My grandfather was a huge inspiration to me, and the only other person in my family with persistent interest, talent and true passion for music. His legacy lives on in me now.

Not too much at all. I loved it.
 
When I was 15 in the mid sixties I started playing guitar influenced by The Beatles and the rest of classic rock and roll.... I joined The CC Strummers senior uke group and The Westside Ukulele Ensemble (of which I dropped out a year later, too advanced for me), and took up the bass uke. I haven't touched my guitars and have excelled far more in this time than I ever did with the guitar.

Mike,

I just wanted to say that no matter how many times you have told this story, it never gets old to me, and makes me smile. I always enjoy reading it.

Like so many other folks here, you and I have both come to the ukulele from guitar, and the ukulele has superseded our interest in guitar and also led to the (uke) bass for us both.

Your passion with the uke bass also inspired me to pick up the bass once again after neglecting it for many years, and your discovery with all your custom modded basses all rings true for me as well. I also love the fact that so many of us keep in touch with these items for sale from Rondo Music and that nobody gets left out of a good deal because of such an open flow of communication.

So, Mahalo brother. I'm glad you are here. :)
 
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TL;DR version: Got old, decided to play guitar, accidentally fell in love with ukulele. That's it; skip to the next post. :)

I think Mivo and I might be twins.

The differences being that I played flute in high school, but never really connected with it, then bought an acoustic guitar when I was at university. Had several flings with that guitar over the years but never made much headway beyond being able to pick up by ear and strum along with whatever was playing on the stereo. It sat almost untouched in the corner of my lounge room for the last seven years. I dabbled with electronic music on and off.

Then came 40. I wanted to mark the milestone in some significant way and I figured that having an affair would be too much effort and annoy my wife, so instead I determined to knuckle down and learn to play electric guitar. Epic rock skillz by Xmas (last year) seemed a worthy goal. I drilled and played for a couple of hours every day, and finally made some serious progress. I quickly outgrew the beat up old Epiphone Les Paul I'd picked up for pennies and upgraded to a new Yamaha Revstar (seriously, this is a great rock axe) and everything I'd learnt was so much easier. Best of all, I was enjoying music in a way that I never had during the regimented piano/flute lesson years, or during my dabbling since.

My daily guitar sessions became something I looked forward to. They washed away the stress of work. I thought I'd found my happiest place.

Soon I discovered that some songs I wanted to learn or play worked better with acoustic guitar, so I dusted off the old dreadnought, gave it some new strings, and was surprised how good it sounded now with my hard won new skills. My play sessions shifted to 50/50 electric/acoustic.

I got a bit of GAS, and wanted something travel sized. I was travelling between weekday home and the farm most weekends. I bought a cheap small guitar, a Cort Earth Mini, for a couple of hundred bucks, not expecting much from it given the price and size. I was wrong. I instantly fell in love with the tone and playability. (Later I bought a mid priced Taylor, and it still can't hold a candle to the Cort despite costing 3x the price).

Next was a Vorson Guitarlele. A tenor uke sized stratocaster. I bought it as a novelty, but realised it was... okay. Not great, maybe not even good, but perfectly capable of ripping out a massive rock solo. The most surprising part was that I could play it just fine, despite its diminutive size. Curious.

I noticed a soprano ukulele I'd bought years ago sitting beside my desk. A Mahalo I'd bought because it was cheap. $15 on special or something. I set to work trying to make it playable. I got it close, but not close enough. No amount of adjustment can fix that monstrosity. I decided ukuleles were a lost cause.

My sister in law gave me a $100 gift card. I'd been toying with the idea of doing some inlay work on an instrument but couldn't bring myself to cut any that I owned, so instead on a whim I bought a $115 ukulele. Some no-name thing direct from china, a Caramel tenor (whatever that might mean). I was still firmly of the opinion that ukuleles were for kids and hipsters and couldn't make decent music.

You know where this is heading. It arrived and I was astounded to find not a toy, but a real instrument. I found the sound not merely tolerable, I found it beautiful. I couldn't put it down. Curious and curiouser.

When I finally set the ukulele aside, I jumped on YouTube and soon found Andie Isalie's F You (amazing) and then Brittni Piava's Safe & Sound (astounding). Ever been moved to tears by a musical performance? Yeah, that. My goals shifted from 'epic rock guitar skillz by Xmas' to 'play Safe & Sound like Brittni by Xmas'.

Y'know I almost got there too. I could play that song (and a bunch of others) in pretty decent fashion by Xmas, but I'm still trying to polish Safe & Sound to performance level.

Somewhere along the way I picked up a much better tenor uke, googled "Ukulele forum" and found this place, got sucked into the luthier/builders lounge, discovered Kalei Gamiao, built a ukulele and almost completely lost interest in several longstanding preexisting obsessions.

Who knows what the future holds, but for me, for now, it's all about the uke.

Sorry for the long-winded post. Thanks to everybody who has contributed to this forum, whether seasonista, tab sharer, enthusiast or builder. You've all enriched my life in ways I could not have expected a year ago.
 
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It was 1951 and my 10th birthday. My dad had just finished building our house and I suspect he didn't have much money, so he lovingly handed me his pre-war Martin O in it's case as I sat in my bedroom. I suppose he didn't think his old fishing reel and a new rod was enough. He proceeded to teach me how to play "Yes Sir, That's My Baby." I didn't get serious about playing until about 15 years ago.
 
On a cold snowy Sunday afternoon in February I was channel surfing and stumbled upon a documentary titled "The Might Uke". I sat there transfixed by the sounds I was hearing from an instrument I never gave a second thought about. James Hill and Jake could do that to you.

I had dappled, stumbled, struggled with acoustic guitar 10 years earlier to no avail. I had no musical background, did not take music in school nor played any kind of instrument in my youth. But watching The Might Uke ignited a spark of interest. A week later I bought a uke, attended a group lesson and started going to three regular uke jams. Yes I was hooked and all in with both feet.
 
I've told this before but here's my story. About 15 yrs ago, my husband's birthday was approaching and I was browsing in the mall for a gift (in the days before internet shopping was commonplace). I wandered into a music store, not really thinking of something for him. I had my son with me and he plays piano and bass and always likes to go in and look at instruments and gear. While he was fiddling around, I saw a baritone ukulele. It was a humble Lanakai LU 21-B. I thought it was kid of guitary and yet more portable and though maybe my husband would enjoy noodling around on it. He was always in a band as a teenager, usually on bass, but stopped playing when he went in the service and never picked it back up (life got in the way), but could still grab a guitar and play a tune or two.

Anyway....long story short, he said he liked it, but never played much. After a few months, it went in the closet and there it sat for 10 yrs. When we retired and got ready to move down south, I uncovered the uke and thought "I'll take it with us, maybe he'll find time to play now."

When we settled into our retirement home, I broke it out and tried to encourage him to play, but he seemed only slightly interested. I thought if maybe I found him the chords to a song or two to get started, it might spark some interest. Now we were the only family I know who did not have Internet and knew nothing about computers, but when I retired I got a little Mac and was just learning how to use it. I stumbled upon Ultimate guitar and found the chords to two easy songs I had been listening to "Sideways" by Citizen Cope and "Creep" by Radiohead. I meticulously copied them by hand, with chord diagrams (no printer at the time) and presented them to my husband. Result? just "ok, that's cool, I'll check them out"...and then Nothing...no music.

I thought "What the heck, these chords don't seem that hard. I'm gonna give it a try." And in a couple of hours, I found myself making music. I was hooked! I always loved music. Was in choir, played violin (awful) and then flute (not as bad) but nothing stuck. With the ukulele, though, it was like I flipped a switch, the light came on and it's been shining brightly ever since. I play for hours, nearly every day (wish I had started sooner). I've been playing for about five years, I guess now and loving it more than ever. I'm not a soloist, not ready to take a lead and lay down some wicked riffs but I am a solid rythym player and am comfortable performing. I'm just starting to explore fingerstyle with "The Ukulele Way" and enjoying it but I would also have been fine if I had just stayed a humble strummer of cowboy chords because that's what I find the most enjoyable and relaxing part of playing.

Anyway...its been a wonderful musical journey. And btw, my son now has that old Lanikai and it still gets played.
 
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