Some praise for Mainland Ukuleles and Mike

UkeStuff

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I had a chance to meet Mike at the Milwaukee Ukulele Festival, and it was wonderful to hear part of his story and to try some of his ukuleles. That cedar tenor--love it.

I told Mike about my ukulele efforts in my school, and he invited me to contact him later about getting some ukuleles for our school.

If you are following my progress, I am replacing truly crummy Mahalo sopranos with inexpensive but decent Caramel Concerts (and we also have 10 Caramel tenors). Kala was also gracious to donate 40 Waterman ukuleles (and they have done so for several other teachers I know).

My school is less than climate-controlled (putting it mildly) and we are actually opening a new building in the fall of 2018. So I hesitated to ask Mike about Mainland ukuleles for our program.

However, as we add the Caramels, students are starting to get a different playing experience than on the Mahalos (had I know about Caramel, I would have done that in the first place). But as my students are having a better playing experience, I thought: how great would it be to have some quality instruments that some of the students could use in class, to simply get the experience of playing on a quality instrument?

So I contacted Mike. He was incredibly supportive and sent us four Mainlands (two Sopranos, two Concerts--this was the number I asked for) at a very low cost (I actually insisted that we pay something for these instruments, as we do have some fundraised money to use). He set them up and shipped them right away. They are seconds (I asked him to consider sending me 4ths!) but you wouldn't know it. I should be able to care for these four instruments even with our wicked humidity issues in Minnesota.

The Mainlands arrived on Wednesday (we have off school today and tomorrow), and I had students playing on them that day. Yes, there is a significant difference between the Caramels and Mainlands...it is a combination of sound and feel. And I do like the Caramels.

So anyway...I want to publicly acknowledge Mike for being a great guy and for supporting our program. I am personally going to make the trek to Indiana to buy a Mainland in person (the aforementioned Cedar Tenor)--and will stop by my wife's favorite Goat Milk Store in Indiana at the same time (there is strategy there).

I know many of you love Mainland and support Mike...and as I say about Kala as well...please support these companies as they are giving back to the education community!

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Here is a picture of the Mainland Ukuleles (and the bargain Soprano Banjo Ukulele from Lanikai that Musician's Friend had last month) on our Bonanza Ukulele carousel table!
 
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Awesome! Great to hear. Keep up the good work, both you and Mike of Mainland!
 
Mike is great! He has been our main guy for our classroom ukes since 2014. In 2015 he was able to get us setup with a whole set of ukes that we now use as library checkouts for students to have additional practice. My program would not have been possible without Mainland Mike!
 
Congrats to you that Mike recognized the benefit of what you're doing and kudos to him for contributing! Maybe the next James Hills in in there somewhere!
 
:agree: Mike is a great guy and Mainlands are sweet ukes. Those cedar topped Mainlands are particularly sweet. How wonderful for the kids that they'll have a chance to learn and play on some great ukes. Kudos to you and Mike for sharing the gift of music with them.
 
Thanks for sharing that with us. It really makes me feel proud to belong to the ukulele community. Hats off to both you and Mike for taking such good care of our future generation.
 
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That's a great story and it's nice to know how supportive Mainland is to music education. Making music together is truly a life-changing experience for young people. My children were fortunate to grow up in a town that included music instruction in its school budget. They started on string instruments in elementary school and by high school, were performing at college music level. My son's jazz band competed onstage at Lincoln Center and met Winton Marsalis. What a thrill.

Happy to say that both children and a couple of cousins play ukulele and when we have family gatherings, the ukes always come out!
 
Very cool! Mike has donated at least one Mainland to TBUG every year that we've done the festival. Everyone I know who has a Mainland loves it. I wish I had bought one instead of the other uke I got, which is unplayable now. I hope that I can be involved in getting ukes into schools when I retire, this is a great cause! This is all great Aloha!
 
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