Dunno - my family has always had one. We have one uke in particular that all the kids in my family have played at some point. It's seen 4 generations, is completely thrashed, but still has the original strings. I'm planning on picking it up the next time I'm down there to restore it. It needs cracks sealed, tuners changed (you can hardly turn them now), strings changed, and a refinishing. I don't know how to do any of that stuff so it should be a fun project.
at my cousins' house in poulsbo washington like forever ago, but i never really played one while i was knowing what i was doing until about 6 months ago.
I was checking out a sidewalk sale in my home town when I was about 15 years old. I saw what I thought was a couple of very small guitars with no strings for about 7 or 8 bucks at one of the tables. I bought one on a whim and brought it home. Lucky for me, my dad knew what it was. Since he worked in NYC, he had no problem getting his hands on a set of strings and a chord book. I remember learning 3 chords and just using those for the entire time I played it. I gave it up after a few months.
30 years or so later I saw this amazing video of some kid named Jake playing a version of "While My Guitar Genly Weeps" on a uke and my interest came back.
Wow is that all Deach? I don't know why, but I was under the impression it took longer to acquire all those ukes, plus all the fame. I guess good things come quickly to those who deserve it
For me, I bought a $15 uke in Ron Jon surf shop at Cocoa Beach last June where my wife and I went for the weekend of our first anniversary. I figured it'd be a fun and cheap alternative to buying an acoustic guitar... little did I know that within a week I'd already be calling it my main instrument and still 10 months later haven't shown any signs of looking for an acoustic guitar. That day I actually tried tuning it by ear with the G being the lowest, not seeing that it's plainly a smaller string... Monday I found UU forums, asked for some advice and bought a flea immediately. I love this community
mine was when i was 10 in fiji i bought my first ukulele which i broke after 2 weeks, after that it was a year ago i bought one with my banjo hooked since then
i rented a room from a buddy for a semester (about 6 mo. ago), and he left a tourist trap uke in there ( along with alot of other stuff LOL ). Got bored one day and learned "No Woman No Cry" from dominator's site. Been hooked ever since (damned you dom LOL)