Never heard this one before

haolejohn

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Walking out of the restaurant today with my kamaka slung over my shoulder (in a gig bag) and my helmet in one hand. This gentleman looks at me as he and his wife are walking in and asks: "Is that a banjo, mandolin, or gun?"

Man got to love living in the south.

Then I explained it was an 'ukulele. He smirked and his wife's eyes perked up. very comical.
Anyone else ever had their uke mistaken for something outside the norm?
 
I thought a ukulele WAS "besides the norm"!

I was asked (by a child, so I cut slack) why my guitar was so small, with a mention of my mental capacity ("Are you special?" Polite child!), but other than that...
 
Aloha John,
You should have said, This the Kamaka 45 the most powerfull ukulele in the world....
Anyways, "Keep on Strumming them strings" Ukuleles are forever...MM Stan..
 
I've gotten a few tiny guitar and violin guesses, but never a gun.
 
With the gig bag, I've had pool cue, fishing rod, mandolin, lap steel, and lawn chair. (Surprisingly no gun questions, which, now that you mention it, is odd for around here.)
Carrying it in the hard case, all I've ever been asked is what kind of ukulele it was.
 
A friend and I took our ukes into the city once, and while we were heading to our train at the station a couple of homeless guys started hitting on us. It was really disturbing. But the point of this story is that they asked us if we were gonna play some violin for them.
We did not justify their comments with responses.
 
After I bought my ukulele in Hawaii, I didn't want to leave it in the hot car while we hiked (we didn't have a room anymore, 'cause it was our last day). It was in the lightweight, black nylon covered styrofoam case, a super concert size. I was wearing the backpack straps, and was being very careful walking over the slippery rocks on the trail, and red faced from the exercise when someone asked if it was a violin. You would think ukulele would come to mind first, being in Hawaii and all, but we were in a place were many tourists hike.

–Lori
 
Walking out of the restaurant today with my kamaka slung over my shoulder (in a gig bag) and my helmet in one hand. This gentleman looks at me as he and his wife are walking in and asks: "Is that a banjo, mandolin, or gun?"

Man got to love living in the south.

Then I explained it was an 'ukulele. He smirked and his wife's eyes perked up. very comical.
Anyone else ever had their uke mistaken for something outside the norm?


Yeah man. That's why everyone is so nice to one another. BTW we are neighbors. I live over in the Newnan area. Good to know there are other uke people around.
 
That is too funny, because the exact same thing was said to me two days ago! I made a trip down to my new place to move some particularly fragile stuff in (ukes, fish tank, etc etc). Later on, a guy came by to do maintenance on the A/C unit. He points to all my uke cases on the floor and says, "You totin' instruments or machine guns in there?" (This, too, in the South... Florida to be exact).
 
you could always obscurely reference lee harvey oswald and say you're carrying curtain rods, but probably no one will actually get it.
 
Not a gun, but equally as lethal.

No, on par with a lethal gun would be an untuned Banjoele.

I've heard that instead of taking a Banjoele to a luthier when something is wrong with it. You need to take it to a mechanic!
 
With the gig bag, I've had pool cue, fishing rod, mandolin, lap steel, and lawn chair. (Surprisingly no gun questions, which, now that you mention it, is odd for around here.)
Carrying it in the hard case, all I've ever been asked is what kind of ukulele it was.

LAWN CHAIR? WTF?... How big is your uke case? :p
 
you could always obscurely reference lee harvey oswald and say you're carrying curtain rods, but probably no one will actually get it.

Classic! Your right that nobody would get it, which is a shame... but that can just fuel our immense feeling of superiority!... Now off to play my "little guitar"...

UKES DON'T KILL PEOPLE... TUNES DO!...
 
We've probably heard "Is that a BANJO?" way more frequently than the "look at that tiny guitar" line. BANJO? We don't own any banjo ukes, and that's when the ukes are out of the gig bags, too. I sometimes wonder if people who don't play music spend their lives living under rocks. I've also heard someone call a dulcimer a banjo, too. Maybe BANJO is the catch-all code name for any stringed instrument that isn't a guitar.
 
I'm Italian so my brother and myself always joke that if someone asks us whats in the cases we'll say "we wit da mob".
 
We've probably heard "Is that a BANJO?" way more frequently than the "look at that tiny guitar" line. BANJO? We don't own any banjo ukes, and that's when the ukes are out of the gig bags, too. I sometimes wonder if people who don't play music spend their lives living under rocks. I've also heard someone call a dulcimer a banjo, too. Maybe BANJO is the catch-all code name for any stringed instrument that isn't a guitar.
I think the banjo connection is from the sound more than how it looks. The re-entrant tuning on the uke is similar to the 5 string banjo tuning, and so there is a relationship sound-wise. I had played guitar and banjo, before the uke, and often found myself referring to the uke as a banjo in my early days of playing, so there is something there that sticks in the mind.
–Lori
 
After I bought my ukulele in Hawaii, I didn't want to leave it in the hot car while we hiked (we didn't have a room anymore, 'cause it was our last day). It was in the lightweight, black nylon covered styrofoam case, a super concert size. I was wearing the backpack straps, and was being very careful walking over the slippery rocks on the trail, and red faced from the exercise when someone asked if it was a violin. You would think ukulele would come to mind first, being in Hawaii and all, but we were in a place were many tourists hike.

–Lori
Yeah, tourist are kinda stupid like that:)
 
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