My interest in the uke renewed before I became aware that a resurgence was already underway. I first started playing uke when I was about ten years old. My dad had done his internship in Honolulu, and as many before and since, he fell in love with the uke. He taught me the basic chords, a few of the songs he knew, and bought a songbook of American folk songs. I had a great time with it, but eventually moved on to other childhood pursuits, activities, and time sinks.
In high school, guitar was the thing, and I picked up the basics pretty quickly, but then my mom bought a piano for my younger sisters, and it became my instrument of choice. I mostly learned from fake books, working out my own arrangements.
My company sent me to Honolulu on a project in the early 90's, and knowing the difference between a souvenir uke from Waikiki and the real thing, but also watching the family budget, I visited Kamaka and bought a factory second soprano. It has a hairline crack in the back, but I can't hear anything wrong with it. I had fun for a while, but it has pretty much collected dust since then.
The turning point came about five years ago on a backpacking trip in Yosemite. One of the group suggested a group rhythm jam around the campfire. Something clicked, and we all knew we had touched something real.
For the next trip, Noah, who had suggested the group jam, said he was bringing his bongo. Mike decided to bring his daughter's child-sized guitar. So I brought my Kamaka. We had some great jams, but after listening to what Mike could do with that toy guitar, I decided to become a better uke player, or at least to expand my repertoire.
So I googled up some uke, and learned a couple of songs from Mark Occhionero's site. After failing to find tabs for "It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing", I worked out my own basic arrangement, using my fake books and what I could glean from Mark's site. I felt proud of my accomplishment.
Things really picked up after I bought my tenor. The richer, deeper sound inspired me to practice more.
Then I saw the post for the Mya-Moe contest. I had recently come up with what I thought was a cool little chord progression, so I decided to add some words and enter it in the contest. It was my first youtube upload, and I know it's pretty unpolished, but I felt it was a decent effort.
Since then I've uploaded another original (w/o lyrics), Gold Miner's Lament, a Gershwin arrangment, an original song as entry in the Kanile'a contest, a Strayhorn arrangment, and most recently, a Monk tune for the Eleuke contest. I feel like I'm really starting to hit my stride.
I'm not sure at what point in my personal resurgence that I realized a worldwide uke resurgence was underway, but it was probably around the time that my son sent me the link to Jake's Gently Weeps in Central Park. Although the uke's range and versatility are limited compared to the guitar and piano, there can be no doubt that its expressive power can be enormous.
