So the uke scene keeps growing! Hows the scene in your area?

Uke Republic

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About 3-4 years ago it seemed but a handful of uke players would get together in metro Atlanta and play. Now in our area there are about 5-6 groups that meet up and its wonderful, so many talented and fun people I've had a chance to meet because of the ukulele.
Hows the scene in your area?
 
In TO it seems to be alive and growing. One of the local uke groups meets up every Wed. I guess I should start going to 'em for some inspiration 'cause I'm in a funk.

Funny enough, just yesterday I saw someone in the subway with a little Kala soprano box. I know that box anywhere! lol
 
So far- nothing here. Me and the wife and a bunch of folks who tell me they "used to"...I wish it was different
 
In San Francisco, a meetup group that formed this summer, Ukulele Rebellion, seems to be thriving and attracting as many as 20 people to its every-other-Sunday-afternoon gatherings. I've been to a few and they're fun. I hope to go regularly as my Sunday schedule frees up. There's also the now-massive Berkeley Ukulele Club, which has been meeting every other Wednesday night, across the Bay Bridge. I guess the scene here is active.


So far- nothing here. Me and the wife and a bunch of folks who tell me they "used to"...I wish it was different

Hey TCK, where is "here"?
 
There's a uke meet-up here in Berlin which has decided do meet biweekly instead of monthly now. I went for the first time last week and it was awesome. People were trying out each other's ukes. I even got to try out a tenor and concert sizes, which seemed humongous in my hands.

The bad thing though, was that we began at 19:00 and had to stop playing at 22:00 because of recent complaints from the neighbors. The other bad thing is that the room is fairly small, and with everyone packed in there drinking and talking, it turned into a cacophony when we weren't all playing together, and I could barely hear my instrument. It was however, tons of fun, and I'm definitely going again as much as I can!
 
seems to me its peaked around here.

talk to the local music shops and they are scaling down the uke stock because they have sensed the interest declining.

6 months ago they couldn't get enough ukes, now they are happy to let the uke wall shrink, glad to get rid of the last of the stock, going back to a few mahalos, a couple of concert laminates between 100 and 300 bucks, a couple of eleukes if you're lucky and no high end ukes over about 500 to 800 bucks.
 
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In San Francisco, a meetup group that formed this summer, Ukulele Rebellion, seems to be thriving and attracting as many as 20 people to its every-other-Sunday-afternoon gatherings.

20 people once every 2 weeks in a city of how many million ?, that doesn't sound like the word thriving is really appropriate.
 
It's still pretty slim pickings in my town, but I've heard that it's really taken off just a few miles south of us in Dallas. I haven't made it down for a meet up yet, however, since DFW traffic takes about a week off my life for each leg of the trip.
 
We were just discussing this at one of our groups last night.

I haven't been playing that long but I've seen a few groups pop up around here. There are 5 groups that I can name off the top of my head; The Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Group, Silver Strings/Garden City, Motor City Ukes, L.A.U.G.H. (Lansing), and MMUGs (Mid Michigan).

The only problem is that for some reason people don't know about them. One of the group members had his uke with him in public and met somebody else that has been playing for years and they had no clue there were any groups.

I also never knew about Rob Bourassa. He lives like 20 minutes from me and I had no clue until I read his bio for the Milwaukee uke fest.

The only "good" uke player in Michigan that I knew about was Gerald Ross.

More and more people are taking the uke up. I've also noticed a younger crowd too, which is good because we're not playing as many old songs. (not that that's a bad thing)
 
I was talking to the manager at Guitar Showcase in San Jose and he said last year they sold a little over 600 ukes and this year they've sold over 650 and the Christmas sales haven't started yet. I guess that would be the same for most of the other shops in the area. C.B. Perkins (also in SJ) has a nice wall of ukes whereas last year there were none, and I know that Ukulele Source in Japantown, can't keep the K-brands in stock. I think the uke population is booming, it's just a matter of getting groups organized. We need more young enthusiasts, but there doesn't seem to be anything organized around younger players. I'm organizing a group at the high school where I teach and I can see that one factor in the scarcity of organized groups might be the music choices of traditional uke clubs. I know the first time I went to check out a local uke club I was easily the youngest person in that room (I'm 48) and the music choices reflected that. That's fine for me, but I'm pretty sure the teens and twenty-somethings and even the thirty-somethings wouldn't be all that enthused about playing the types of songs I'm seeing at local kanikapila's. As I try to collect songs for my kids, I'm sure you'll start seeing me more and more of me in the "song/tab" section of uu asking help in transposing current pop songs for the kids.

My two cents,

-Gary
 
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I think the uke scene in our area has grown and continues to grow. We have a jam once a week with about five or six people which is impressive for the boonies of PA. I also stopped in my local music store to see if they had any of the new Martin ukes. I was talking with the owner and he told me he can barely keep any ukes in stock.
 
Me and one one 80+ year old guy (who knows a ton of great tunes!) play at a bluegrass/country jam every monday here in Jacksonville NC. If there are more of you out there in this area PM me!
 
I paid a short visit to Thailand. It seems every store was carrying ukes, even stores that shouldn't be. It seemed like there is common knowledge of the uke compared to 1 year ago.

I went to Ribbee shop in Bangkok and for the first time I saw zero customers. Zero. But, I saw 5 workers there in the shop so it was midafternoon on the weekday so the 5 workers still must mean there are adequate sales. Their workshop they had a few months back was their biggest yet. Loads of people.

Here in the sand, people are asking about the uke. I'm getting some feelers about a band or 2 wanting me to come around.
 
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Unfortunately, I'm about the only adult in my area interested in them. A few children are taking lessons at a local music shop. I would love to have fun with others, but it's just not happening around here.
 
here there's a lot of music going on.
ukeleles (tahitian type ukeleles) are everywhere, the same as guitars.

i normally jam 1 day/week, but study almost 7/week at home.
 
I've been playing for about a year and have gone to the Berkeley Ukulele Club for most of the year. About 50 people show up every other Wednesday. The club meets in Mike DaSilva's shop, and unfortunately he is moving to Hawaii. The first meeting in the new location is tonight at a restaurant/bakery around the corner from DaSilva. I'm hoping that the 40 or so members make the transfer.

There also are active classes/play alongs at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley.

Someone mentioned that Santa Cruz has around 100 who show up at their gatherings.
 
Here in Brazil we have Ukencontro once a month in Sao Paulo, with about 15 ukers since 2010. I live in the State next (Paraná) and now the scene has changed: we are doing the Ukencontro in Curitiba, capital of Paraná: the first occurred on August 27th (I could not go because I live in the countryside, in Guarapuava), but now let's make a new Ukencontro, September 24, and I will not miss: ukers are all crazy to see my new Kamaka HF-3. We are 20 and have two professional musicians who participate together. They play very well too!

Here's some ukers from Curitiba

Eduardo Ansay and Ana Ribeiro



Lemoskine
 
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