SamWise
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- Sep 19, 2008
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Those in the UK might be familar with Acoustic, a magazine for (guess what?) acoustic guitars. I'm one of the writers, and for an upcoming issue, I have to review probably 12 of 'em, right across the range of prices and sizes. I have a couple of concerts and a tenor from Hudson (they seem good, but I never see them mentioned elsewhere), and sopranos from Hamano (seems great) Koloa (not great so far) and Mahalo (also not good). My observations so far are that the bigger the uke, the easier to play for a guitarist, and that the cheap ones have appalling tuners, which don't go well with already bad intonation.
Since I knew all of 3 Uke chords, I set about doing a bit of learning in preparation for this article. I decided to be predictable, and I can now play a decent version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, though the changes are not perfect yet, and I've been having fun working on transferring other songs over.
So, I guess I have three purposes in posting this. One was a heads-up, so that you would know to look for the article if you're interested. The second was to ask you all, as a bit of a ukulele dilettante, if you have any advice for me in writing this article. The final one was to say that I've inadvertantly falled in love with the uke. I have a day job with a lot of travelling, and I've been carrying one with me, practising in my car in client's car parks, in hotel rooms, all over. So much easier to transport than a guitar! So I wondered, I'd like to get myself a uke, but with a new baby, money is tight. What's the least one can spend and get a decent, useable instrument? If someone asked me the same question about guitars, I guess I'd say you can get something playable that has all the frets in the right place from about £150, and that for £250, you can get a guitar which you'll still have a use for even if you decide to buy a better one, in other words, a guitar you won't grow out of. What's the ukulele equivalent?
Since I knew all of 3 Uke chords, I set about doing a bit of learning in preparation for this article. I decided to be predictable, and I can now play a decent version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, though the changes are not perfect yet, and I've been having fun working on transferring other songs over.
So, I guess I have three purposes in posting this. One was a heads-up, so that you would know to look for the article if you're interested. The second was to ask you all, as a bit of a ukulele dilettante, if you have any advice for me in writing this article. The final one was to say that I've inadvertantly falled in love with the uke. I have a day job with a lot of travelling, and I've been carrying one with me, practising in my car in client's car parks, in hotel rooms, all over. So much easier to transport than a guitar! So I wondered, I'd like to get myself a uke, but with a new baby, money is tight. What's the least one can spend and get a decent, useable instrument? If someone asked me the same question about guitars, I guess I'd say you can get something playable that has all the frets in the right place from about £150, and that for £250, you can get a guitar which you'll still have a use for even if you decide to buy a better one, in other words, a guitar you won't grow out of. What's the ukulele equivalent?