maybe we need to rethink how to make a ukulele

Wicked man.. :D
BIG like from me..
 
man that was totally WILD. gee, how good was that...off to his website...
 
I guess I can afford a "custom" instrument after all. Off to Home depot.
 
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I NEED a Mr. Curly!
 
eugene ukulele said:
man that was totally WILD. gee, how good was that...off to his website...
Click to expand...

Admit it... You just like his hat. :D

That was outrageous. Not only cool, but it's hard to imagine someone not enjoying the song. Usually when I see something like this, it might not be very appealing to a lot of people. This however was approachable and fun.
 
Wow! Apparently almost any tube can make music when you stick a clarinet mouthpiece onto it and put it into the hands of a talented musician.

Okay, MGM was musing on how it might inspire ukulele design. . .

I'm thinking: put a round length-wise bore through the neck (like a truss-rod channel under the fingerboard), mount a transverse fife mouthpiece at the base of the peghead just above the nut (coaxial with the bore), and drill seven appropriately sized and spaced holes down the center of the fretboard (and a thumbhole from underneath). Then you're ready for "flute" solos between uke riffs.

Okay, maybe instead design it for a diatonic scale like a pennywhistle (or even a pentatonic scale) in order to make the holes a little more ergonomically accessible. For that matter, it would probably work better with a (very un-ukely) radiused fingerboard.

Or perhaps, instead of putting the fingerholes through the fretboard, rotate it 90 degrees along the axis and put the holes out the treble side of the neck. However, balance would be an issue: it would want to rotate away from you.

Well, how's this? . . . As above, but the mouthpiece is angled away from the peghead and the fingerholes (except for the octave thumbhole) are along the back of the neck. Mouthpiece could be whatever: single-reed, double-reed, whistle fipple, or maybe even bugle. Similarly, hole spacing could be piccolo clarinet, woodwind cornette, pennywhistle, recorder, eastern five-hole, etc.


Or maybe the video suggests to us that we should be doing more with our fingers to modify a sound vibration that has already been set in motion. Perhaps ukuleles just need valves on the bodies to modify string harmonics and overtones. Tremelo (that is, real tremelo...not the vibrato on an electric guitar that was erroneously termed tremelo) effect would be really easy.
 
It would be interesting to see how a steel hollow neck with flute type holes at the frets, with air blown through the neck, would sound. It would have to come out the end, or out the soundhole. Weird.

YooperUker said:
Wow! Apparently almost any tube can make music when you stick a clarinet mouthpiece onto it and put it into the hands of a talented musician.

Okay, MGM was musing on how it might inspire ukulele design. . .

I'm thinking: put a round length-wise bore through the neck (like a truss-rod channel under the fingerboard), mount a transverse fife mouthpiece at the base of the peghead just above the nut (coaxial with the bore), and drill seven appropriately sized and spaced holes down the center of the fretboard (and a thumbhole from underneath). Then you're ready for "flute" solos between uke riffs.

Okay, maybe instead design it for a diatonic scale like a pennywhistle (or even a pentatonic scale) in order to make the holes a little more ergonomically accessible. For that matter, it would probably work better with a (very un-ukely) radiused fingerboard.

Or perhaps, instead of putting the fingerholes through the fretboard, rotate it 90 degrees along the axis and put the holes out the treble side of the neck. However, balance would be an issue: it would want to rotate away from you.

Well, how's this? . . . As above, but the mouthpiece is angled away from the peghead and the fingerholes (except for the octave thumbhole) are along the back of the neck. Mouthpiece could be whatever: single-reed, double-reed, whistle fipple, or maybe even bugle. Similarly, hole spacing could be piccolo clarinet, woodwind cornette, pennywhistle, recorder, eastern five-hole, etc.


Or maybe the video suggests to us that we should be doing more with our fingers to modify a sound vibration that has already been set in motion. Perhaps ukuleles just need valves on the bodies to modify string harmonics and overtones. Tremelo (that is, real tremelo...not the vibrato on an electric guitar that was erroneously termed tremelo) effect would be really easy.
Click to expand...
 
Beyond awesome and cool! The essence of "fun with music".....it's "elemental"
 
Nickie said:
It would be interesting to see how a steel hollow neck
Click to expand...

I hadn't been thinking steel - just a smooth bore in the wood. Other alternatives might include lining it with a brass or PVC tube.

with flute type holes at the frets, with air blown through the neck, would sound.
Click to expand...

Well, you couldn't just put a hole at each fret; wind instruments don't work quite like that because the column beyond the open holes also have some affect on the note produced.

Maybe if you had really big holes at each fret of a diatonic scale, then it might play as if it was a solid tube equal to the length between the mouthpiece and the first uncovered hole. (That is, close all of them for the first note, open the bottom one for the second, the bottom two for the third, etc.)

However, I'm unaware of any traditional wind instrument that works like that, so I suspect that the arrangement might not be practical. (Pennywhistles are kinda like that, but the spacing of the holes is not based on a simple 12th root of 2 like frets and the frequency of a vibrating string are.)

It would have to come out the end, or out the soundhole.
Click to expand...

I don't think that ending inside the body would necessarily kill the sound, but I'm no physicist.

On a whistle-based instrument, I think most of the sound emanates from the labium (on a recorder, transverse flute, pennywhistle, ocarina, etc.) or from the chamber lip (on a pan flute, jug, or similar).

Seeing as many (but not all) reed instruments sport a belled end, my guess is that it comes more from the far end on those. Maybe a bowl-back ukulele might handle it better.

It just occurred to me that saliva might also be an issue. It would not be kind to a wooden ukulele body. Maybe it's a better project for a mod on a plastic uke or based on a closed-end wind instrument (so that it wouldn't drain into the body).
 
A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!! I-N-C-R-E-D-I-B-L-E!!

Roberta
 
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