Keith Urban ukulele

Ukecaster

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I wonder if that will become a collector's item. The label inside says, "Vintage Tenor Ukulele." :D

At least the price doesn't seem to be taking advantage of his name.

EDIT: I just watched the YouTube clip, and the excessive laughing when he brought out the uke isn't going to help sales. Bad marketing plan.
 
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What a chuckle!
Amazon seller: "Betty's Online Outlet Mall"
She must be the HSN seller and the "marketing" failed !

" Product description "
"Go Hawaiian ... Urban style! Whether you're floating down a lazy river, kicking back at the beach or gathered around a night-time campfire, get down with some simple twangy tunes courtesy of Keith's classic ukulele. It comes with its own take-along carry case and even a set of pitch pipes for easy tuning. This uke is the perfect compact, go-anywhere musical accompaniment and sure to make you the life of any party. "

Geez... suppose you could use it as a paddle while "floating down a lazy river..."


s2
 
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It makes me sad to see Keith Urban on a home shopping network.

Bluesy.
 
It looks like he has a DGBE tuned ukulele in the clip, which dates from 2016, so it would appear that he has the chord names right for the tuning. The G chord in DGBE tuning is a one finger chord and the C chord is the two finger chord shape he has shown. The D chord he plays is a D chord in DGBE tuning. An article in Rolling Stone published in 2016 states that Keith's first instrument was a ukulele, which he had at 4 years old. Two year later he was given his first guitar. It looks like the model was released in 2016, five years ago, and now UU has found it. Maybe there was some reviews on UU in 2016/7, or has it been under the UU radar for the last five years?

I saw that uke a couple of years ago. When I saw the video of him, I couldn't believe how wrong he was about the chords, but your info corrects me.


This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly Grove near the Beverly Center
8 tenor cutaway ukes, 4 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 14 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 36)

Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
Member The CC Strummers: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers
 
I'll have to check, but to my ear I thought in that video he was in C tuning
 
I liked the swollen 5 second ad about swollen prostrates better than Keith and the saleswoman laughing and naming the wrong chord names for a tenor uke.
 
I saw that uke a couple of years ago. When I saw the video of him, I couldn't believe how wrong he was about the chords, but your info corrects me.

I don't think it was an alternate tuning as was suggested. If he's trying to sell a ukulele to the masses then why would he use an alternate tuning? It's certainly not how they are going to sell them. My uke is tuned standard and sounded just like his uke when I played the same chords. I think he was being careless and misnamed the chords.
 
I hope this uke wasn't as bad as the Esteban guitar was. Had a guy in my guitar class whose kids had bought it for him.That thing was godawful!
 
I have two books that state that Soprano and Concert ukuleles are tuned GCEA. While Tenors and Baritones are tuned DGBE. My understanding is that was the norm when the tenor was originally introduced. It's only been recently that they are GCEA.

Aren't ukes in Canada tuned DGBE?
 
great collector ukulele ?? for who...Lol
 
I have two books that state that Soprano and Concert ukuleles are tuned GCEA. While Tenors and Baritones are tuned DGBE. My understanding is that was the norm when the tenor was originally introduced. It's only been recently that they are GCEA.

Aren't ukes in Canada tuned DGBE?

Most Canucks tune to C6 tuning (GCEA or gCEA), but a school ukulele program that was popular in the seventies by Chalmers Doane use D6 tuning (ADF#B or aDF#B -Doane prefered the low A tuning, since he taught melody playing and music theory using the uke) and there may be some hangers on to that tuning in Canada. Some folks like this tuning for soprano ukes.
The only Canadian ukes tuned to Chicago tuning (DGBE) that I've seen are baritones. I have been to 4 ukulele clubs in Ontario and all use C6 tuning.

Thread drift: Chalmers Doane designed a ukulele that would be inexpensive so that more children would have access to their own instrument. With help from his father and brother, he built his first prototype ukulele in his dad’s basement. Since Doane didn’t know how to bend the instrument’s sides, he created a triangular body with straight sides. And in order to save the trouble of having to laminate a slanted headstock onto the end of the neck, he came up with idea of threading the strings through angled holes drilled between the nut and tuners. This not only created the necessary string break-angle to keep the strings from slipping off the nut, it created a bit of friction that he said helped the strings stay in better tune. Doane was granted a U.S. patent (#4,041,830) for his unique “teaching ukulele” in 1977.
Chalmers Doane ukulele.jpg
 
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It looks like he has a DGBE tuned ukulele in the clip, which dates from 2016, so it would appear that he has the chord names right for the tuning. The G chord in DGBE tuning is a one finger chord and the C chord is the two finger chord shape he has shown. The D chord he plays is a D chord in DGBE tuning.

An article in Rolling Stone published in 2016 states that Keith's first instrument was a ukulele, which he had at 4 years old. Two year later he was given his first guitar.

It looks like the model was released in 2016, five years ago, and now UU has found it. Maybe there was some reviews on UU in 2016/7, or has it been under the UU radar for the last five years?

Nope. Keith's ukulele is tuned C6 (gCEA). He's just thinking in guitar mode and not transposing.
 
Most Canucks tune to C6 tuning (GCEA or gCEA), but a school ukulele program that was popular in the seventies by Chalmers Doane use D6 tuning (ADF#B or aDF#B -Doane prefered the low A tuning, since he taught melody playing and music theory using the uke) and there may be some hangers on to that tuning in Canada. Some folks like this tuning for soprano ukes.
The only Canadian ukes tuned to Chicago tuning (DGBE) that I've seen are baritones.

Thread drift: Chalmers Doane designed a ukulele that would be inexpensive so that more children would have access to their own instrument. With help from his father and brother, he built his first prototype ukulele in his dad’s basement. Since Doane didn’t know how to bend the instrument’s sides, he created a triangular body with straight sides. And in order to save the trouble of having to laminate a slanted headstock onto the end of the neck, he came up with idea of threading the strings through angled holes drilled between the nut and tuners. This not only created the necessary string break-angle to keep the strings from slipping off the nut, it created a bit of friction that he said helped the strings stay in better tune. Doane was granted a U.S. patent (#4,041,830) for his unique “teaching ukulele” in 1977.
View attachment 134663

Great story. Thanks for the info. I knew I had read something a couple of years ago about different tunings being used, but I couldn't remember the details.
 
Re different tunings;
D tuning (aDF#B) seems to have been considered "standard" tuning in the early decades of the last century. I have a tutor book from the 1920s with all the exercises and songs in D tuning. I have also seen many old music sheets from the 20s and 30s with uke chord boxes and instructions to tune your instrument to Bb (fBbDG) or Eb (bbEbGC). George Formby had banjo ukes tuned to Bb, C, D, etc available on stage when he performed. His signature hammer-ons and pull-offs worked best on specific chord shapes, so this enabled playing in various keys, a bit like finger picking guitarists using a capo.

Vintage
 
I never liked Keith Urban. Don't care for his music, his looks, nor his personality.

That video does not change my mind.

I feel that this is all evidence of why the ukulele is constantly diminished and laughed at by those that are ignorant and content to parrot the obsolete stereotypes.
 
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