History question: First maker of the tenor uke?

Doc_J

Doc_J

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On this rainy American Independence Day, I was wondering if the tenor uke could be considered as an American evolution of the standard Hawaiian uke? This led to the more basic question of who made the first tenor ukulele?

From the references at my disposal (Tranquada & King, Walsh & King) there are some documented tenor uke firsts. The earliest reference states Lyon & Healy introduced a tenor uke in 1923. Leonardo Nunes is listed as introducing his Radio Tenor in 1925. Martin and Harmony introduced their first tenor ukes in 1928. Also, at that time there was a different standard for concert and tenor scale sizes. Concerts were listed as 13.75 to 15.5 inches, tenors were listed as 14.5 to 15.75 inches by the Standards a Committee of the National Association of Musical Instrument and Accessories Manufacturers. (As a sidenote, Sopranos were listed as 13 to 13.75 inches. ). Not everyone followed the standards but those that did would receive the Association's "seal of approval" .

Since these citations are all from larger production builders, I wonder if there are earlier smaller builders of tenor ukes. Anyone know of any?
 
Doc_J said:
On this rainy American Independence Day, I was wondering if the tenor uke could be considered as an American evolution of the standard Hawaiian uke? This led to the more basic question of who made the first tenor ukulele?

I believe it was Samuel Tenor in 1776. He had a music shop next to Paul Revere's jewelry store in Boston.....

Happy 4th of July Doc!
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Rainy...? What's a rainy??

(Tough to get a straight answer out of this crowd, Doc...)

Hope your havin' a great 4th...
 
Kevdog said:
I believe it was Samuel Tenor in 1776. He had a music shop next to Paul Revere's jewelry store in Boston.....
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And just down the road from Benjamin & Jeremiah's frozen confection stand. But I digress.

Martin introduced their Tiple (TIH-pul, adapted from the Latino TEE-play) in 1919. My 10-string Tiple is quite the same size as my Three Tenors: Alvarez 4-string, Kala 6-string, and O.Schmidt 8-string. All are tuned GCEA (in various unison and octave variants). I *suspect* that the first tenor was somebody stripping-down a Tiple to just 4 strings.
 
The ukulele was definitely around before Hawaii became US territory. Tranquada and King point out references in 1893 Honolulu newspaper clippings that describe differences between the 4-string "ukalele" and the 5-string, little larger, "taro patch" fiddle. The taro patch was most likely the rajao (tuned re-entrant DGCEA). So one might postulate the first tenor/concert uke could have been a rajao with the first string left out. But, I'm not sure that was sequence of events that led to the tenor uke. The uke did later " borrow " the re-entrant GCEA from the rajao. The original Nunes ukulele tuning was from the machete, DGBD.

An 1885 J.J. Williams photograph shows a guitar, a ukulele, and a taro patch together being used to play Hawaiian music.
http://archives1.dags.hawaii.gov/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=509
image.jpg
 
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It's a double answer.

- Martin was probably the first to have a four-string tenor-sized ukulele (so not a taropatch or tiple) on offer (although there could have been earlier hawaiian makers) - that's 1916 for you.
- But Lyon and healy was indeed the first to apply 'orchestra voicing' names to their ukulele sizes, with the tenor in 1923. Martin tried to resist with a 'dedicated venue' terminology with the concert ukulele in 1925, but then caved in and went along with tenor, soprano, and baritone designations. No alto ukuleles however, and no parlour or auditorium ukuleles either.
 
This is a tough question, because it depends how you define "tenor ukulele". The Washburn tenors are much closer to what we consider concert size today.

Martin also made 4 string taropatch ukuleles (essentially concert ukes) for Ditson as early as 1916.
 
k0k0peli said:
And just down the road from Benjamin & Jeremiah's frozen confection stand. But I digress.
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LOL!

I *suspect* that the first tenor was somebody stripping-down a Tiple to just 4 strings.
Click to expand...

Interesting theory. I could definitely see this being the case.

ukulelekarcsi said:
- Martin was probably the first to have a four-string tenor-sized ukulele (so not a taropatch or tiple) on offer (although there could have been earlier hawaiian makers) - that's 1916 for you.
- But Lyon and healy was indeed the first to apply 'orchestra voicing' names to their ukulele sizes, with the tenor in 1923. Martin tried to resist with a 'dedicated venue' terminology with the concert ukulele in 1925, but then caved in and went along with tenor, soprano, and baritone designations.
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Good stuff! Good info.

No alto ukuleles however, and no parlour or auditorium ukuleles either.
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Helloooo small business idea!

I know I am resurrecting an older thread, but I was poking around trying to find info on the origins of the tenor uke and the search brought me here.

(People whose opinions I respect keep telling me I *need* a tenor...)

As far as I can tell (to go off on a tangent) and according to someone else's research efforts, the first mention of the baritone uke found so far dates it back to 1948. I wonder if there were similar instruments around before then?

I've seen a clip of The Cats & The Fiddle, sort of a precursor group to later doo wop. Cool swing group with strings...remind me of the Mills Bros. Anyway, this clip is from 1937 I believe. Haven't studied it closely, but one cat is clearly playing a tiple, another is on string bass, one fella is obviously playing a tenor guitar, but the last member is playing what, to me, looks to be the size of a baritone uke. However, it may just be a tenor guitar. As I say, I haven't really watched it closely.

What the heck, here's the clip. Killer song too, IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEQ9Sz0UCl8

It probably is a tenor guitar; it's just so much smaller than the more "jazz guitar" size of the other tenor player...
 
Griffis said:
I wonder if there were similar instruments around before then?
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Tiki King, Humble Uker and others have delved into baritone history a lot. There was a method for 'guitar-uke' and 'uke-i-tar' published in 1923, but nobody really knows what those instruments actually were (six strings and uke-sized? or four strings and guitar-sized? or a rebranding of a common parlour guitar or tenor guitar?). Herk Favilla published a 'Baritone ukulele method' in 1949, but sold instruments by that name probably a year earlier. It is claimed he got the idea of his father, who built unnamed custom models of that size in the late 1940s. Eddie Connors is claimed to be 'the original designer of the baritone ukulele' in a 1950 Vega advert. And Arthur Godfrey introduced the model in his 1960 show, although both camps (Vega and Favilla) he actually played their baritone model.
 
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Digging up this ancient thread for more discussion. It seems to be well-documented that concert size evolved from the taropatch design, but origin of tenor is more uncertain. I am wondering if this was linked to the use of linear tuning with a desire for a more "bassy" sound for an uke?
 
I have a theory that has no basis in any research or known facts....just in my head.

After 20 years of ukulele developing builders continued to experiment with the size of ukulele bodies and the scale. In addition, players found the options of more frets on the fret board enticing, much the same is true today. Also, tuning an eight string taro-patch with wood peg tuners is not my favorite thing to do (I have an L. Nunes taro-patch) and it would have been infinitely more difficult without an electronic tuner, so leaving four strings off a taro-patch 100 years ago might have been an attractive option. My taro-patch is between modern concert and tenor sizes.

Also, as the Chicago builders really got experience in ukulele building, they had the resources and experience to produce high quality ukuleles and offer more sizes to the market. The Hawaiian builders were still small operations as compared to L&H, Martin, Regal and others and you see the results starting in the late teens of the Chicago builders setting the standard for quality and consistency.

Again, this is just how I see it...glad you resurrected the thread Merlin
 
Jim Beloff's book on the history of the uke might mention that. If I can locate it, I'll check on the tenor.

EDIT: I found the book, but I didn't see a separate entry for "Tenor."

If you have Jim's book, you can see a picture of my Wabash uke on Page 100. Jim had it for sale at a uke event, and I couldn't resist. It was made in about 1950 on Wabash Avenue in Chicago.

01 Wabash.jpg
 
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kypfer said:
Doc_J wrote :

Ha !! The guitar still has the price-tag on the headstock !!
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Good eye! I never would've spotted the tag... an indication that the photograph was staged? One thing that struck me, the way the woman on the left is holding the soprano made me suspect she didn't actually know how to play it.

Still, a great photo!.
 
Tigershark said:
This is a tough question, because it depends how you define "tenor ukulele".
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Right! You can be sure that someone produced a tenor uke in his home. What you should look for is the first commercial production model tenor. That shouldn't be hard to find - maybe.
 
Johnny Marvin tenor ukulele - 1928. Tenor - Early Model.jpg

"Marvin signed with Harmony Company of Chicago in 1928 to promote a signature model Johnny Marvin tenor ukulele (by today's standards, this uke is considered concert-sized)."

Here's an ad from 1932 for a tenor uke. It's on the Irish eBay site. I thought it was interesting that the seller is in Ohio.
https://www.ebay.ie/itm/1932-PAPER-...645734?hash=item23acc807e6:g:gn4AAOSwYsBbx46Z

Tenor Uke 1932.jpg
 
Given that the tenor is rumoured to have originally been tuned dGBE and the history of the tenor guitar I wonder if the tenor was made for banjo players in jazz bands looking for a different sound. They would have needed a bigger instrument to compete volume wise and dGBE would have been the same chords as the banjo in Chicago.

On the other hand the wide neck on the ukulele makes me wonder if it was guitar players looking for a second novelty instrument and finding the ukulele too darn small.

Edit - now I have written this, the taro patch makes sense with the wide neck of the ukulele- the tenor influencing the modern soprano . See flukes four string mandolin for a modern example of dropping strings
 
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