Your story: how ukulele found you?

My Dad was quite musical, but I almost never saw him play. He was on TV as a kid playing piano accordian, there was a guitar in the wardrobe he never touched, but give him an instrument and play him some music and he'd be playing by ear in no time.
I don't believe I have inherited this talent.

My Nan on mum's side always had organs/keyboards. She'd teach us stuff, and whenever she bought a new instrument we'd get the old one, along with some of her old music books. I had a basic idea of how to play as a kid, and in high school I took a keyboard class and for a while I could even play two handed, but that's gone now.

I didn't really touch instruments once I moved out of home, until a few years ago I was talking to my brother and said I always wanted to play guitar, and he gave me one.
Turns out all you need to do to learn is get a guitar and start playing. Who knew?

One day I was in a friend's car, she's a music teacher, and she had a uke on the back seat. I started playing with it and somehow actually managed to play a little Nirvana, without knowing any of the chords or notes or anything. (Couldn't do it again!)
So one day while browsing electric guitars I saw the cheap $30 ukes in the window and went home with one.

Plenty of fun on that, and then I started dating this girl who played uke. We went to a uke jam for a date, and I heard just how terrible my toy uke sounded when surrounded by decent instruments, so my Gretsch came along just after that.

I've now got the Gretsch, my old cheapie, my acoustic and an electric guitar, a melodica and a harmonica. Sold my mandolin because I needed the cash when out of work.

I find there's some songs that are easier on guitar and some are easier on uke, but the uke comes out more just because it's smaller and easier to grab.

My musical journey started when I was 10, and took guitar lessons. Played in a band in the early 70's, doing Southern rock, Dead, Band, etc. Then decades went by where I only occasionally played acoustic guitar for my own pleasure/stress relief. After kids were grown, I got back into guitar, joined a classic rock band where we gig 2x a month now, I play electric rhythm/lead guitar, sing back up and play harp. Anyhoo, the uke part started 6 years ago, when my elderly aunt gave me an old uke she bought in the late 50's. while on vacation in Hawaii. She was giving away most of her things, before moving to an assisted living place. This was at a big family Christmas party, with probably 50 in attendance. I guess I got it because I was the only musical one in the whole bunch, and had played acoustic guitar for her previously. She never played it, and it had sat in her closet for over 50 years. When presented with the uke, I looked at it, was touched and grateful, but thought it was probably just a cute little toy, probably tourist grade. How could something so tiny (soprano) be a serious instrument? It had a big crack in the top, and the bridge was lifting, so I stashed it away. In Dec. 2016, I dug it out again. It was a Kamaka gold label soprano. I sent it off for repair and setup, and once returned in Feb. 2017, realized what a nice uke I had been given. Since then, I've been playing uke every day, mostly ignoring guitar, except to keep up with band commitments, and have gone through a bunch of ukes, to find what I liked. I now have a few ukes, and find that I like soprano and concerts best. I mostly strum/sing both modern and old-timey stuff, and find it a lot of fun learning new songs, and it is very soothing to the soul. Portability and low cost (compared to fine guitars) are big pluses too. I'm really looking forward to learning how to fingerpick better, and attempting some classical pieces. I often think of, and thank my late aunt for introducing me to the ukelele.

I tried and failed to teach myself musical instruments for most of my adult life, going so far as to torture a helpless violin for almost two years. I figured that, with my track record, I'd try again at some point and sort of toyed around with the idea of the ukulele. The trouble was that I thought that ukes were too small and I didn't like the plinka-plinka sound I associated with the toystore models.

One day I was at work and I heard a student singing and playing a guitar and I went down to check it out. I asked him what he was playing and when he told me it was an ukulele I couldn't believe it. "They can sound like that?" I asked him. After he explained that it was a tenor ukulele I hemmed and hawed for about a week before I went on Amazon and bought a beginner's kit and started talking to that student about once a week to learn news chords and the like.

It didn't take long before I was in love (with the ukulele, not the student). After all those years I finally found an instrument that actually liked me back! I don't know if the ukulele is the easiest instrument in the world as the Guinness Book of World Records claims, but it's definitely the friendliest. I like to write and draw but sort of feel that those pursuits don't have value unless I share them with others. With my uke, though, I can just sit back and let that moment be enough.

Tigermelon said:

.....I don't know if the ukulele is the easiest instrument in the world as the Guinness Book of World Records claims, but it's definitely the friendliest.

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Uke the easiest instrument? No way! Personally, I find the Guinness book the easiest to ignore, chronicling a bunch of fame wannabes, kinda like America's Funniest Home Videos.

Tigermelon said:

I tried and failed to teach myself musical instruments for most of my adult life, ......

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I know that feeling, it wasn't until I retired that I tried again, first piano, then Harmonica, & eventually ukulele, & it was with ukulele that I succeeded.

Whether or not it is easy, is very debatable, but it is a manageable instrument, & has a lot of fun within it.

(I'm also doing pretty good on my harmonicas as well now.)

I've dabbled with guitar, harmonica, and banjo for many years, but never got serious enough to make any real progress.
Late January of this year, I was in Toronto visiting my older son. His older son is a musician, pretty serious, even at 18. He owns several guitars of various kinds, a bass, a violin and a couple of ukuleles; one of which was a Cordoba 15CM with a broken neck. I looked it over, and in spite of not being a luthier, I said "I can fix that.." I've done a fair bit of fine woodwork, including a riverboat banjo that I played, (badly), in an amateur bluegrass band, so I was pretty confident.
I took the uke home and epoxied it back together, straight and level. Did a pretty good job of it, restrung it and tuned it up. Little did I know that I had just taken the first step down a very slippery slope! It went something like this:
"Hmm...nice tone....I wonder what the chords are...pretty simple chord shapes...take a look on youtube.. Yup, I can do that, doesn't sound too bad....Hey, this is kinda fun...any tabs out there....Ok Honey, just as soon as I finish this Cynthia Lin tutorial... Does Ciaran want his uke back? He does? Damn! I wonder what they cost...hmm not terribly expensive. I think I'll get a cheap concert .."
And so it went, 7 months later I have a Kala TEM, a Cordoba 24B, a Pono MTSHC, an unbranded acacia that I bought unfinished on Ebay, plus the Andoer concert that I bought first then gave to my 8 year old granddaughter.
I'm not addicted! Really I'm not!!

No, you're not addicted, you're just trying them out for someone else.

I played bass (kind of) when I was a teenager and later in life in church. For years, as my children grew, we would be listening to music, mostly classic rock, I would say jokingly “That would be an awesome song on the ukulele”. My son, now 32, and daughter-in-law bought me a concert Córdoba... hooked! Shopping for a tenor. The Córdoba is a priceless gift is so many ways but UAS has set in. Play every day and smile.

I have played guitar for over 35 years, and never considered another instrument.
I stumbled upon Joe Brown playing at the George Harrison memorial gig on youtube, and fell in love with the song "I'll see you in My Dreams", to the point where I announced to my wife, when i die please play that tune at my funeral. I decided to try out this ukulele thing. On another forum I joined I started asking a few questions, and about a week later 2 lads rocked up to the pub i run, and showed me a few different ukes, one I bought from them, and away I went. Funny how things go though, that was the beginning of August this year, and I went to me mam and dads 60th wedding anniversary on 17th August, took me uke, stumbled through a few tunes, me dad loved it. Sadly he passed away 2 days later, and we played "I'll see you in my dreams" at his funeral.
Well, I can now play that song, and it makes me smile as I think of me dad, and in the 3 months since I started gettin interested i have bought 6 ukes, one i have sold, and one other is about to be sold.
So there ya have it, my lil story of how when what, still not sure of the why

I lived in Hawaii during the cultural renaissance of the 1970s and listened to a lot of Peter Moon and his contemporaries. During 20 years in Hawaii, I never even thought of playing a uke or anything else. A few years ago, after decades away from Hawaii, I bought a $35 Hola HM-21 on Amazon on a nostalgic whim. I messed with it a bit, learned Waimanalo Blues, and a few 3 chord pop songs in C, but not much else.

A few months later I had the honor of spending a day with the Hokulea and her crew at Everglades National Park. ( If you don't know about the Hokulea and its voyage around the world, look here.) Kamehameha Schools music director, Randy Fong and his Kamaka Tenor had flown in for the occasion from Honolulu.

Hawaiian voyagers and their Seminole Nation hosts chanted and danced. Hula dancers danced. Hawaiian musicians, including Randy and his Kamaka, played. It was all very moving and I decided that day to learn to play.

Then a few things just worked: First, unbeknownst to me, one of the largest retail uke stores on the mainland is a few miles from my house in sleepy Nokomis FL. Shoutout to Jeff at Rhythm Inlet and the Ukulele Place where a beginners class was starting the very next day. So, thanks, Mike Lehner, for getting me started.

Then, a few months later, completely by accident, while on a business trip, I discovered that endlessly talented Ukulenny was doing a promotional gig for Kala a few miles from where I was staying. A few tweets back and forth and I scored a poolside private lesson, which got me started playing up the neck.

I play daily, and get better each day. (I got the Rambling Man intro down over Thanksgiving weekend.) So thanks, all y'all who conspired to make this happen.

Peter

Hola HM-21
Kala KA-SRT-CTG-CE
Ohana CK-35L ...and...

when I decide I'm worthy, a Kamaka HF-3, for which I will make a pilgrimage to Hawaii Music Supply in Haleiwa to pick it up in person and arrange for a kahuna to bless it and me.

Well my musical story began with keyboard instruments. My older brother was into synth music back in the 70s and so I grew up loving jean michel jarre, Tomita, gary numan etc etc, and one year when I was about 11 I was bought a small Bontempi reed organ. Awful thing it was but it got me wanting to be a keyboard player. That never happened but piano has always been my favourite instrument. Then in the early 2000s I wanted a guitar. And my partner bought me one for Christmas 2004. I still have it, and still cant play it! But I love acoustic instruments, its like theyre alive. One year our kids were bought ukuleles (not by us). The usual thing, great for kids! Trouble is my kids arent interested in learning to play it. And in 2014 I was bought my own uke, a Tanglewood, because my other, better guitar is a Tanglewood. The rest is history. Oh and I'd love a baritone. Guitar tuning, yay!
Interestingly that ukulele was bought from a small shop that was closing, under pressure from the big music store that had recently opened a few doors down. Turned out the guy from the small shop got a job at the big shop as guitar repairer, and he's the one who did a set up on my uke recently!

Well here I am with my first Uke. A couple of friends were hound dogging me about getting a Uke and playing for fun. Nothing serious, just to have some fun they said. Well I never considered a Uke to be a serious instrument except around grass skirts. After overcoming terminal stage 4 cancer which left me paralyzed from the waste on down, after having major surgery on my back, filling it with balls wires and fusion cages, suffering from Cemo brain, regrowing nerves so I could walk and regain feeling in my legs and fingers, having my thyroid removed, I thought maybe something light and fun might get me out and about. So I went down to one of my favorite music stores, and bought a Gretsch roots tenor. I got it home and it tuned out that one of the tuners kept slipping, so looking at it closely I discovered one tuning peg broken, the rest were misaligned and the bridge plate angled I/8 of an inch with one end thicker then the other, the frets sharper then razors and other finish defects. So I brought it back but the fun became serious and I needed to find a quality Uke. I started investigating heavily, but saw some nice looking ones on eBay, foreign ones, and tried to bid on them, bloody private bidders. Now this fun became challenging my exercise consisted of bidding and over bidding and never winning. So I watched and watched and watched. Finally I figure out a grand snip plan and at the last 6 sec on the clock placed a final bid, knowing eBay's software could not work fast enough in that time frame. I won it to my surprise, paid for it and am now waiting for it in the mail.
It is a bit blingy for my personal tastes but the the art work is amazing. This had not been fun and it rapidly became serious once I saw the poor quality of the Gretsch. So part 2 of this saga begins when I get it in the mail.

ukeccc said:

Well here I am with my first Uke. A couple of friends were hound dogging me about getting a Uke and playing for fun. Nothing serious, just to have some fun they said. Well I never considered a Uke to be a serious instrument except around grass skirts. After overcoming terminal stage 4 cancer which left me paralyzed from the waste on down, after having major surgery on my back, filling it with balls wires and fusion cages, suffering from Cemo brain, regrowing nerves so I could walk and regain feeling in my legs and fingers, having my thyroid removed, I thought maybe something light and fun might get me out and about. So I went down to one of my favorite music stores, and bought a Gretsch roots tenor. I got it home and it tuned out that one of the tuners kept slipping, so looking at it closely I discovered one tuning peg broken, the rest were misaligned and the bridge plate angled I/8 of an inch with one end thicker then the other, the frets sharper then razors and other finish defects. So I brought it back but the fun became serious and I needed to find a quality Uke. I started investigating heavily, but saw some nice looking ones on eBay, foreign ones, and tried to bid on them, bloody private bidders. Now this fun became challenging my exercise consisted of bidding and over bidding and never winning. So I watched and watched and watched. Finally I figure out a grand snip plan and at the last 6 sec on the clock placed a final bid, knowing eBay's software could not work fast enough in that time frame. I won it to my surprise, paid for it and am now waiting for it in the mail.
It is a bit blingy for my personal tastes but the the art work is amazing. This had not been fun and it rapidly became serious once I saw the poor quality of the Gretsch. So part 2 of this saga begins when I get it in the mail.

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You can't post this and not tell us what it was :rulez: and welcome

part two:
Well since I have to wait for my uke I decided to start understanding them and am totally floored at all the small handmade ukes being made. The Asian market is going crazy with them. The worlds relationship with ukes has matured and I decided that this indeed could be fun and rewarding. Researching compliments my ocd nature about quality but in the mist of my craziness and frustrations about pickups, woods and pricing the person I made an offer to for a Kala changed his mind and accepted my offer. So now I have two and this one should get here in about a week. So I am having fun and look forward to making music. This instrument is communal people play together this indeed will be fun.

Oddly, I don't remember. Well, not reliably.

I think it may have been Jake Shimabukuro's cover of 'While MyGuitar Gently Weeps'. I definitely recall seeing that and thinking WTF is that guy playing? I knew about ukuleles but was only aware of the soprano size. The existence of the tenor uke was a revelation and most of the 'ukuleles I've owned have been tenors.

But I'm not 100% sure that I didn't get my first Dolphin even before that... I really don't recall clearly. It was 10 years ago and I've bought and sold so many of so many different kinds of instruments that it's all a bit of a blur.

I've drifted away from 'ukelele occasionally as band roles have demanded that I focus on other instruments, but modding at UU has kept me in touch with my uke side and in my current band it's once again one of the things I play.

My, my. I have just spent the last 2.5 hours reading ALL of the posts here.
It's really encouraging to see this thread resurrected.
I can't name all of you, but a lot of you have posted some very inspiring stories. I'm having trouble reading what I type.
Geez.
My story is pretty lame by comparison. I didn't share but just a tiny bit of it, the rest is kinda boring, really.
I've made some friends here. Some I've met already, and more that I hope to meet.
One of them has actually helped me over some humps. You know who you are. I appreciate you all to pieces, my friend.
After about 8 years of fumbling around, I'm on uke #15 + a banjouke.
I still think I stink at it, but compared to the other things I've tried to play, I think I'm a goddess of the uke. (haha)
I'm even in an ensemble now, playing ALFs and parties, and am beginning to train myself to help kids with the Ukulele Kids Club, along with whoever will come along.
And I've written 2 songs, one is really silly.
I hope I play ukulele right up till the instant I bite the dust. And I hope I don't fall on it when I do, so someone else can play it.
What a cool thread.
Who's next?

My mom gave me an Ukulele for my birthday a couple of years ago. It was a $30 non tunable Soprano Uke and It was not playable. I asked myself, how involved do Ukuleles get? For the most part, I thought that you could only play a few songs like Somewhere over the Rainbow... I really was pretty ignorant. So I looked into it and got a concert Kala. I have been struggling with the guitar for 15 years and when I realized how light and easy it is to hold and play an Ukulele I was hooked.

Family Tradition. Dad played a ʻukulele, I think I first heard his Kamaka Pineapple from inside the womb. It got stolen when I was 16, and I got distracted with life. 2o year later listening to Bruddah Iz inspired me to come back to the ʻukulele. My dadʻs llove of the Pineapple has rubbed off so now I own 8 of them (used to be closer to 20 but thinned the herd).

I lived in Hawaii for 15 years in the 70s and 80s and while I certainly appreciated the ukulele as an integral part of Hawaii music I was never really focused on it. I was certainly aware of Peter Moon's virtuosity and of the joy of Iz's playing. During that time I had never touched a ukulele.

During the past several years I followed the worldwide voyage of the Hokulea (Hawaiians, you know. Others, see www.hokulea.com). I had been looking forward to Hokulea's first stop on the American mainland, which was down the road from me at Everglades National Park. Perhaps something was incubating subconsciously, but several months prior to Hokulea's arrival I impulsively purchased a $35 Hola HM 21 uke on Amazon and learned a few chords, but didn't get hooked.

Hokulea's landfall in Everglades National Park was quite the Hawaiian extravaganza. In addition to the crew and dignitaries from the Seminole nation, a delegation of Hawaiian people and Polynesian Voyaging Society VIPs were there, all flown in from Hawaii. A local hula halau was there as well ( there are a surprising number of Hawaii people in Florida). One of the visitors from Hawaii was the music director of Kamehameha Schools, Randy Fong, who was there with what I know now was a Kamaka HF3 koa tenor.

I thought that uke was beautiful to listen to and to look at. I resolved to try to learn to play that day. The next day, at home, I Googled ukulele lessons, and damned if a class was not starting that very night in what turned out to be a terrific ukulele store, also down the street from me.

Now I seldom am more than a room away from a uke. I have graduated to a Ohana CK-35L longneck concert and a Kala KA-SRT-CTG-CE tenor. My goal to to become worthy of a Kamaka.

Thanks to Mike and Jeff at Rhythm Inlet in Nokomis, Florida, and to Ukulenny who gave me an awesome lesson one afternoon poolside on the Space Coast, and to Harry Kojima, whose Youtube tutorials of Hawaiian song are the best, and to Jake Shimabukuro who expects me to be able to play a 4-4-3-7 Em without requiring physical therapy afterward, and to this forum where I've learned so much.

Great thread. Thank you Choirguy for starting it.

A few years ago, I had reached my mid-30's and was super-stressed out from work and was looking for a more productive use of my downtime than video games/watching tv/cruising youtube for hours. I'd always wanted to play a musical instrument - any type of musical instrument really. My family is fairly musical but I had literally zero musical experience. I believe I played the harpsichord in 3rd grade one time. No recorders. No music theory. No choir/singing/literally nothing.

My uncle is a trumpet player who also a music teacher in schools until he retired a few years ago. My brother played drums in the marching band. My uncles were big into jazz music, and my dad has a fairly diverse taste in music, so I had a fair appreciation for all kinds of music growing up, covering many decades too - which turned out to be a blessing with ukulele songbooks, as I'm familiar with quite a lot of older songs.

So finally in my mid-30's, I searched for "easy to learn" instruments and the ukulele came up on a lot of those searches. Plus, it was only four strings, small, and non-intimidating vs. the unwieldy guitar. So I decided I was going to take part of my tax refund and get one. I was so scared and intimidated going into Sam Ash to look at their ukes. I'd never really been in a music store before.

But having done a little research online, my initial thought was either a Flea or a Fluke.... but for some reason (sheer panic/confusion?) I wound up walking out with... a Kala Travel Tenor. I still don't know why I changed my mind. At the time, it felt easy to hold, due to its thin body, and it was loud!

I played that Kala Travel Tenor for a few months at night after my wife had gone to bed, but I never felt very comfortable with fretting it. My fingers hurt and I almost gave up. Eventually though, I bought a lava black soprano Flea online through Elderly Instruments, and quickly realized that the action on my Kala Travel Tenor was too high. Also I have smaller hands so the soprano/concert sizes work better for me, as does the lower tension. So down the UAS blackhole I went... and I haven't came out yet!

A couple years ago, I met Nancy, who runs the Sun Lakes Ukulele Group SLUG http://www.sunlakesukes.com/ at a Kimo Hussey class at Arizona State University for Tempe's Hawaiian Festival. So I've been going out to Sun Lakes, a retirement community in the southeast Valley, every-other-Sunday. It is a very different experience playing and singing at the same time! It is also a completely different experience playing with others at the same time. But all in all, something I really love.

But playing the ukulele is one hobby that I have kept with it over the last 5(?) years. I can make music that kind of actually sounds like what it's supposed to. I'm still just an OK-Player but I'm still proud of that!