How do you rotate your Ukes?

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StumptownUke

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Hi All,

As my UAS runs wild I am wondering how everyone rotates playing and storing instruments? Just pick a new one each day or is there a method to this madness? Do you keep them cased and humidified when not playing or leave them lying around all over the house so you're never more than an arms reach away?
 
I keep them all in cases or bags and solid wood ones get humidified in winter. They all have different uses and I don't have a system just use the one that is right for the song or circumstance.
 
I mostly play 'em straight, though I'd love to get a ZZ Top strap....

StumptownUke said:
leave them lying around all over the house so you're never more than an arms reach away?
Click to expand...
This is my theory and excuse for buying too many. I have a couple by the bed, several in my studio / home office, a few in the living room, one in the garage, one in the car, one in my work office (the last three currently empty spots). In practice, I have a couple of favourites and go get the ones I want if I'm going to do more than twiddle. Right now I have more instruments than I have hooks, so several are in cases ready to go out to the next jam. They may be wondering if I've forgotten them!

I don't do anything extravagant humidity-wise. I have hygrometers by the most at-risk ones just in case, and they show moderate humidity year round. I have hard cases for the more interesting ones, but even so my collection isn't high end - my best ones are one solid wood, a couple of solid tops, and carbon fiber. They all have cases if needed, but I'd rather have them at hand to play.
 
I have 1 uke that's on the wall hanger that I play. My others are cased and don't get much playing time. So, no rotation for me.
 
I have 6 ukes - 5 all-solid wood and 1 solid top with laminate back/sides. I keep them all in hard cases with humidifiers unless I'm playing them which is the only time they leave their cases. For a while I would play a uke for a week then switch it up with another with the new week. Now I don't have a specific structure. I'll play one for a couple of weeks then I'll switch it for one of the others I haven't played in a while. If I'm playing in my easy chair, I favor my thin-body uke and my long neck soprano because they are easier and more comfortable to play since they are thinner/smaller.
 
I usually choose the uke that is best suited to the music I’m in the mood to play. Low G fingerstyle, re-entrant fingerstyle, strum and sing, etc.
 
I have a number of tenors. Right now, they are almost all in their hard cases. I don't worry about keeping a couple out on floor stands or on a wall hanger. Because I use room evaporative humidifiers. Which keep the rooms at 45 percent RH. Plus or minus 3 percent.

Rotation. I try to play every uke regularly, but I have discovered there are 4 that I don't play much any more.

I have some favorites that I play more often than others. And there are a few that I only play if I want a certain sound or feeling. About half are re-entrant the other half are Low-G. So that influences what I'm going to choose from. Or I may be working on an exercise in a book or a song and grab one that suits. Quite often I say to myself, "I haven't played that one in a while." So I'll take it out and play it. Just because it's there.

No set routine. No spreadsheet rotation schedule. Just how I feel and what tickles my fancy that day
 
Rather than having multiple ukuleles (and guitars) that do the same thing and "rotating" between them, I ensure that each serves a particular purpose that another instrument can't.

I have one in low-G, another in high-G... one in baritone tuning and another that is a solid body electric, etc.
 
I dont rotate.
I pick the ukulele that I believe sound right for a particular song. That does mean that some ukes dont get as much playtime as others. I just sold one uke, I am down to 6 now. I could sell a few more if not for sentimental reasons, and still have ukes to cover the sound spectrum I need.

Edit:
I have two low G tenors, one with a piano like sustain to my ears, one with a sustain almost like a voice.
Usable for different songs.
I have a number of high G concert ukuleles, with varying degree of mellowness vs. bark. My go to uke is the loud one with both warmth and bark, my Cocobolo, but some songs call for a classic uke sound from my long neck soprano.
 
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I let guilt be my guide. I normally play my favorite instrument. Every so often, I feel I have to play my re-entrant uke although it can only play half as many scales. So I play it for about a week until I feel I have justified having it and until I get sick of playing just three strings.
 
Mostly, my ukes have differing tones, so I'll pick the one I think best suits a tune, but I do also just pick one because it hasn't been played for a while.

Many to choose from - long neck sopranos, concerts, long neck concerts, tenors, & baritones - each is different woods too, & some solid body as well - quite a variety. :)
 
Mine are all out and on stands in the living room (and now office). I pick up whichever one I want to play there and then. It's not usually a conscious decision.
 
During the Winter the Flight sits out in a stand on my desk while the rest live in cases with their humidifiers. I play them when water needs to be added to the humidifiers.

In the Summer they all hang on walls or sit in the desk stand except the Flight which takes a break and is stored in a gig bag.
 
My cheap KA-15S is my travel uke and it sits in a gig bag under my bed. My other ukes sit on stands or on wall hangers in my living room as well as 2 solid wood Martin acoustic guitars and 1 Ibanez electric bass. The grab and play ukes are 1 soprano (solid wood), 1 concert, 1 tenor (w/preamp), 1 baritone and 1 bass (w/preamp). I grab the appropriate instrument for what I want to play.

I live in east central FL so indoor humidity is pretty stable year around.
 
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I have three ukes and none of them live in a case. My best and most expensive I play all the time. The other two hardly ever get played. There is no rotation. The cheapie does hazardous duty once in a while, but not a lot. The good one is pretty brave.
 
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Depends on the piece I'm working on. I have 6, 3 concerts that I rarely play and 3 high end tenors. Kamaka HF3, Kanilea K1 and a KoAloha. Certain pieces sound better on a particular uke. The Kamaka is used most often followed by the Kanilea and KoAloha. The action on the Kanilea is a little lower and has a radius fretboard. If I have to barre a lot I use that one.
 
As one of the forum members who has *way* too many ukes (as opposed to just "too many" ukes), I don't really have a set rotation strategy. The whole reason that I have so many is that I like different things about different instruments.

I have a group of about six that are in regular day-to-day rotation, I suppose. You can probably guess those from my signature file (Kamaka HF-2, KoAloha Silver, Anuenue Moonbird, Beansprout alto, Rebel mango, and the Kanile'a K-1 C.) Which particular one I play at any given time really depends on my mood and the sound I am looking for at that moment. Some of my more robust ukes (like my Flea) I keep handy near the couch for spur of the moment playing. Others, like my banjolele, I really have to be looking for that sound to grab.

Are any of you original series Star Trek fans? Spock had a Vulcan concept called IDIC, celebrating the Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations that there were in the Universe. Well, I celebrate it in my own way: IUIC, Infinite Ukuleles in Infinite Combinations. :)
 
I have 7. I have them all hung on the wall, all the time. Each is set up a little different (A hi-g, a low-g, a tenor set up as a bari, etc.). However, I keep a hydrometer in the room to insure they are safe. I have the heater blocked in the room and only turn on a space heater when needed. As far as rotation, I will pick one to start the daily practice, then switch to another and play the same piece. I've found it helps with flexibility and allows me to better memorize a piece. I prefer to switch from Bari to Tenor - the different necks allow for good finger-stretching. And the multi-stringed bari forces me to practice clean chording and picking.
 
Before I started playing bass uke with The CC strummers and before covid, it was easy to rotate between my eight because we met twice a week. When I took up bass, I started playing uke on Sundays in a park with other acoustic players and rotating was still easy enough to do. Now that we're on Zoom, it's more infrequent that I play my ukes, I play only two when take the time to participate in a uke Zoom session. Over six years ago I converted a shelf in a bookcase to a uke display case with humidity control that fits eight ukes, which really helps control my UAS.

This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly Grove near the Beverly Center
8 tenor cutaway ukes, 4 acoustic bass ukes, 12 solid body bass ukes, 14 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 38)

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
 
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