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mandobart

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I'm a multi-instrumentalist from way (over 40 years) back who recently (beginning of this year) started playing ukulele. I also play violin, viola, guitar, mandolin, mandola, octave mandolin and mandocello, plus just enough bass to be dangerous.

I know of so many people completely taken with the ukulele, it becomes their main thing. I have a well set up Martin T1K that sounds and plays great. I've been learning my classical, bluegrass, Americana and Hawaiian slack key repertoire on my uke. Not too difficult at all.

I like playing uke just fine, but not the same way I love playing guitar or mandolin. Just wondering for the rest of you - did it take time to really grow on you?
 
It did not take time to grow on me, but I didn't have a million instruments to compare it to.
 
Welcome Bart. :)

I was first a percussion player, dabbled a bit with keyboards, then heavy into guitar and bass at times. Nothing on a pro level or even close. Uke came after that. Sometimes I'm more into uke, sometimes more into guitar, sometimes more into something else like home-made box (typically known as cigar box guitars) guitars or various other instruments. I've tried a bit of everything at one time or another.
I did really appreciate the simplicity of uke and fewer strings right away though as well as the small and comfortable size.
I've had quite a few times when I didn't have a guitar and played just uke. So I'd just say it depends on where I'm at and what I'm more into at any given time.
I don't think it has to be an all or nothing kind of thing. It can be your main instrument or just one color in your palette. If you're going to have a lot of instruments around I'd say it's definitely great to let an uke be one of them. I've played on a Martin T1K and liked it quite a bit. Nice choice.
 
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Just wondering for the rest of you - did it take time to really grow on you?

The uke must be liked for its own unique features. It took me 2 tries to like the uke. The first try, I think I was kind of like you by comparing it to other instruments (in my case, the piano and guitar) and found it totally lacking and didn't further consider it. The second try (a few years later), I needed an instrument of the size of and the easy nylon strings of the uke and realized that it can stand on its own, as a unique instrument.
 
I know I've already responded to this thread but now I want to know how long it took the other instruments to grow on you.
 
I played rhythm guitar for almost 50 years before I touched a uke, but when I did in mid 2013, I never touched my guitars again. About a year later I started playing bass uke and mini bass guitars and discovered that the people who told me when I played guitar that I should play bass because I had good tempo and feel were absolutely right. Now I play bass uke more than uke, but continue to play uke as well.


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
 
My main instrument has been wind (ocarinas). However the sound of ukulele appealed to me and I wanted a rhythm instrument that I could use to accompany myself in recordings. Ukulele was easier to get started on than guitar, and now here I am now with 10+ years of experience dabbling with uke (which also led me to learn guitar and bass).

I think I am still more skilled at my wind instruments, but I've been more ambitious in what I do on ukulele lately.
 
Well Mandobart, I started on accordion at about eight or nine, but lost interest after a few years. My brother played guitar and I bought my first guitar in 1960 and was hooked. Along the way I added mouth harp, mandolin, banjo and dulcimer. In the seventies I added Autoharp to my arsenal and in the eighties, my wife bought me an octave mandolin and an English concertina.

Over the years I had dabbled in ukulele, thinking of them as toys that folks just strummed chords on to accompany their singing and not something to really take seriously. Then one night after the turn of the century, I was at a party and a fellow had a resophonic uke, all shiny and cool. He asked me if I'd like to try it and I said, "Sure." I'm sure we both meant for a song or two, but he ended up having to play the guitar for the rest of the night and I was hooked. I realised that the ukulele was capable of far more than just strumming chords. That very ukulele is now mine since the owner sold it to me a couple of years later.
Since COVID lock down, I have discovered the Seasonistas group and have spent almost as much time playing the uke as the guitar.
 
Good question! I've also started out on different instruments (in chronological order: recorder, guitar, accordeon, mandolin; keyboard instruments don't seem to attract me much) but for the last 16-17 years it's been mainly ukulele, occasionally accordeon and rarely mandolin.

I suppose part of it is how you use your music. If you want to fill a hall with sound, accordeons are far better (or electric guitars). If you want to play intricate lead lines and fills in a band, you can do that on ukuleles but it's not very obvious - mandolas and mandolins are easier at that. I like ukulele for its foot-tapping, rhythmic chording that doesn't overwhelm the singing I do. Yes, there are slower instrumentals and intros and rhythmic fingerpicking and beautiful classical pieces, but the ukulele's superpower is in the kind of music setting I just described.

And in that big snare-sound coming from a little soundbox, of course - have you tried a really good soprano ukulele yet?
 
Majored in music ed as a trumpeter and gigged a lot in my younger days in a variety of settings. As my teaching career took hold I played less and only worked here and there. Playing trumpet is physically demanding and it requires daily practice to stay in shape. Lot of trumpeters don't practice and take jobs when they're not in shape and sound like crap. I participated in a production of Music Man in 02 as a cast member. The guy playing lead in the pit admitted to me he didn't practice a lot and it showed. There was an exposed high D in the overture and he missed it in each of the 6 performances. Miss a note on uke and very few people know, miss a high note on trumpet and everyone knows.
When I got married I played very little. If a gig came up I would practice like mad and after put the horn away. After a while I pretty much stopped. I decided to start up again about 10 years ago and took some lessons from a chop doc and was doing just fine. Melanoma surgery just above my left eye left me unable to practice for a few months. I had a large patch of skin removed and the remaining skin needed time to stretch out. School started up, it got busy and I pretty much quit. On the plus side I've remained cancer free and and have very few wrinkles on my forehead.
One by one I sold most of my horns and still have 2. Trumpeters can have acquisition syndrome and I had 7 horns at one time. The late, great Lew Soloff who played with Blood, Sweat and Tears in their heyday once tried to bring 21 horns on a plane as carry on luggage!
I started horsing around on uke around 2000 having married a gal from Hawaii. Oddly enough she never really played. It was fun and just strumming chords and singing simple songs. Nearing retirement I got serious about fingerstyle and began taking lessons in 2013 after buying a Kamaka tenor. Now I doubt I 'll ever be serious about the horn again. Practicing trumpet is hard work and actually boring. Playing trumpet in a group or solo is fun but there's not a whole lot of work around. The other issue is the hours when you gig. At 65 I can barely make it past 11 pm before I hit the sack. Playing until 1am and getting home at 2 or 3am just isn't in the cards any more. I had fun working as trumpeter and still connect with friends I worked with but won't ever go back. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.
 
I know I've already responded to this thread but now I want to know how long it took the other instruments to grow on you.

I started violin at 10 and guitar (and bluegrass fiddle) at 13. At that stage of life I could throw all my effort into things, and I was pretty hooked on both instruments right away.

Many years later, at 48 I started mandolin and was immediately hooked. In less than a year I added octave mandolin, mandola and mandocello. In about two years I was better on mandolin-family instruments than I was on violin or guitar in 10 years. Of course part of that was having prior experience on the other two instruments.

I've got the ukulele basics down - transposing chords is no problem. I do fingerpicking (as well as flatpicking) on guitar, octave mandolin and mandocello, and now ukulele. So far, being an intermediate uke player isn't as fun or satisfying as being an intermediate mandolin plyer was.
 
I started violin at 10 and guitar (and bluegrass fiddle) at 13. At that stage of life I could throw all my effort into things, and I was pretty hooked on both instruments right away.

Many years later, at 48 I started mandolin and was immediately hooked. In less than a year I added octave mandolin, mandola and mandocello. In about two years I was better on mandolin-family instruments than I was on violin or guitar in 10 years. Of course part of that was having prior experience on the other two instruments.

I've got the ukulele basics down - transposing chords is no problem. I do fingerpicking (as well as flatpicking) on guitar, octave mandolin and mandocello, and now ukulele. So far, being an intermediate uke player isn't as fun or satisfying as being an intermediate mandolin plyer was.

I have a feeling many folks who listen to music will feel like a winner when they become an intermediate player.

So my theory is this: if you play music like the music you like to listen to it is easy to feel fulfilled. Now I personally am exposed to very little uku music out in the world, so i don't have much ukulele music that inspires me to emulate. I end up trying to play ukulele versions of songs I like, and very few of those had a uku in the original song. So I seek out other players to copy when playing uku, but I choose songs to copy when playing guitar.
 
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I'm an old brass player. The Uke was my first, and remains my only stringed instrument. Unlike many of you lucky so and so's, I had no guitar abilities to get me started. The whole fretboard thing was a weird new world for me. So, yes, it took quite a while for me to get hooked on Ukulele. And, I started out back in the 80's when there wasn't nearly as much interest in, or resources for Ukulele. I am hooked now, but I'm still trying to find "my style" of playing. My fingernails are no good at all. So, I go through periods of thinking that finger picks are the way for me, then I switch to a flat pick, then back to my default fleshy finger tips, and then I cycle back to the picks. Meanwhile, I'm trying to develop a two finger picking style, but get distracted by all that finger picking material for four fingers. In the meantime I've neglected strumming, and feel pressured to practice that. Frankly, it's a bit frenetic. I keep hoping I'll settle down to a method and style of playing that feels like my own. I guess time will tell.
 
Hi Mandobart:

Nice to see you here on this forum, as well as AGF and MandoCafe forums. I don't know how lively the uke scene is in your neck of the woods but in the SF Bay area, it is very active. Here I've been exposed to uke jams, uke concerts and workshops from some of the best players who flew in from Hawaii, and within driving distance to excellent uke shops (Gryphon, Sylvan, Ukulele Source). The "aloha" spirit is alive and well. Could this be the reason why the uke hasn't taken hold for you?
 
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Just weighing in, not to say my experience is the same as others' .... but when I first bought a uke I thought it was "fun" but it didn't hook me.

After fifteen years of it mostly sitting in a closet, I took it out to compare it back to back to my guitar to see which I liked best. To my surprise the uke suddenly hooked me. I was about to sell it until then.

So it can be a matter of timing to suddenly hook you. For me it took fifteen years of tinkering with it here and there, now it's a total joy. Weird huh?
 
Another aspect to be considered in the question of being converted or not...is the matter of irony. I have never for a moment in my life played ukulele music; I use the ukulele to make music. The very fact that the ukulele is a musical punchline draws me to it. I figure: thousands upon thousands of people make music with guitars and pianos, but I am going to do the same thing with this little toy and that will make me special.

That's the basis of my relationship with the ukulele. I offer it just to show that whether or not you are converted to the ukulele depends on how you approach it, what you bring to the table, and what you want from the instrument.
 
I have never for a moment in my life played ukulele music; I use the ukulele to make music.
^ This. I like that a lot. I've always just played what I want to and treated it as any other instrument.
 
I love music. I have very eclectic tastes in what I listen to. I have music playing most of the time. From classical to rock, blues to jazz, even some new age from time to time.

I tried to play the guitar. Several times. I could never do it, my hands just wouldn't cooperate. One saving grace was that the chord shapes I learned made starting to play the ukulele easier. I tried all three of the sizes available for use at the uke club. The tenor just stood out as the right size and sound for me.

The ukulele is a terrific way to make music. I enjoy singing and I can accompany myself on an instrument reasonably well.

It's been three years so far. And I really enjoy it. I've been learning in a scatter-shot sort of way, and it's time to get more focused with some paid lessons.
 
I used to play guitar. Now I can't anymore because there's too many strings. And whatever, who wants to play guitar when you have a uke anyhow. The answer? Not me.
 
Moms love all of their kids equally well (right? RIGHT!?) But no law says we have to love all of our instruments the same. It's OK to keep a uke, play it sometimes when the mood strikes, and otherwise neglect it. It doesn't take up much space and it won't hold a grudge. I know lots of players who perform one or two songs on uke during a set that's otherwise all guitar. Maybe you're cut out to be a mandolin player who plays the occasional song on uke for variety.

Another thing: I agree wholeheartedly that we should play the music we love, no matter what our instrument is. There is no "ukulele music" separate from other kinds of music. And yet... well, if you're playing bluegrass and you love bluegrass, there's no denying that bluegrass is generally played on a certain mix of instruments and if you play something else (like a nylon-strung uke instead of metal-strung guitars/banjos/mandos) then it won't sound the same. If your heart's wedded to that bluegrass sound (this is just a general observation, not directed to you personally) then uke is simply not going to get it done.

It's easier to bond with a uke if you like the kind of music you've heard played on ukes. I think that's a fair statement, even though this forum is full of people playing hard rock, bluegrass and who knows what else on ukulele. If you love folk music, saxophone and synthesizer might not be your first choices. Doesn't mean you can't do it, but it does mean you'll be swimming upstream.

I guess what I'm saying is, it's OK if you haven't bonded with your uke. Play it sometimes and see what develops.

ETA: Having gone back to re-read the OP's question (you'd think I should do this before posting, and you would be right) I will add that my original true love is the mountain dulcimer. I found a uke for 20 bucks in a resale shop (this was the 1980s when that was possible). The uke didn't do much for Pretty Saro or Cripple Creek. But then the dulcimer wasn't much help with Gershwin, Porter and Berlin, either! I bonded with the uke over songs that were written in the 1920s and 30s when sheet music came with uke chords. For me, uke was the path of least resistance to a repertoire that I loved but was unable to play to my satisfaction on dulcimer.
 
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