Little Guitar? Really Stewmac?

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vanflynn

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I enjoy the videos that StewMac has but in this one for the precission router base http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6vRh6dLn7eM at the :40 mark the gent holds up a uke (4 holes in the headstock) and calls it "a little guitar".

Come on StewMac, that's like holding up a clarinet and calling it a toy saxophone.
 
To be fair...
...did you check all their videos to see if he ever refers to a guitar as a "big uke"?
 
I enjoy the videos that StewMac has but in this one for the precission router base http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6vRh6dLn7eM at the :40 mark the gent holds up a uke (4 holes in the headstock) and calls it "a little guitar".

Come on StewMac, that's like holding up a clarinet and calling it a toy saxophone.


no idea what or who a stewmac is but shame on him !!!! shame on him!
 
Those guys are guitar snobs. They'll never take us seriously. That's OK, I've never taken guitars seriously. I couldn't tell a dreadnought from a dreadlock

Dreadlocks take serious commitment. There are dudes here at my workplace that have been growing them for 15 years or more. They are very meticulous about them.

Dreadnought? Where I come from 'nought' means 'nothing'. ;)
 
They take them seriously enough to sell parts and kits, too bad they haven't heard about biting the hand that feeds'em.
 
Those guys are guitar snobs. They'll never take us seriously. That's OK, I've never taken guitars seriously. I couldn't tell a dreadnought from a dreadlock

I started off on guitar i got decentish over time but my friends were always better than me. I never connected with the instrument. I'm a very short and small guy. I played baritone electric guitar for a very long time and while it made cool sounds i looked like a baby playing a full adults guitar with it, and even with a regular standard size guitar i look like a baby holding his dads guitar. With a ukulele, i look like a grown up holding a normal guitar. I'm a small person and feel comfortable with the size of the instrument, and i think the sound of the baritone ukulele is much more pleasing than the sound of a guitar. I think the sound of ukulele in general destroys the sound of guitar. Guitar has always been been so generic its the fratboy of instruments. I'll never take them serious again.
 
Those guys are guitar snobs. They'll never take us seriously. That's OK, I've never taken guitars seriously. I couldn't tell a dreadnought from a dreadlock

btw dreadnaughts are way to oversized i can't even hold one or get it on my lap the body is bigger than my own body.
its more of a 'novelty' to me than a uke. at least a uke fits the human body and isn't this big over sized thing.
 
I remember that uke he made for his grand daughter- it was a copy of his J45 guitar, he may have just been referencing back to the shape, which is indeed a little (J45) guitar.

BTW, Dan used to play in a band with Iggy Pop (Iggy was the drummer!)
 
C'mon, give him a break. He is talking about making something for his grand daughter. As far as I can tell, he is not a professional actor, he is a serious guy that is getting his progeny started on a stringed instrument.

Sometimes we Ukers can get riled up over naught
 
Maybe it really is a little guitar. I mean, it has four strings and is small enough to be an ukulele, but what it what he's really making is a very small tenor guitar? :)
 
This guy I know recently said to me "..Coming from a guy who plays a small guitar" lol. Really offended me to be honest. I've only been in the uke world for about a year, but I've really connected with the instrument so I'm easily offended. I try not to let things get to me, because I guess EVERY SINGLE person I know seems to act like if you're not playing a guitar you're wasting your time.
 
Meh, I really could care less.

I've played electric bass for years (it's my primary instrument/form of musical expression), and if I had a dollar for every time someone figured I was either a "frustrated guitarist" or "just playing the bottom four strings of a guitar," I'd be rich. Call it whatever you want. I enjoy playing it, and that's more important than a silly label.
 
I'm still trying to figure out how many of these posts were jokes, and how many were serious. :)

Anyway, the gent in question is none other than Dan Erlewine - who is universally known around the planet as
an expert on stringed instrument construction and repair.

He meant no harm with the Little Guitar reference.
 
And I'll throw two more cents on the pile:

Getting people to think of the uke as part of the guitar family - is nothing but a good thing.

Too many people previously discarded the uke as a toy or that Thing that Tiny Tim played.

There's so much more depth to the instrument that most don't know - and won't ever discover.
 
And I'll throw two more cents on the pile:

Getting people to think of the uke as part of the guitar family - is nothing but a good thing.

Too many people previously discarded the uke as a toy or that Thing that Tiny Tim played.

There's so much more depth to the instrument that most don't know - and won't ever discover.

put in the perspective of someone thinking 'this is a smaller instrument in the guitar family" is one thing. But to think of it as a small toy guitar really really really pisses me off.
 
Having a little perspective helps. People dying because they lack health insurance pisses me off. A guy, and especially one who seems to be knowledgeable about stringed instruments, who calls what may or may not be an ukulele a "little guitar" amuses me.

After college, years and years ago, I worked at a place that served a pizza-like food on rounded loaves of bread. The owner called this food a "torta" and the cooking idea behind them was that the tomato sauce on the bread steamed the vegetables in the tomato sauce and the cheese that covered the concoction kept the food from drying out. Unlike pizzas, which are usually cooked at extremely high heat in pizza ovens, these were cooked in pans in convection ovens. The owner hated when people referred to them as pizzas and instructed us to politely correct customers by telling them that while the food we served was similar in some ways to pizza, our food was called "torta" and it was a different type of food. Once in a while a potential customer would say something like "Oh, I thought you served pizza here" and leave. Employees would get a talking-to if they called the food pizzas. Then the restaurant won an award from a local weekly newspaper for "Best Deep Dish Pizza." After that, nobody told any customer who wanted one of our pizzas that what we served was "torta," not "pizza." So I suppose that if calling an ukulele a little guitar draws people to the instrument who might be put off by hearing the word ukulele, then so much the better.
 
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Oh, no! A man in a video made a vague reference that may or may not be mildly disrespectful to ukuleles! Set the Offend-o-Meter to 11!

Then follow up the vague, "if you squint it might be a uke insult" reference with very real disrespect for guitars and people who play them. Fight perceived intolerance with real intolerance! That's the way we do it on the internet!


If Dan Erlewine says he's building a little guitar, he's building a little guitar.
 
Dan is a well respected repairman and I've learned a lot from his books and videos. My six year old grandson calls my ukes "little guitars". I'm going to believe that Dan is quoting his grandaughter.
 
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