New Toy

I have been watching/listening to a lot of Ukulele music recently.

I was already a bit of a fan of the instrument, from my exposure to the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain and Israel Kamakawiwo’ole

However, since I got the Wii, I have been watching a lot of YouTube from the comfort of my living room. Thus, as mentioned in an earlier post, I discovered the anarchic recordings of Julia Nunes, which lead me in turn to Shiny and the Spoon’s interesting version of Aha’s Take On Me, Jake Shimabukuro, and much more.

Not to mention the only way to properly play Oasis’ Wonderwall

You can see where this is leading to, can’t you.

So a little while back I picked up a very cheap soprano uke by Mahala – more than a toy, but not ideal. It has never stayed in tune for long, even though it had proper geared machine heads, and not just pegs; and I found that my fingers were a bit big for the tiny soprano fretboard.

Despite that, it made a pleasant sound, and it let me play about a bit, and decide whether I wanted to buy a “real” Ukulele.

Anyway, today I received my new toy, from the wonderful people at the Southern Ukulele Store. Not a particularly expensive one (some of the big name ukes can go for 3-400 quid!), but very nice it is, indeed. It is made by Kala, a fairly respectable manufacturer of mid-range instruments, and is their Travel Uke . This Kala YouTube video is about their soprano uke, but I have bought the Tenor, which has a fingerboard which gives me lots of room for my fingers!