More Of What Ukulele Players Really Want To Know

by Barry Maz

Published by Barry Maz at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Barry Maz

To my Wife – for her support in the endless hours I spend writing about the ukulele, and for deciding to take the plunge and learn to play herself!

Keep Strumming....

Cover photograph, Koaloha Pikake Soprano Ukulele Headstock – image copyright Barry Maz 2011

INTRODUCTION

A little over twelve months ago I completed writing my first book aimed squarely at ukulele beginners, What Ukulele Players Really Want To Know. In January 2011 it was launched as an ebook and then as a paperback.

It was something that friends had been suggesting that I do for quite some time. They figured that I put so much time into writing the Got A Ukulele blog that surely I could put all my thoughts and advice down in one place that readers could carry around with them. Unsure of exactly how it would pan out I put pen to paper (or rather, fingers to keyboard, but you know what I mean) and launched it. It was a book that seemed to fill a gap in the market – not a ‘how to play’ kind of book, but a guide or handbook for new players to give them the answers to the questions that traditional tutor books seemed to miss.

The response to the book was staggering and humbling in equal measure. Since its launch I have had so many kind words from people saying how much the guide helped them in starting out with the uke. I’ve seen social network comments where people are recommending it to others, and one reader got in touch to tell me he was buying a copy for his mother who wanted to learn to play like him! It went worldwide and ended up turning the book into a bestseller. On a couple of occasions in 2011 the book was the number one selling music book on the Kindle store in the UK (number two on the USA…. dang!), and the number one music reference book in all book categories (paper and ebooks) on the same site. When the book launched the ukulele community was sensing something of a “uke boom” in the year ahead of us, but I didn’t realise just how big a boom it would be.

That surge in popularity is seen on Got A Ukulele also, and each month that goes by, visitor numbers leap to another high point. In fact Christmas Day 2011 was the time it really showed. I can only imagine that there were thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of new ukuleles being opened on Christmas morning, and the blog had over twice as many visits that day than ever before.

So I started thinking, do I have more to say to the ukulele beginner? Hopefully those beginners who read my first book would now be progressing well and finding their own answers to things by now. Well I think I do have more to share, and I thought it was about time to launch a part two, (the difficult second album…), More Of What Ukulele Players Really Want To Know.

This book takes a slightly different angle to the first book in many ways. In reading this I assume you now have your ukulele and you have mastered the basics of strumming and can get yourself through a few songs. You may find that one or two other things are bugging you, or that you find yourself thinking about the ukulele and wanting to do more with it. This new book provides a several more beginner tips on various elements of ukulele ownership and playing, but it also includes some more general thoughts and advice that may assist in your life with a ukulele and moving forward with it. In that respect I hope some of the chapters in this book inspire as well as inform.

I owe a huge amount of thanks to those who supported Got A Ukulele and the first book during 2011 – it was a hugely enjoyable year and I have got to know a large number of wonderful ukulele people along the way. Thanks to some of those are included at the end of the book. Here’s to fun ukulele times ahead!

Best wishes and happy strumming.

Baz

1. THE UKULELE BOOM

It is now abundantly clear to anyone but those with their heads in the sand that the ukulele has recently seen a huge upswing in popularity around the globe. I find that it is now quite difficult to go through a day watching or listening to popular culture without hearing a ukulele at some point. An increasing number of pop artists, television advertisements and trailers are choosing the uke as the instrument of choice in their musical background. Social Media is bursting with new ukulele players looking for advice and ukulele clubs are springing up all over the place around the globe. I have spoken to a number of musical instrument retailers recently and they tell me that they can’t get hold of ukuleles quickly enough to meet customer demand. How long will it last and will the ukulele bubble burst?

Now it may seem odd for me to open a book about the ukulele on a negative, but the very short answer to the question is, yes, probably! Like everything, the popularity will start to wane at some point, but there is no need to worry, it won't go away. Music never does. (And if it ever does, take me out in the yard and shoot me – a world without music would be a sad, sad place).

All sorts of music tastes and interests come and go in popularity over the years, but they never die, and sure enough they will come back again at some point in the future. It was ever thus. To understand where we are today with the ukulele, we need to go back in time to the last big upswing for this plucky little instrument.

So let us roll back the clock to the 1930's and 40's and we find that the ukulele was BIG! HUGE in fact! These were the days before television networks and pop charts, but the ukulele was the staple instrument for many music hall entertainers. Cliff Edwards, Roy Smeck, George Formby are names you may have heard of, but there were countless others who, at some point in their act they would grab a uke to sing, play and entertain the masses. In keeping with the happy nature of the instrument, many, like Formby used the uke in comic and whimsical songs, but as many played the uke to accompany serious and touching songs, using its simple voice to bring a note of sadness to a performance. It was everywhere. Music stores on both sides of the Atlantic were full of ukes, and not guitars. A child's first instrument was most likely a cheap ukulele, perhaps made of Bakelite or later, brittle brightly coloured plastic. Then, like today, the public was exposed to an significant amount of ukulele music on the radio, in the movies and on stage. Also like today, when a member of the public picked up an instrument they quickly realised that it was a fairly simple instrument to get to grips with, benefited from being cheap and portable and was a huge amount of fun to play. Looking back to the present day and we see that those attributes haven't changed one bit, only the style and the fashion of the players.

I appreciate that some of you may look back on those early artists and cringe or exclaim that they are not your ‘thing’. Some people actually don’t like the link that the ukulele has with the likes of George Formby at all and actively try to avoid it coming up in conversation. Whilst many people do still enjoy that style of music, I am sure that the younger players today may find it ‘old fashioned’ compared to the current crop of artists today who are bringing the uke into their compositions, like Beirut, Noah And The Whale and Eddie Vedder. You may find, when playing a ukulele around those of the older generation, that you get ribbed by them asking that you 'play us some George Formby' or similar retorts. I have a healthy respect for Mr Formby, for sure, but I have to admit that I don't sit listening to his music on a daily basis.

But the thing is, those guys were actually no different to the artists of today. Those guys WERE the hit artists of their day. Formby and Edwards were, literally, megastars and as such what they sang and played had a huge influence on the general public. These people were the equivalent of the multi million selling hit artists of today. To put it another way, George Formby was the Jay Z of his day (now there is an image, Jay Z playing When I’m Cleaning Windows...shudder.) George, Cliff and Roy may sound old fashioned now, but back then it was absolutely bang on the moment (and the money!). Were you alive in those days with even a passing interest in music, if you play the ukulele today I'd wager you would have played it then and talked about it the way you do now. In fact, those artists careers were so big, that the ukulele upswing of that period was actually much bigger than the one we have now.

So, what happened? Why did the ukulele fall out of favour in those days? Several things contributed to the decline, namely the advent of TV, Rock & Roll and a significant widening in media outlets and musical tastes. The old time artists who principally plied their trade on the music hall stages became somewhat marginalised and the new younger record buying public wanted nothing but rock and roll (note, Elvis played a ukulele, but for the children of the 50's, a skiffle guitar was where it was at!). The world then went though a period of pop, rock, metal, dance and a million other music styles that came and went, and the ukulele just got lost in all the noise. But it didn’t die, far from it. In fact, in the background there remained a faithful contingent that continued to play and of course, in the islands of Hawaii, it never went away at all.

We now fast forward back to more recent years and we find that the ukulele has started to find its voice heard on certain popular music tracks. This hasn’t been a case, like the last upswing in the 40’s and 50’s of the ukulele dominating the charts and the music shops, but it was quietly growing, being picked up by artists of high standing in the modern music business. Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, Amanda Palmer, Stephin Merritt and others started appearing in gigs with a uke in hand, or including the instrument on record. Music generally also seems to have taken a turn, in recent years, to a folkier style, which the ukulele naturally fits in with. Whilst many of the ‘nu folk’ artists may not (yet!) have included the ukulele in their work, artists like Fleet Foxes, Laura Marling and Mumford & Sons have achieved huge success with a folky, acoustic sound that suits this instrument. The musical landscape has shifted a little. People started talking about the ukulele more, looking for shops that could sell them one and searching out anything they could find on the Internet to learn more about the instrument. Forums, clubs and blogs started appearing at an incredible rate, and judging by the membership numbers on the main ukulele discussion forums, a massive number of people out there now wanted to play. Music shops started dedicating one shelf, then whole walls to stocking ukuleles in their stores, with new outlets setting up to sell nothing but the uke. The upswing was in full 'swing'.

In a single hour-long programme on British television recently I watched selected highlights of a popular UK Folk Festival. I saw about six or seven acts in total and counted five ukuleles during the programme. That’s a pretty good hit rate! (Plus, one was an exotic looking five string!). Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls, a band who describe themselves as a ‘Brechtian Punk Cabaret’, and with who you would never associate the ukulele, released an EP of ukulele songs and now regularly gigs with a uke despite her earlier career being led by piano which she plays so well. She then went on to release a concept album Evelyn Evelyn based on a fictional pair of conjoined twins who play, you guessed it, a ukulele. Eddie Vedder, lead singer with the rock band Pearl Jam released a whole album of ukulele tracks much to the bemusement of some of his established fan base. The album featured some new songs written just for the instrument, and some covers of his earlier Pearl Jam tracks given a complete makeover on the little instrument. It went on to sell very well, and saw Vedder performing tracks on Letterman accompanied only by himself on a tenor ukulele. These two releases are not examples of what started the upswing but are examples of artists taking advantage of it. Vedder has been a fan of the ukulele for his whole life but would he have had success releasing a ukulele album in 1995? I suspect not.

So behind the world of celebrity it started to grow, and grow very quickly. For the general public the same attributes that got people hooked on the uke in the 1930's still hold true today. They can be cheap to buy, they are easy to get started with, they are portable and they are tremendous fun. What wasn't to like

This current upswing is different though, as we live in different times. I personally can't see the ukulele ever reaching the heady heights it achieved in the 30's and 40's again, there is too much competition in the music field and too many music styles out there. But I think I prefer that. Music is music, and I personally prefer balance and variety rather than one instrument dominating the whole world. It's likely to be an instrument that you will continue to see and hear regularly, that new bands seek to try out and include on an album once in a while. We can expect to find more unusual collaborations that fuse the ukulele with different types of music as new players experiment more with it. A prime example of that is a video you can look at by searching for Jessica Latshaw, in particular her video on the New York City Subway that sees an impromptu uke performance in an R&B style, accompanied by a stranger playing the congas to a thrilled bunch of strangers that just happened to be travelling on the same train. That sort of experimentation may actually serve to keep the interest going longer or even indefinitely, and that is no bad thing.

All of that said, as a humble non-celebrity, does any of this really matter to me? Perhaps not. At the end of the day I play the ukulele because I enjoy it and it makes me happy. If the world turned off the uke tomorrow, this player wouldn't. Once you are a player, it's no longer about the fashion of the day. Some established ukulele players choose to ‘pooh-pooh’ the new fad they see with younger players, and I don’t think that is particularly fair. They claim that they will put their ukes down as quickly as they picked them up, that they are not taking it seriously. I take issue with that. Whatever it takes in getting people playing music (on any instrument, whether ukulele or otherwise) is OK in my book and should never be sniffed at. We should remember that those young players who start today may turn out to be the grandparent who passes on a treasured ukulele to a grandchild some fifty years hence and, in turn, starts another generation on the road with the Uke!

Enjoy this ukulele boom whilst it’s here, but don’t forget, your uke is for life!

2. BASIC THEORY PT1 – NOTES

In my first book I kept away from trying to write a tutor book, and this ukulele guidebook is intended to be no different. I did think, however that as this book is aimed at those beginners who now have their ukulele and are looking to push on into developing their skills, that it would be hard to write without touching on some basic musical theory, just for the record. Throughout this book are one or two more chapters dealing with the same subject and they represent some of the absolute basics that I think it would be helpful for a beginner to try to understand. Firstly then, let’s take a look at the notes on a ukulele.

As you will probably know by now, the strings on a standard tuned ukulele are tuned to G,C,E and A (with the G on the string nearest the ceiling, and A on the string nearest the floor). If the strings are plucked without touching the neck, these are the notes that will ring, as the strings are being played in what is called ‘open’.

But of course, the neck of your ukulele is covered with frets to allow you to change the notes. When you fret a string on the ukulele you shorten the length, which in turn changes the way it vibrates and makes it ring a sound that is higher in pitch. The frets on a ukulele are spaced precisely such that playing a single string and ascending up the neck of the instrument one fret at a time will raise the note that is played by a ‘half step’ in musical terms (the equivalent of moving to the next key on a piano keyboard). Knowing this, and that moving up each fret moves you up a half step in the scale, by knowing the notes your open strings are tuned to, you should be able to work out any note on the whole of the ukulele fingerboard.

So how do we work up the note scale? Well, as you probably know, major notes in music are named as A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. It does however get a little more complicated as we have sharps and flats, and these represent intermediate notes between some of these major notes.

The sequence actually runs like this:

A - A#/Bb - B - C - C#/Db - D - D#/Eb - E - F - F#/Gb - G - G#/Ab - and then back to the next A.

This run of notes from that lower A to the next one up (or down!) is called an Octave.

The '#' symbol above means a sharp note and the 'b' means a flat. They are named together as they are essentially the same note and depending on your convention you will see both around - the A# plays the same as a Bb as it is the same thing.

But hang on, you are asking, why are there no sharps/flats between some of the notes, like between the B and C and the E and F? Well, due to the mechanics and the mathematics of the way music works, they don't exist! If you can picture a piano keyboard, the black keys represent the sharps and flats. If you look, the black keys don’t actually appear between each and every white key, in some cases the white keys are directly next to each other with no black key between them. These are the keys that represent those notes above that don't have a sharp or a flat.

So, now you know the theory of how the notes run through a musical octave, if you take your ukulele and look at the G string (the one nearest the ceiling!) - using the list of notes above, you now know that the first fret will play you a G#/Ab, the second fret an A, the third fret an A#/Bb, the fourth fret a B and so on. You can apply this to the other strings as well, and using the sequence work out any note at any fret on the ukulele!

If you are feeling brave you could try to memorise them all and many players can do this, and have the great ability to find any note anywhere on the ukulele. This brings many advantages in composing melodies and forming chords further up the neck of the instrument on the fly. For beginners though, I wouldn’t worry about trying to do that straight away. I would, however, suggest that there is great merit in you learning every note on the ukulele up to the first four or five frets.

3. UKULELE ACTION

In my first book I explained about ukulele setup and intonation as being things critical to a ukulele that plays well and in tune. As part of that process, we dealt with something called ‘action’ and how that is part of the setup. Action in itself, unless at the extremes of low or high, is not necessarily something that can cause a problem with tuning, and some players have very personal preferences on how they like their ukulele action. That said it’s something that you, as an instrument owner should understand and be confident in adjusting.

The term 'action' means the way the strings of the ukulele relate to the fingerboard over which they pass. That is to say, the angle and height of the strings in relation to the straight fingerboard.

You will hear of poor action as being either ‘high’ or ‘low’, and they each create their own problems when adjusted to the extremes.

1. A high action affects the playability of the instrument (the way the uke feels and how easy and fast it is to play) as well as the intonation of the instrument and tuning accuracy discussed in the first book.

2. Low action will most likely cause buzzing, or in extreme cases, the muting of the whole string, as the strings are too close to the frets. In the extreme cases it may actually have the effect of shortening the string if, for example, the string is ‘bottoming out’ on one of the frets and in such cases the string will sound muted or dull.

In respect of the former, if playability is bad enough this will lead to aching sore fingers. A high string simply requires more effort to push it down to the fret, and more distance to travel. This can cause cramp and also significantly slows down how quickly and cleanly you can change notes in melodies or chords.

Like it or not, a stringed instrument is a mathematical thing. That taut string requires itself to be as parallel as possible to the fingerboard in order that when fretted, the corresponding fret creates the right note. If you imagine a very high bridge, the string will get closer and closer along its length to the fingerboard as it approaches the nut. In other words, it is the hypotenuse of a long, very thin triangle. Raise the bridge too high, and your mathematics knowledge will tell you that the hypotenuse will lengthen. The fret placement relies on the length of the string between nut and bridge measured in a straight line to be fixed and accurate in relation to the neck. Raise the bridge, you lengthen the hypotenuse and throw out the mathematics! The result is that the notes that ring at certain fret positions will be out of tune.