I’ve only bought one ukulele this year (my aNueNue harp ukulele) and I haven’t entirely formed my opinion on that yet. But there’s other stuff I’ve bought this year (or wangled for free) that has been well worth the money.
Music
The ukulele albums I’ve listened to most this year are:
Givers – In Light
Leftover Cuties – Places to Go
Emily Scott – i write letters i never send
Tune-Yards – W H O K I L L
But there are plenty more great ukulele songs released this year. I’ve made a Spotify playlist of some of them I could find on there.
And I’ve put together a Spotify playlist of my favourite non-ukulele songs of the year.
Both are a random assortment of tracks that happened to pop into my head. I’m sure I’ve left out plenty of stuff (and quite a few great uke albums aren’t on Spotify).
Books
I am, of course, going to be completely biased and suggest you buy a copy of Ukulele for Dummies.
On less self-interested note, I’d highly recommend Lil’ Rev’s 101 Ukulele Licks for anyone looking to do some ukulele soloing.
My copy of Ralph Shaw’s The Ukulele Entertainer has yet to wing its way across the ocean but – since it’s based on his blog posts – I feel confident that’ll be well worth the money.
On a non-ukulele front, and after some initial skepticism, I took the plunge and bought a Kindle. It’s part of my drive to get rid of as much junk from my life as possible. I’ve tackled the biggest problem (CDs) and books are next on the list (ukuleles are third – don’t know what I’m going to do about that). Best thing about it: you can hook it up to Instapaper and make it a whole lot easier to read long articles on the net.
If you’re worried about me being easily bought (a very fair position to hold) the stuff I got free was: Leftover Cuties, Emily Scott and 101 Ukulele Licks. I would have gladly paid full whack for all of them.
Thanks for putting the Spotify link! Saves me a little bit of time ^_^