You can help the Ukulele Safari by bidding on a Mahalo signed by Bosko and Honey.
MGM has a new top-of-the-range Pono: the Pono PKC-500 ukulele. It’s decked out with all the trimmings and that’s reflected in the price tag of $1,119.96.
This Yamaha ukulele is advertised as having, “great and old YAMAHA’s sound.” What?
Another stunning cigar box ukulele from Black Bear.
Cordoba are mainly known for their classical and Spanish guitars, but this Cordoba 25CK looks like a very nice piece of work.
A new chord site on me: Benefield has a wide variety of uke chords from The Clash to Reverend Gary Davis. And a new tab site: Nappr with a number of game themes for ukulele and more.
Two gorgeous videos of Rio en Medio on her baritone ukulele on MP3.com.
New website from Lanikai. Some cool stuff on the site including Jason Mraz with his Lanikai LU-21T and a couple of basic instruction booklets for download.
Cyndi Lauper on her ukulele: “Oh, I love that thing. I found a ukulele in Australia that has a metal top. It’s really loud and kind of fabulous.” (Thanks to Carol for spotting that one).
Ukulele mp3s: Tullycraft have a ukulele cover of one of their own songs, Under The Rotunda has The Acorns’ Brokered Heart, Good Soul Department has the Ice Cream Shout remix of Sound of Arrows’ Danger! and foggy ruins of time puts up Foreign Loren’s Seaside, We Collide.
On Uker Tabs: Anyone Else but You from Juno. And if you like the ukulele and the Juno soundtrack, you might want to give I Think I Love U by The Polaroid a listen.
Will.I.Am from Black Eyed Peas on u.ku.lele.
Ukulele nail care from Dr Trey.
Make a maraca for your ukulele.
Ukulele Brand Consultants. I do hope they’re a company specialising in consultancy for ukulele brands. I think I’d be good at that job. Unfortunately, they’re not hiring.
One day, I’ll manage to get a solo arrangement of the whole of Bohemian Rhapsody together. But for now you’ll have to content yourself with the riff. The BoRhap riff, like Paranoid, has managed to be one of the world’s most recognisable riffs despite hardly even being there – lasting a grand total of eight bars.
One possible variation on this: In bar 4, I very nearly went with tab a hammer-on from the third to fifth fret and back down (so you’d have to slide your first finger up between the bars). If you’re using a pick to play the riff, you’ll have to do it that way.
Quick note: There’s a problem with the daily Uke Hunt emails at the moment and a lot of them aren’t getting through or sent. If the problem doesn’t right itself soon, I’ll try to make alternative arrangements. On to the matter in hand:
Phredd is one of my favourite YouTube ukers. His videos often leave me laughing so hard I need medical attention. Which says something about my maturity as Phredd (or Fred McNaughton) is children’s entertainer. I grilled him for more information.
How long have you been playing the uke? What attracted you to it?
I have been playing the uke about 5 or 6 years now. I love the sound. I bought one on a whim on ebay. It was a martin backpacker and I got it (with shipping) for $60. It was the sound I was looking for. It is just so happy. I have played all kinds of musical instruments my whole life, but none resonate with me more than the uke. When I started playing my ukulele at concerts, the kids loved it. Children really identify with the ukulele. They love how small it is and the happy sound it makes. Plus, everyone is playing the guitar, so it is unique.
How do you get into making music for kids?
I used to sing for adults. Then I started leading worship for kids at church and it just clicked. I didn’t find a lot of songs that I really liked, that had a lot of fun and enthusiasm, so I started writing my own and making up goofy hand motions to get the kids involved. Kids love to sing and love to worship, but they want to do it with their entire beings. So getting them jumping and moving and clapping and yelling is a big part of it. My wife and I have 8 children. Our oldest will be 26 in June. Our youngest, and newest member is 7. We just adopted her and have fallen in love with her. So we do a lot of singing at home. Through the years I would know I hit on a good song when I caught the kids singing it around the house. Then as they grew up they started helping me at the concerts, and that has been fantastic.
Something I find very interesting is that kids understand. They understand that you can be totally goofy and having fun and that some of the songs are just for making you smile and some of the songs have a message. Adults seem to have trouble with that. If you are going to sing me a serious song then stop goofing around. That seems to be just as prevalent in church as not in church. But kids get it. I also am amused that the same songs I sang for adults,that they didn’t understand, they now appreciate and enjoy, because I am singing for their kids. So, it kind of changed everything for me in that sense. So, I guess you could say in some way, that I do kids songs for adults, too.
What’s the secret to keeping kids entertained?
When I find this out I will get back to you. Seriously, I’m not sure there is a secret. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t and I’m not sure it is always dependent on the performer. It might have more to do with what they ate, where they were before hearing you sing, or a hundred other things that affect kids. For me, having fun, acting goofy and just being my weird self seems to be the ticket.
How does your Christianity influence your music?
I love Jesus with all my heart, so it influences everything I do. I love singing for kids and making them smile. I think that is a gift from God. What could be better than singing for kids? At the same time, I think a lot of music for kids disrespects their musical appreciation. So I try to write songs that are fun and out of left field. For instance I have a song that is called Awooga. It replaces saying ‘Amen’ with saying ‘Awooga. So, if you say Amen at your church when the Pastor says something you approve of, imagine saying, “AWOOGA!” really loud at the top of your lungs instead. I tell the kids its like honking the horn of your car in approval. Kids seem to get that.
I also have a song called INVISIBLE FRIEND. I think kids (and big kids too) struggle with not being able to see God like we see each other. It’s that whole faith thing. Almost all of us had an imaginary friend at some point in our lives, so relating that to God being invisible, but not imaginary seemed like a fun way to help them understand a little bit.
I’ve also started to get into some of the older folk gospel spirituals. There was some great songwriting and story telling. I like how they didn’t tell the whole story, but told just enough that it makes you more interested. The song MARY DON’T YOU WEEP is one of my current favorites. That song is so excellently written, but it doesn’t hit you over the head. It makes you really think. It also conveys such a depth of emotion. I think some of our modern music has lost the ability to touch the soul, while at the same fueling our imagination, and tickling our funny bone. I like that about some of the older songs I am finding. They have a depth of feeling while at the same time not taking themselves so seriously. Something about that really appeals to me. I don’t know if you’ve seen Bruce Springsteen and the Sessions Band Live in Dublin or not, but, wow! I love that dvd and I have been watching and listening to it a ton.
Elmer’s Electric Tricycle is my absolute favourite. Is it a true story? (Asked more in hope than expectation).
My very good friend Steven Courtney and I wrote this song together. Steven also performs for children and families and is about the best friend anyone could ever have.
We both have very busy schedules so we don’t get to spend as much time together as we would like. We also really enjoy writing songs and making music together. So one time, we came up with this crazy idea to write songs together via email. I would send him a line, and then maybe later that day, or the next, he would send me the next line. I do a morning radio show, so I wake up very early, and I would come in to work and open my email and there would be the next line to the song and it would make me really laugh. So our goal became to make the other person laugh when they read the next line. We wrote over 40 songs together that way. It was just a really fun time.
Elmer’s was born out of that writing experiment. In a weird sort of way it mirrored what we were doing with the songwriting; going into “the lab” and coming out with this explosion of creativity. The video of Elmer that you currently have up at Uke Hunt is my daughter Keilah and I singing. Keilah has been singing with me since she was about 7. We do about 50 concerts a year at schools, churches, festivals and all sorts of places. She is so talented and adds so much to this song and to the concerts in general. I love that she sings with me. It really is an honor to have my teenage daughter be my singing partner. Teenagerdom is a time when many kids are embarrassed by their parents, so I don’t take it for granted that Keilah, at the age of 16 is willing to make a fool of herself with me in front of an audience. That has been a huge blessing in my life.
Visit Phredd Central to find out more, hear more songs and buy his stuff. You can listen to Fred’s radio show, Get Up and Go, on WJTL FM 90.3.
This riff is a classic blues riff and has been ripped off a million times – most surprisingly by Girls Aloud.
The riff alternates between the bottom two strings and the top two strings. The easiest way to play this is to strum down with your thumb on the G and C strings and strum up with you index finger on the E and A strings.
Happy Birthday Uke Hunt!
A year ago today was this blog’s first ever post. I thought I’d take the opportunity to be completely self indulgent and have a look back at the first year.
Most Popular Posts
1. While My Guitar Gently Weeps Tutorial
My plea for people to stop aping Jake’s version and come up with their own. Lots of people read it. They all ignored it. Oh well, I tried.
2. Beirut – Elephant Gun
3. Beirut – Postcards from Italy
One of the main reasons I started this blog was to spread the good news about indie ukulele acts like Beirut and Magnetic Fields which I thought were being overlooked a little in the online uke world. But I had no idea so many people were looking for Beirut chords and tabs. Still, I think it might have been a little obsessive of me to work out their entire back catalogue.
4. IZ/Jason Castro – Somewhere Over the Rainbow
I woke up one morning to an email from Jeff telling me about this guy who had played the uke on American Idol. I decided to knock together a quick post about it. Since the minute it went up, it’s been the most visited post on the blog.
5. Beirut – The Penalty
6. Britney Spears/Sweetafton23 – Toxic
Molly linked to this post in her description. It still sends a bunch of people here every day.
7. Daft Punk – Harder, Better, Strong, Faster
Terrible song to play on the ukulele (Spencer, what were you thinking?). Why the hell are so many people looking at this? Gave me an excuse to watch that video over and over, though.
8. Guns and Roses – Sweet Child o’ Mine
9. Arcade Fire – Keep the Car Running
10. Sean Kingston – Beautiful Girls
Most Overlooked Posts
I toiled and laboured through endless nights. Spilt blood, sweat and tears on my uke. If you build it people will come. Or not.
These posts took hours and hours to come up with and didn’t make it into the top 100 pages:
1. Carl Ray Villaverde – Tears in Heaven
2. Danse Macabre
3. Brian Hefferan – Sailors Hornpipe
The Stats
Page Views: 1,143,624
Visits: 236,808
Subscribers: Around 600 (half of them by email, nearly half by RSS and a smattering by Twitter).
Visits Graph:
1st Spike: Christmas Day. I decided to take Christmas time off. “Who’s going to be on the computer on Christmas Day?” I thought. Two conclusions to draw from this. One: I’m an idiot. Two: This blog is much more popular when I’m not here.
2nd (Mini) Spike: Jonathan Coulton mentions Molly winning Online Ukulele Video of the Year.
3rd Spike: Jason Castro on American Idol.
4th Spike: This happened just a few days ago. The number of direct visitors (people typing in the address or using a bookmark) tripled and it was my biggest day ever. I have absolutely no idea why this happened. Anyone any ideas?
Absolutely No Change: Getting mentioned in the NME.
Referrers
1. YouTube
2. KDUS
3. Boat Paddle Ukuleles
4. Richard Gillman
5. Ukulele Cosmos
I’m really grateful to everyone who has linked to me in the last year (no matter how big or small your site is). Thanks everyone.
Best Comment
Nobody – “Seems that you’ll put anything up on this site just for content. Or maybe you’re doing favors for your special friends to rake in lots of freebies.”
Note to freebie givers: I’m a very cheap date.
The Next Year
As you might have noticed, I’m moving towards making this place a bit less bloggy. There’s a whole lot of stuff here now and the blog layout isn’t the best way for people to navigate it. I’m also doing more long term, permanent stuff like the Buy a Ukulele section (which still needs a lot of work).
People have started turning up at the blog after searching for just the word ‘ukulele’. I assume these people mostly aren’t hardcore ukulele nerds like you and me. So I’ll be doing a few bits that might be helpful to them as well as uke players (such as the Ukulele Songs bit). The plan is to turn vague browsers into hardcore ukulelists.
From the start, it was my plan to post once a day until I had enough posts on the site to make it worth people visiting. When I hit that point, I thought I’d slow down. I’m now doing 8 posts most weeks. I’m still planning on slowing down a bit. It probably won’t happen. One thing I will have to do is start saying ‘no’ to some requests. I’ve got a huge backlog and feel guilty about it. Also, it’s amazing the number of people I do requests for who never thank me. I’ll be much more likely to do your request if I recognise your name from comments and messages and if it’s the sort of thing I usually have on the blog. (Oh, and double check your email address if you’re using the contact form).
Ultimately, I want Uke Hunt to be the best ukulele website around. I think I have a long way to go before that’s the case. The first year has gone far, far better than I thought possible. So I’ve set some aims for next year which I think are also impossible:
– still number one on the top 50 uke sites (I think Ukulele Underground will overtake me sooner or later).
– number one on Google for ‘ukulele tabs‘, ‘ukulele chords’ and ‘ukulele’. The last one definitely is impossible (thanks to Wiki-frickin’-pedia). Type ‘search engine optimization’ into Google; even the experts can’t beat Wikipedia. If you want to help, you could link to Ukulele Hunt with the word ukulele on your website/blog/LiveJournal/whatnot. The other two might be doable.
– 1 million visits (not page views)
– 1,500 subscribers. There can’t be that many people in the world who feel the need to read this site every day of their lives.
Thank You!
A massive thanks to all of you. I’m massively grateful to the people that have commented, messaged and got involved. If it wasn’t for you people, I’d have given up a long time ago.
Here’s a random selection of emails I wake up to in the morning:
– What type of ukulele does Jake Shimabukuro play?
– What sort of uke is that Jake uses in While My Guitar Gently Weeps?
– Where can I buy a ukulele like Jake Shimabukuro plays?
OK, I’m exaggerating. But I get enough enquiries to make it easier just to write a post.
Shimabukuro plays a custom Kamaka tenor ukulele by Casey Kamaka. His first ukulele, at the age of 4, was a Kamaka and he’s been using them ever since.
If you want to buy one, you’re pretty much out of luck. In 2006, Kamaka made 100 Jake Shimabukuro Signature Model ukuleles. These ukes were made to Jake’s specifications and individually inspected and signed by him.
Despite a hefty price tag of $5,500, demand for them was over whelming. So much so they decided to have a raffle to determine who could buy the ukuleles. By January 2007 they were all gone. If you manage to find one for sale, expect to pay much more than the original price (at least double would be my guess).
The Nerdy Stuff
Body: Curly Koa
Fingerboard: Ebony
Bridge Ebony: Ebony
Binding: Rosewood
Inlays: Mother of pearl and abalone
Tuners: Gold Schaller tuning keys
Pickup: Fishman Acoustic Matrix
Photo: BotheredByBees
Videos include Alvin ‘Pops KoAloha‘ Okami, Tripping Lily and Uni and her Ukelele.
Alvin Okami & Gordon Mark – Days of Wine and Roses Read the rest of this entry »
The most interesting lot on eBay at the moment is this JF Stetson ukulele (almost certainly made by Martin). MGM currently has one for sale at $,1695 (although that one is in better condition and comes with pedigree).
Keykord Baritone. Unusual to say the least. It has a high-class version of those Maccaferri Islander lazy chord doodads.
Kala have added an unpainted mahogany model to their Archtop range. Very pretty.
And it’s not the only one, there are quite a few pretty ukes around this week: Dave Talsma concert, Island Traditions Curly Koa electric ukulele, 1930s Gibson and my personal favourite a Les Rietfors Concert ukulele (although they spell it “Rietforts”).
One uke I would class as pretty (even at the risk of being booted off the list) is this Boat Paddle uke. To me they look boxy and, well, like a boat paddle. Feel free to disagree with me.
Gosh, there are a lot of people searching online for Oscar Schmidt ukuleles at the moment. Probably due to the Jason Castro effect. You might be able to grab yourself a bargain with this Oscar Schmidt OU5LCE. It’s had the bridge ripped off it. But sticking a new one on isn’t a big job. Julia Nunes managed it.
Receive the latest Uke Hunt posts in your inbox.
