Check out the gorgeous hand braided leather straps at The Bailey Strap Shop. The site shows mandolin straps, but Bill has branched out into making ukulele straps too. Definitely worth checking out.

Judy Robinson sent this in:

I am hoping that if you love the ukulele you are willing to share your thoughts on the following survey. It would take about 7 minutes if you want to go quickly through it. It could take longer if you have more you want to share.
At the end, if you would like, put your name in for a teeny tiny ipod shuffle raffle, then please do so.
Please share the link with others. Thank-you in advance for your time in answering this.
http://tinyurl.com/ukulele-quest

Thanks for any help you can give,
Judy

I’m a fan of guitar (and ukulele) tuners that use vibration help you to zero in on the right note for each string. Here’s a new one from Planet Waves that looks like it might be pretty nice. It has a narrow LCD display that shows the currently tuned note for the string that you’re trying to tune. As you tighten or loosen the string, the display will turn from Red to Green when you have successfully tuned the string to the correct note. My current fave tuner is the Intelli IMT-500, but I’d like to try this one. You can find it on Amazon for about $25.

Check out these made to order resin and steel reinforced wall mounted guitar hangers from Grip Studios. They are available in different colors and shapes, including human hands, skeleton hands and monster hands. They are priced from $39.99 up to $119.99. Although they are made for guitars, I’m sure they will work fine for ukuleles too

Ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro new mini-EP “Annon” will be released on September 1st as Part of the Shin Buddhism Founders 750th memorial.

The Shin Buddhist path was founded by Shinran Shonin (1173-1263) during the Kamakura period, and in several centuries grew into one of the largest and most influential schools of Buddhism in Japan, a position it maintains today. The Hongwanji temple is the headquarters of the Hongwanji denomination of Shin Buddhism (Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha), and is known as Nishi (lit. “West”) Hongwanji. Read the rest of this entry »

During my normal Saturday morning routine of hot tea, steel-cut oats and magazine browsing, I happened upon the ZeroGravity Orbit Guitar Pick in the latest copy of a Musician’s Friend catalog. Guitar Picks really haven’t changed much over the years, so this one easily caught my eye. Attached to the actual pick is a soft rubber ring that you place around your index finger. Then you grip the pick with the same index finger and thumb in the designated areas. It looks awkward to me, but the idea is to make you hold the pick correctly for optimal playing. You can get one for $2.99 or three for $7.99.

Owen Holt may not be a name you know, but he’s one of the great innovators of the ukulele. His Road Toad shop produces some amazing-shaped ukes, like the Sharkfin and Mana, that are some of the finest sounding ukes made today. But more importantly, he’s created a fifth uke to add to the set of soprano, concert, tenor and baritone: The bass uke. For a few years his Big Bufo Bass has quietly been earning a solid reputation in uke circles. While similar in size to a baritone uke, the BBB was created for Pahoehoe unique polyurethane bass strings, which Owen developed. Read the rest of this entry »

I just finished reading Tim Szerlong’s article about his trip to the U.S. Music Corp factory in Illinois. This factory is a parent company to Washburn and Oscar Schmidt among others. Go check out the article and Tim’s new site at Ukeeku.

Leo Biovin sent me the link to this nice article on NPR (National Public Radio) yesterday. According to the article (which also has an audio version if you prefer to listen instead of read), overall instrument sales are down around 20%, but not for the uke. Apparently, ukulele sales at Elderly Instruments are up 10-15% this year.

Has the economy put a damper on your UAS (Ukulele Acquisition Syndrome)?

It was an event entirely guided by one mans karma. Mike, alias hoosierhiver on Ukulele Underground, didn’t organize this event. He just cleared the way to let the cosmos manifest it into existence. Back in January Mike, owner of the recently-opened Mainland Ukes in Nashville,  posted on UU that he had a great site for a ukulele campout. There was no planning beyond this. Destiny just took over. Six months later the World Ukulele Congress happened. Read the rest of this entry »