Ukulele Review

I received an email from Jerry yesterday with the following update and question…

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I had a really hard time narrowing the 54 entries for the Play it Forward contest down to just 3 winners. I sure wish that I had a lot of money, because I would gladly buy a FLEA ukulele for everyone that entered. As it is, I have decided to donate the FLEA that I purchased for myself to review to give it to a 4th winner. So here we go…

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Thanks to everyone that sent in their entries for the Play it Forward Ukulele contest! Now for the hard part, picking three winners! I’m curious, who do you all think should win? Give me your advice and one of you that comment to this post will win a uke sticker and a brand new eNote tuner.

Hi all!

My first contest is almost ready to come to an end. Please submit your last minute entries before midnight (EST) tonight. So far we have 51 entries. Good luck to everyone!

(I already know what I’m going to do for my next contest )

This continues my custom ukulele adventure that started in Part 1.

My custom Boat Paddle concert sized ukulele was ordered on December 19th, 2007 and I received the following info from Jerry this week that work is underway…

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I remember late last year when I began my ukulele adventure, I read about this weird condition called UAS (Ukulele Acquisition Syndrome). I thought it was crazy; who needs more than one ukulele? Certainly not I… Um… Yeah… It’s only been five months and I already have five ukes with two customs in the works. I was really excited to find out that one of these customs just got underway today. Since this is my first experience with having a custom instrument built, I thought it might be interesting to document the process of ordering and working with a luthier. This will be an on-going series of articles about my custom Boat Paddle ukulele.

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I had some fun this past Saturday. I attended my first ukulele class, which was led by Geoff Davis of the Blue Stone Folk School of Noblesville, Indiana. Including myself, there were 8 students in attendance. I had an exhausting 7 minute drive to the studio where the class was held, but one person drove all the way from Ohio to attend.

Geoff taught us a couple strums, but the main meat of the 6 hr session was basic music theory.  He gave us the tools to find chords up and down the fretboard. It was interesting and useful. I know I’ll use this info as I progress.

Here are links to two videos that I taped during the session.

Geoff demonstrating a triplet strum

Geoff playing the song Five Foot Two

I look forward to my next class and meeting more uke players

Franklin Villanueva (who has submitted 4 videos for the Play it forward ukulele video contest so far) just sent me the link to another ukulele related contest / charity event. The Museum of Making Music is raffling off an extremely cool looking custom tenor Compass Rose ukulele. This uke is a collaborative effort by Rick Turner of Renaissance Guitars and artist Mary Fleener. You can purchase as many $2 tickets as you wish, with the winner being chosen on June 14, 2008.

KoAloha ukuleles are one of the most popular Hawaiian made instruments on the market. When I was shopping for my first uke, I kept reading good comments about them, but their looks kept me from actually purchasing one. The pictures that I saw on the web made them look a little boring as they didn’t have any contrasting binding, inlays, etc. Having said that, I don’t really like overly fancy instruments, but I do like my ukuleles to have just a little bit of style. I ended up buying a Ko’olua Pono uke, but kept the KoAloha in the back of my mind because of all the good comments that I had read about them as far as their sound.

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I’m happy to report that the contest is proceeding very well so far. With 14 entries
and 15 days left till the 3 winners are chosen, I’m hoping to see many many more entries before the end date of 3/31/08. I’m getting a lot of enjoyment from your emails and watching the videos, so I thank all of you that have submitted something so far and those of you that will be sending me your entries in the days that follow.

Good luck to everyone!

–julie