The Christmas Song: Brittni Paiva

Here's a little something to make today and tomorrow especially merry: Brittni Paiva's tabbed version of The Christmas Song.

Merry Christmas from Ukulelia. And may Santa bring you the uke of your dreams tonight. Link

The Ukulele Handbook

Bumped into this book on a Christmas shopping trip. Looks like a fun book, and quite nicely done. Not novel enough to buy a copy (although if it shows up on the morning of the 25th I'd be happy), but perhaps you'd like to check it out. Link

West School Ukulele Club

How cute are these kids? From Hingham, MA, 1924 Link

Thanks, Ukester Brown!

The 3D Printed Ukulele

Check this out. A 3-D printed ukulele based on an open source design. Now if this guy would print himself a tuner... Link

Here is a link with more information on the open source design (apparently the link accompanying the YouTube video is incorrect). Link

Thanks, Shelley Rickey!

Yule-K-Lele Special Offer | Hallmark Stores

This is kitchy enough that I just might have to have one. It's evidently some sort of digital toy that plays six Christmas songs when you "strum" it. $14.95 with each purchase of three Hallmark cards. (The shag carpeting from my sister's 1970's bedroom not included.) Such a deal.

Link

Thanks, Ukester Brown!

A Letter to My Community After My Child Was Lit on Fire | Karl Fleischman

Agender uker Sascha Fleischman was badly burned. Strum a cheerful song in your heart for their recovery.

Link

New Tuners or Not?

Ukulelia readers,

Looking for the wisdom of the uke crowd here. I just acquired a sweet mid-1920s Style 1 Martin Soprano.

It's in amazing condition and came with its original wooden tuning pegs.

So here's my dilemma: to replace the tuners or not. I bought the Martin as a player, so I'm inclined to replace the tuners (saving the originals, natch). But the wooden pegs actually work pretty well (they haven't slipped on me yet). But they do take some finesse, and I'm worried they may become an albatross during a performance.

So what to do? Replace or not?

And if replace, do I go whole hog and get Peghead tuners? Would they require any modification to the peg holes (which I kinda think I should avoid–right?).

Chime in on the comments. Love to hear your thoughts.

Gary

3D printed ukulele! - Boing Boing

If you have nothing else to do. And seriously NOTHING else to do, check out this video of a 3D printed ukulele over on our big sister blog, Boing Boing. Link

Who Would Play this Uke

Yes he would. Every day. Link

Aaron Keim Tabs and Workshops

Quiet American Aaron Keim has graciously posted a series of tabs and workshops on his site. If you're looking to learn clawhammer style ukulele, this is your ticket.
Link

A Plug for GoChords

Now that I've found myself pressed into service as a teacher of the ukulele, I find that I often want to create my own arrangements to illustrate a technique or enable a particular teaching moment. Sometimes it's just a matter of changing the key of a popular tune to make it more friendly for beginners.

In any event, I started using GoChords about a year ago. It's a super-easy-to-use tool that lets you drop chord diagrams onto a page to create your own arrangements. To arrange a song with lyrics, you simply paste in the text with line breaks and you're able to drop in diagrams between lines and drag them to their proper places to indicate the chord changes. Once your arrangement is complete, you can change key with a single click, which is a boon for ukulele teachers whose students want to learn a pop tune that's written in a decidedly uke-unfriendly key.

I have a few quibbles with GoChords. For example, it currently only offers first position chords, so it's not much help for intermediate or advanced arrangements. You can create your own custom chord shapes (I've created the 2020 Hawaiian D7 chord for my library, e.g.), but custom chord shapes are static, and do not change if you change the key. But these are small complaints, and since I have been using the free version, I felt as though it would be impolite to gripe.

Yesterday I returned to GoChords to print out some music for a student and learned that they've decided to migrate to a subscription-only model. It didn't take me long to do some mental calculation and conclude that the time and hassle that GoChords saves me is well worth $50 a year. (You can also subscribe for $5 a month.)

GoChords has many features that I haven't taken advantage of. (There's a tablet version and auto-scroll capability, among others.) And I hope that by moving to a paid model they'll have deeper pockets for feature development (like a full set of chord inversions). But I'm happy to now be a paid subscriber.

Check it out. GoChords site.

Pat Boone and His Baritone About to Meet the Man of Steel

Uh, oh.

Ian Emmerson plays the World's Smallest Uke

Heck, I'd be happy if I could play that chestnut on a standard size soprano. This made my Saturday morning. Enjoy. Link

Sonya Cotton

Bill "Rock That Uke" Robertson suggested we check out the frequent baritone-uke-playing Sonya Cotton. Lovely voice, but the bari sometimes gets lost in the mix. Still, as Bill "The Deer Head" Robertson says, her voice is hauntingly beautiful...

Link

Kanile'a Ukulele at Lamorinda Music

Join Joe & Kristen Sousa, owners of Kanile’a Ukulele of Hawaii, for a very special ukulele workshop:

• History of Kanile’a and the ukulele
• Learn how the remarkable Kanile’a ukulele is built
• Q&A with the owners
• Brief group ukulele class (bring your uke if you have one!)
• Live music by Joe Souza with a Hula by Kristen
• Dessert and coffee provided

When: Thursday, July 25th

7:00PM – 9:00PM

Cost: $10

Where: The Big Room at Lamorinda Music

81 Lafayette Circle, Lafayette, CA

RSVP: 925-385-0963

See you there!