Saturday, January 23, 2010

"Hergonomic" Ukulele by Dave Talsma





Kay Dake sent me this; "...most ukuleles rest further away from the chest wall, causing the wrist and arm to be cocked at a less comfortable angle. This seemed to challenge my smaller hands and shorter fingers when it came to 4-finger chords and barring. The distance from my body and the angle of the uke also forced me to further change the angle of the uke if I wanted to visualize the neck when playing. My "Hergo" has the slimmer side of the wedge on top, allowing it to snug up close, and the wider section of the wedge pitches the uke so that the fretboard is in sight at all times. The best way to describe the fit is that it's similar to pulling on your favorite jeans. It's incredibly light and the unusual shape of the body actually gives it a very clear bell-like quality. Surprisingly even the gentlemen, who have tried this on for size, find it very comfortable and noticed a difference in the angle of their wrist.
Dave made a styrofoam mockup and had me try it on for size before he built it..."

6 comments:

Dave Talsma said...

Nice little article Kay. Thanks much!

Ron Hale said...

Is this a new idea? This is very, very interesting, and makes a lot of sense. It's nice to see consideration given to the actual fit of a ukulele to the player. Fit can
be a very iffy thing with the player
having to make adjustments, not all of them comfortable, to the instrument.

Anonymous said...

Great idea and a nice solution to accommodate human ergonomics! Keep up the good work, Dave. You're awesome!

Neil Wakeman

dave said...

that's a very good solution for a longtime problem for all ukul;ele players.

Eric said...

the idea has been around for quite some time. I think that Linda Manzer popularized it.

Still, a great twist on the instrument.

http://www.manzer.com/guitars/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12&Itemid=15

Gary said...

I love the fact that Linda Manzer released her design under a Creative Commons license! Open source lutherie!

 
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