Awesome Ukulele

[JavaBrewer]

Disclaimer - I did a quick search and came up empty so sorry if this is a repost.

I'm always facinated (and jealous) of folks who can create music. This guy is worth watching!

Worlds Best Ukulele Player on Break dot com

[notfarnow]

Great Stuff!

[craigster59]

That's Jake Shimbukoro, an excellent uke player. I've played ukelele since 15, but unfortunately most people associate it w/ Tiny Tim.

You can hear a lot of uke on commercials today, and for an instrument that's small, easy to play (4 strings) and to relax with at the end of a busy day, it's good therapy.

[craigster59]

Not to hijack, but there was a thread on a guitar forum w/ acoustic "You Tube" links and this was posted. Pete Huttlinger doing "Superstition"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWCKL_MHRoU

[azasadny]

I love the ukelele and the mandolin, very similar sound and very cool, especially when paired with a banjo.

[89911]

"While my guitar gently weeps on a Ukelele"

Man, I didn't think this video had such legs.

[scottmandue]

Originally posted by azasadny
I love the ukulele and the mandolin, very similar sound and very cool, especially when paired with a banjo.

I should look this up before posting but I heard the Portuguese brought the mandolin to the islands and the ukulele was developed from it.

I had a friend who was a native Hawaiian that had several beautiful Koa wood ukuleles... unfortunately they warped and cracked possibly he flew them back and forth from the mainland and the islands too many times.

He taught me to play several Hawaiian songs on guitar (wish I knew what happened to the sheet music, hope it's kicking around the house somewhere)

He also turned me on to a lot of the good local Hawaiian music... if your only experience with Hawaiian music is what you see in movies and TV you owe it to yourself to check it out (if you are a music lover)

Edit: Some research shows the Portuguese brought over this instrument that was the inspiration for the ukulele (not the mandolin).

The cavaquinho (pron. /ka.va.'ki.ɲu/ in Portuguese) is a small string instrument of the European guitar family with four wire or gut strings. It is also called machimbo, machim, machete (in the Portuguese Atlantic islands and Brazil), manchete or marchete, braguinha or braguinho.

[bell]

i could listen to him play all day