Ukulele building tools - fret calculator

My buddy, Daniel Hulbert over at Circuits and Strings builds some AMAZING stringed instruments (like this little pocket uke above).  Click that link and check out some of his work.  He also has some free building plans at his site!

In addition to all that awesomeness, he also put together this Fret Calculator Tutorial, complete with some guides to help people like me who aren't very good at building.

Rejoice novice uke builders!  Help is here! 

Mighty MO Ukulele Festival - a ukulele vacation!

When you think about ukulele hotspots in the United States, Missouri probably doesn't come to mind.  Well, Jerry and Janelle Hoffman are working hard to put Missouri on the ukulele map.

Jerry just so happens to be the owner and luthier of Boat Paddle Ukuleles (and let me tell you, he is creating some SWEET ukes).  Back in 2011, he and Janelle decided to organize the first ukulele festival that the state had ever seen, and so was born the Mighty MO Ukulele Festival.  This year, they are thrilled to be putting on the 3rd annual Mighty MO Uke Fest in peaceful New Haven, Missouri (just down the road from Boat Paddle Ukuleles).  The Cedar Creek Conference Center will play host to this year's festival which is taking place July 11th-14th.  You can make plans to join them and get registered here.

Janelle, MMUF event coordinator, told me a little bit about how it all began.

How to pronounce "ukulele"

In my neck of the woods (northwest Missouri), the common pronunciation of "ukulele" is "yoo-ka-lay-lee".  When I started getting more and more into the ukulele, I discovered that the actual Hawaiian pronunciation is "oo-koo-lay-lay".

So...I started to try to pronounce it "correctly".  To be quite honest, I felt completely ridiculous saying it the right way.  On top of that, if I go to a local music store to ask for "oo-koo-lay-lay" strings, I tend to get a strange look coupled with a reply of, "Do you mean yoo-ka-lay-lee strings?".  So I gave up trying the right way and just settled for the pronunciation that I've always known and heard around here.

Slide Ukulele Chord Chart

A few weeks back I posted a blog called "Alternate Ukulele Tunings", covering some common and not so common tunings for the uke.  Following up here with a basic chord chart for "Slide Ukulele Tuning".

The tuning for this is G, C, E, Bb.  When strummed open, it creates a C7 chord.  As you can see from the chart to left, I've left a lot of blank chords for you to fill in as you go. 

This tuning is really meant for those that are playing with a slide (as indicated by the name), so for the most part, the way you choose to utilize chords is up to you.  Some slide players like to play with a slide on their index or middle finger and leave their other fingers open for fretting along with the slide.  Others prefer to stick the slide on their ring or pinky finger and alternate between slide chords/notes and fretting chords/notes.  The choice is yours!  As you develop your style for this, you can fill in

Ukulele re-entrant D tuning - basic chord chart

I posted a blog a few weeks ago called "Alternate Ukulele Tunings", where I talked about some common (and not so common) alternate tunings for the uke. 

I thought that it'd be helpful to follow up with some basic chord charts for some of those tunings.  So here ya go!

Here's some basic chord formations for re-entrant D tuning (A,D,F#, B).  Click on the image to view it, and then click again on the image to enlarge it for printing it off (if you don't enlarge it, it won't print off correctly).

I left some blank spaces on the chart for you to use to fill in a few chords if you're looking for a couple that I've missed. 

Hope this helps!  Happy Uke'n!

Monkey Man ukulele chords - Toots and the Maytals

Yep, my daughter is totally awesome!  Here we are rockin' out to this classic ska song on the ukulele.  Monkey Man was released in 1969 by Toots and the Maytals and hit number 47 on the UK singles chart.  A lot of popular covers of this one, including a notable one by The Specials and a more recent version by the

Ukulele Review - a most excellent blog!

It's all in the name, folks!  Ukulele Review...reviews ukuleles.  And that's not all!  They review anything and everything to do with the ukulele.  This a super comprehensive review site and the layout is very user friendly and easy to navigate through. 

So...before you buy that new ukulele, uke book, CD, DVD, ukulele accessories, or anything else, check this place out.  Odds are that they've got a nice write up on it and will help guide you in any ukulele related purchase that you're about to make!

Also...they're super nice!  Hey, in my book that's worth a lot!

New Ukulele - the importance of warranty registration

A lot of ukuleles being made these days are coming with lifetime limited warranties.  While the "limited" part won't protect your new uke from wear and tear from normal use, damage from abuse, modifications that you make to the instrument, unauthorized repairs, and a whole barrage of other things, it's still important to get your new ukulele officially registered with the company.

Sure, it's a hassle, but it could pay off in the long run.  Your limited warranty should cover any defects in your ukulele that might pop up unexpectedly down the road.  The company should have record via the serial number and model number of every uke made, which leads to the following question....why is it so important to fill out and send in the little card?

How to Make a Ukulele Wall Hanger

Awhile back I posted a blog called "Make your own ukulele wall hanger".  In that post I linked up to a Ukulele Underground article and video showing you how to make a multi uke wall hanger. 

Well, I decided to put that into action and make one myself using the same formula, but with a few variations.  Here's how I did it.

Materials

- (2) 4 ft. long 1x4 boards
- (2) #8 1 1/2" wood screws
- (3) #10 2 1/2" wood screws
- (4) plastic coated U shaped tool hangers

Total cost = $10.72

For those of you searching the hardware store for these materials, let me just give a couple tips so you don't waste a bunch of time (like I did).  First of all, look for the tool hangers in the storage area of the hardware store.  Odds are that they are probably there.  I spent an

Homemade Resonator Ukulele w/ instructions

Well, I got bored one day and after watching a couple Youtube videos of people playing their own homemade resonator ukuleles, I decided to take my old laminate Harmony ukulele and try this idea out.  This old Harmony uke isn't worth much, so it's become my experiment ukulele...you might have seen this same ukulele show up in some other posts like this one, or this post, or even this post!

Basically, this uke has been through a lot and I am grateful to it for putting up with me.

Anyway, here's what I did to turn it into a resonator ukulele of sorts, complete with a video below of what it sounds like.  In retrospect, I wish I would have found a larger resonator.  While the sound does have that

5 ukulele songs for a beginner to learn

In the last post, we talked about and diagrammed 5 chords on the ukulele that I consider to be the most important building blocks in your ukulele journey.  Those chords are C, Am, F, G, G7.  If you missed that post, check it out here.

Now that you have the groundwork laid down with those 5 basic chords, you can start to put 'em to use and strum along with a few songs.  Here's 5 songs that you can start to work on with just those 5 ukulele

5 ukulele chords for a beginner to learn

This will be a two part-er specifically geared at all you beginners that are just picking up the ukulele.  In this first part, we'll cover 5 basic chords that I consider to be the most vital "first" chords to learn. Here's part two where we cover 5 beginner songs that use these 5 chords.

I sometimes contemplate what I would do differently if I had a Delorean and I could travel back in time to when I first started playing the ukulele....of course, I would also need a flux capacitor, but anyway....

One of things that I keep coming back to is what chords I would have chosen to learn at the beginning of my ukulele journey.  As I thought about this, I narrowed it down to 5 chords that I believe are most important and essential for a beginner to build around.  It's my hope that these 5 basic chords will be a good foundation

Ukulele Dm7 chord - tips and alternatives

courtesy of ukulele-chords.com

That pesky Dm7 chord shows up in a lot of ukulele tunes.  It's especially prevalent in songs in the key of C.  It can be hard to transition to this chord due to the crowded space.

From everything I've seen, the suggested fingering method for the Dm7 is to place your middle finger on the G string (2nd fret), your ring finger on the C string (2nd fret), your index finger on the E string (1st fret), and your pinky on the A string (3rd fret).

However, a lot of people (myself included) have learned to play this troublesome chord with that same structure, only with the placement of the middle and ring fingers reversed (so that the ring finger takes the lead on the G string 2nd fret).  Really, it all comes down to how you've learned to finger the Dm chord, which is the same placement minus the pinky finger (the A string is open - 2210).  Coming

New Ukulele stickers are in! - "Pineapple Upside Down Cake"

Hurray!  The new "Pineapple Upside Down Cake" ukulele stickers have made it in and are now officially up for sale here on our Etsy shop!

Hope that you love them as much as we do!

New Ukulele Magazine

A brand new e-zine directed towards all of us ukulele enthusiasts has emerged.  "Ukulele" seems to be a simple, yet very appropriate title for this compilation of interviews, tabs, reviews, and a whole lot more.

There is an e-mail sign up required to read it, but other than that slight inconvenience, it's free!  You can check it out and read through it at www.ukuleleunlimited.com

So far just two issues have been released.  The most recent Spring 2013 issue features an interview with James Hill, a bunch of tabs including "On the Beach at Waikiki", a Blues on the Uke Lesson, and reviews of the Ohana CKP-70 Concert, Kala KA-SMLTE-C Tenor, and Boulder Creek Riptide UC-SNS. 

Check it out and take the survey while you're there.  This is a very cool thing and all of us ukers need to show them that we can support such a magazine for years to come.

The Plastic Ukulele on Kickstarter

Maybe you saw this on Kickstarter in 2012 (check that link on the Kickstarter site for a sweet video with this uke).  The Plastic Ukulele!  Here's the scoop according the developer, Scott Seelye...

"The Plastic Ukulele will be 6 parts injection molded from polycarbonate, often referred to as bullet proof plastic and not affected by humidity or temperature changes. These parts are then assembled to create a very strong hollow structure with the internal volume and tone of a much larger instrument"

Bob Marley - One Cup of Coffee ukulele chords

One of my favorite Bob Marley songs!  It transfers quite nicely to the ukulele.  For those of you that aren't very familiar with ska strumming, I'm hoping to do a video tutorial one of these days with some ska

5 Pineapple Ukuleles under $300

Looking to add a pineapple ukulele to your collection?  Here's a few fantastic pineapples that won't break the bank.

Kala KA-P
$75

Probably the best entry level pineapple ukulele out there right now.  Laminate mahogany, geared tuners, and a very affordable price tag.  Here on Amazon, you can score one for $69.

How to make a ukulele hard case

Some ukuleles just don't come with a hard case....and some hard cases are just too expensive.  For those of you that are handy with tools, here are a couple of options to make your own ukulele hard case that I've stumbled across. 

A very nice DIY case made out of some 6mm thick plywood.  Check out the blog post here for more pictures and plans.

Alternate Ukulele Tunings

Whether you are looking to spice up your ukulele playing, looking for a new challenge, or just looking to make a piece a little bit easier to play, alternate tunings on your uke might be the way to go.  They say that there's more than one way to skin a cat (which I actually disagree with...how many ways can you actually skin a cat?  and what's wrong with you?  Why are you focusing your efforts on skinning cats, weirdo!?).  Likewise, there's more than one way to tune and play a ukulele.  Here's a few alternate ukulele tunings to try out, with a link below to many, MANY more.