Ukulele
The ukulele, also called a uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments. The ʻukulele is of Portuguese origin and was popularized in Hawaiʻi. The tone and volume of the instrument vary with size and construction. ʻUkuleles commonly come in four sizes: soprano, concert, tenor, and baritone.
ʻUkuleles generally have four nylon strings tuned to GCEA. They have 16–22 frets depending on the size.
History
Developed in the 1880s, the ʻukulele is based on several small, guitar-like instruments of Portuguese origin, the Machete, cavaquinho and rajão, introduced to the Hawaiian Islands by Portuguese immigrants from Madeira, the Azores, and Cape Verde. Three immigrants in particular, Madeiran cabinet makers Manuel Nunes, José do Espírito Santo, and Augusto Dias, are generally credited as the first ʻukulele makers. Two weeks after they disembarked from the SS Ravenscrag in late August 1879, the Hawaiian Gazette reported that "Madeira Islanders recently arrived here, have been delighting the people with nightly street concerts."One of the most important factors in establishing the ʻukulele in Hawaiian music and culture was the ardent support and promotion of the instrument by King Kalākaua. A patron of the arts, he incorporated it into performances at royal gatherings.
In the Hawaiian language the word ʻukulele roughly translates as 'jumping flea', perhaps because of the movement of the player's fingers. Legend attributes it to the nickname of Englishman Edward William Purvis, one of King Kalākaua's officers, because of his small size, fidgety manner, and playing expertise. One of the earliest appearances of the word ʻukulele in print is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Catalogue of the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments of All Nations published in 1907. The catalog describes two ʻukuleles from Hawaiʻi—one that is similar in size to a modern soprano ʻukulele, and one that is similar to a tenor.
Canada
In the 1960s, educator J. Chalmers Doane dramatically changed school music programs across Canada, using the ʻukulele as an inexpensive and practical teaching instrument to foster musical literacy in the classroom. At its peak, 50,000 schoolchildren and adults learned the ʻukulele through the Doane program. "Ukulele in the Classroom", a revised program created by James Hill and Doane in 2008, is a staple of music education in Canada.Japan
The ʻukulele arrived in Japan in 1929 after Hawaiʻi-born Yukihiko Haida returned to the country upon his father's death and introduced the instrument. Haida and his brother Katsuhiko formed the Moana Glee Club, enjoying rapid success in an environment of growing enthusiasm for Western popular music, particularly Hawaiian and jazz. During World War II, authorities banned most music from the West, but fans and players kept it alive in secret, and it resumed popularity after the war. In 1959, Haida founded the Nihon Ukulele Association. Japan has since become a second home for Hawaiian musicians and ʻukulele virtuosos.United Kingdom
British singer and comedian George Formby was a ʻukulele player, though he often played a banjolele, a hybrid instrument consisting of an extended ʻukulele neck with a banjo resonator body. Demand surged in the new century because of its relative simplicity and portability. Another British ʻukulele player was Tony Award-winner Tessie O'Shea, who appeared in numerous movies and stage shows, and was twice on The Ed Sullivan Show, including the night The Beatles debuted in 1964.The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain tours globally, and the George Formby Society, established in 1961, continues to hold regular conventions.
George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and John Lennon all played the ʻukulele. Harrison, who was a Formby fan, was a great lover of the instrument and often gave them to friends, including Tom Petty, whom he taught to play.
United States mainland
Pre–World War II
The ʻukulele was popularized for a stateside audience during the Panama–Pacific International Exposition, held from spring to autumn of 1915 in San Francisco. The Hawaiian Pavilion featured a guitar and ʻukulele ensemble, George E. K. Awai and his Royal Hawaiian Quartet, along with ʻukulele maker and player Jonah Kumalae. The popularity of the ensemble with visitors launched a fad for Hawaiian-themed songs among Tin Pan Alley songwriters. The ensemble also introduced both the lap steel guitar and the ʻukulele into U.S. mainland popular music, where it was taken up by vaudeville performers such as Roy Smeck and Cliff "Ukulele Ike" Edwards. On April 15, 1923, at the Rivoli Theater in New York City, Smeck appeared, playing the ʻukulele, in Stringed Harmony, a short film made in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process. On August 6, 1926, Smeck appeared playing the ʻukulele in a short film His Pastimes, made in the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process, shown with the feature film Don Juan starring John Barrymore.The ʻukulele soon became an icon of the Jazz Age. Like guitar, basic ʻukulele skills can be learned fairly easily, and this highly portable, relatively inexpensive instrument was popular with amateur players throughout the 1920s, as evidenced by the introduction of uke chord tablature into the published sheet music for popular songs of the time. A number of mainland-based stringed-instrument manufacturers, among them Regal, Harmony, and especially Martin, added ʻukulele, banjolele, and tiple lines to their production to take advantage of the demand.
The ʻukulele also made inroads into early country music or old-time music parallel to the then-popular mandolin. It was played by Jimmie Rodgers and Ernest V. Stoneman, as well as by early string bands, including Cowan Powers and his Family Band, Da Costa Woltz's Southern Broadcasters, Walter Smith and Friends, The Blankenship Family, The Hillbillies, and The Hilltop Singers.
Post–World War II
From the late 1940s to the late 1960s, plastics manufacturer Mario Maccaferri turned out about 9 million inexpensive ʻukuleles. The ʻukulele remained popular, appearing in many jazz songs throughout the 50s, '60s, and '70s. Much of the instrument's popularity was cultivated by Arthur Godfrey on The Arthur Godfrey Show on television. In 1959 the ʻukulele made an iconic appearance played by Marilyn Monroe as the character "Sugar Kane" in the movie Some Like It Hot, notably during the band's rendition of Runnin' Wild. Singer-musician Tiny Tim became closely associated with the instrument after playing it on his 1968 hit "Tiptoe Through the Tulips".The ʻukulele had what is considered a hibernation period from the 1960s, as the small acoustic instrument was unable to compete with the big, popular sound of rock 'n' roll.
The Ukulele Revival
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain are widely thought to be behind the so called ʻUkulele Revival. Formed in 1985 by George Hinchcliffe and Kitty Lux, this group began to prove that the ʻukulele could be more than just a toy, even performing intricate guitar solos and unexpected tunes. From then and into the late 1990s, interest in the instrument reawakened. During the 1990s, new manufacturers began producing ʻukuleles and a new generation of musicians took up the instrument. Jim Beloff set out to promote the instrument in the early 1990s and created over two dozen ʻukulele music books featuring modern music and classic ukulele pieces.All-time best-selling Hawaiian musician Israel Kamakawiwoʻole helped repopularize the instrument, in particular with his 1993 reggae-rhythmed medley of "Over the Rainbow" and "What a Wonderful World", used in films, television programs, and commercials. The song reached number 12 on Billboard's Hot Digital Tracks chart the week of January 31, 2004.
The creation of YouTube helped revive the popularity of the ʻukulele. One of the first videos to go viral was Jake Shimabukuro's ʻukulele rendition of George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". The video quickly went viral, and as of September 2020, had received over 17 million views.
In recent years, the ʻukulele has also been used increasingly in music education, sometimes replacing the recorder as first musical instrument. The ʻukulele is used both as a solo instrument and also in ensemble pieces for two or more instruments, such as Markus Rathey's song arrangements for three ʻukuleles.
Construction
The ʻukulele is generally made of wood, though variants have been composed partially or entirely of plastic or other materials. Cheaper ʻukuleles are generally made from plywood or laminated woods, in some cases with a soundboard of a tonewood such as spruce. More expensive ʻukuleles are made of solid hardwoods such as mahogany. The traditionally preferred wood for ʻukuleles is a type of acacia endemic to Hawaiʻi, called koa.Typically, ʻukuleles have a figure-eight body shape similar to that of a small acoustic guitar. They are also often seen in nonstandard shapes, such as cutaway and oval, usually called a "pineapple" ʻukulele, invented by the Kamaka Ukulele company, or a boat-paddle shape, and occasionally a square shape, often made out of an old wooden cigar box.
These instruments usually have four strings; some strings may be paired in courses, giving the instrument a total of six or eight strings The strings themselves were originally made of catgut. Modern ʻukuleles use strings made from nylon polymers, synthetic gut, or fluorocarbon or wound strings composed of a nylon core wound with metal or polymers, including aluminium and silver-plated copper.
Instruments with six or eight strings in four courses are often called taropatches, or taropatch ʻukuleles. They were once common in the concert size, but now the tenor size is more common for six-string taropatch ʻukuleles. The six-string, four-course version, has two single and two double courses, and is sometimes called a lili‘u, though this name also applies to the eight-string version. Eight-string baritone taropatches exist, and 5-string tenors have also been made.