Ukulele

After more than 20 years of getting myself interested in guitar playing, I finally switched to playing the ukulele.

My first ukulele was a Hilo which I purchased from Guitar Center. I did not enjoy playing it because the strings were too high above the fretboard. Moreover, I constantly had to tune it since the friction tuners provided were low quality and they slipped a lot after playing a few chords. I would not recommend this ukulele to beginners since it may just frustrate you and you may lose interest in ukulele-playing altogether. I recommend getting a good ukulele that's reasonably priced. Some good ones come in the $75-$200 range. My ukulele is an Oscar Schmidt OU5 concert model that's priced about $180. I bought it at a discounted price of $120 [including tax] from Elevation Music Store. Shipping was free. You can probably buy this now for $100. More on the OU5 in my next post.

There are 4 ukulele sizes [from smallest to biggest] -- soprano, concert, tenor and baritone. Unless you have limited airspace within 1 foot of your body, I recommend getting a concert or tenor ukelele. The baritone ukelele is tuned like the four bottom strings of a guitar [EBGD]. The 3 other ukuleles are usually tuned using the standard GCEA. If you put a capo on the 5th fret of a baritone, then you essentially have the standard GCEA ukulele.

Some of the more contemporary ukulele masters are Jake Shimabukuro and James Hill. Their playing styles transcend the barriers of the stereotypical perception that the ukulele is just a toy and not a musical instrument. I may not be as good playing the ukulele as Jake or James but their virtuosity provide mortals like us with exciting musical possibilities that we can eke out from such a tiny instrument.