BY JIM D’VILLE | FROM THE SPRING 2024 ISSUE OF UKULELE Dani Joy was not interested in a career in the music business. After graduating from the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, she wanted to pursue a career as a graphic designer and illustrator—that is, until her father put a ukulele in her hands. “I got home from school and spent months looking for a graphic design job. During that time, my dad, Stu Herreid, got the idea to open a music store and encouraged me to begin teaching there until a job in the design field opened up,” says Joy. Before long, she was a full-fle ..read more

BY MARCY MARXER | FROM THE SPRING 2024 ISSUE OF UKULELE Written in 1915 by Spencer Williams with lyrics by Roger Graham, “I Ain’t Got Nobody” was first recorded by banjo ukulele player Marion Harris in 1916. I searched out as many versions of the catchy tune as I could find and came across great interpretations by the likes of blues singer Bessie Smith, ukulele wizard Roy Smeck, jazz icon Louis Armstrong, and R&B legend Stevie Wonder, in addition to a more obscure but incredible recording on the Library of Congress website that blues singer-guitarist Hattie Ellis performed ..read more

BY DANIEL WARD | FROM THE SPRING 2024 ISSUE OF UKULELE [Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series on creating song arrangements] Making a song your own is a rewarding experience, even if it’s just coming up with a nice intro vamp or adding a cheeky ending that brings a good laugh at an open-mic night. For this lesson, the first in a two-part series, I’ll teach you how you can begin to compose creative arrangements through interchangeable parts—intros and outros, vamps and licks, style changes, and more.  I chose the vaudeville classic “Ain’t We Got Fun” because ..read more

BY GREG OLWELL | FROM THE SPRING 2024 ISSUE OF UKULELE With its vivid blue finish, my entire world seemed brighter when I pulled the Flight Comet EQ-A tenor ukulele out of its brick-red padded gig bag—it was a little like when Dorothy walked out of her Kansas farmhouse after landing in Oz. The Flight made a strong first impression with the stunning finish on its solid flame-maple top, its solid mango back and sides, pickup, and much more. Once I tuned it up, I dove into playing, and here’s what I found. Kind of Blue The bold blue top is an attention grabber, and it was quickly ..read more

BY CHRISTOPHER DAVIS-SHANNON | FROM THE SPRING 2024 ISSUE OF UKULELE The 1921 song “April Showers” was an early hit for singer/actor Al Jolson, as well as a dance-band staple of the time, recorded by everyone from Bing Crosby to Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra to none other than ukulele wizard Roy Smeck.  Check out more music to play here This arrangement is a simple version written in the chord-melody style—as the term suggests, simultaneously covering the melody and the chords in a self-contained way. Before you tackle the arrangement, slowly strum through the chord fram ..read more

BY BLAIR JACKSON | FROM THE SPRING 2024 ISSUE OF UKULELE Though his name is not well known outside of Hawaii, Kahauanu Lake (1932–2011) was one of the most admired and successful musicians in the Islands during the second half of the 20th century—an outstanding singer, songwriter, bandleader, ukulele master, teacher, and music historian who did so much to preserve and popularize traditional Hawaiian songs and hapa haole numbers, and also added many new hula tunes that are regarded as standards today. Lake—also known as “Uncle K,” “Mr. K,” and simply “K”—enjoyed a career that spa ..read more

BY NICOLAS GRIZZLE | FROM THE SPRING 2024 ISSUE OF UKULELE Dr. Giovanni Albini, music theory and ukulele professor at Italy’s Conservatory of Alessandria, doesn’t play ukulele—that’s because as someone who owns 75 of them, it’s impossible to stick to just one. “I say, ‘I don’t play ukulele, I play ukuleles,’” he says with a laugh.  Last year, Albini founded the first university-level study program dedicated to ukulele on an international level. As noted in Cynthia Kinnunen’s article in the Fall 2023 issue of Ukulele, before this there were no degree programs specifically fo ..read more

BY EDDIE SCHER | FROM THE WINTER 2023 ISSUE OF UKULELE The legendary jazz pianist Thelonious Monk famously said, “Simple ain’t easy.” But simple can be amazing. Sometimes taking what you already know and thinking about things in a fresh way can lead to a very different musical outcome. I’ve spent way too much time in my life looking for new and complicated chords when the musical possibilities with the very first shapes I learned are endless.  This lesson is all about using variations to leverage these simple shapes into new ideas—going back to the basics and building outw ..read more

BY NICOLAS GRIZZLE | FROM THE SPRING 2024 ISSUE OF UKULELE “All I knew from the beginning is that I wanted an opportunity for friends and fans to play on the album,” says the innovative ukulele artist and teacher James Hill, who has been honing his craft for more than a quarter century now. “And I wanted to give them an experience they would never forget.” So it was that the Uke Heads community was born.  Uke Heads started out as an album with an original take on crowdfunding: supporters could pay a set amount and receive a unique digital art piece, along with an opportunit ..read more

BY JIM D’VILLE | FROM THE WINTER 2023 ISSUE OF UKULELE You could call New Jersey native Bill Wynne a musical prodigy. His first instrument was a plastic guitar, and for his second birthday some Hawaiian family friends bought him a Sears ukulele. At age four, his parents gifted him a new Harmony ukulele and a Roy Smeck record entitled The Wizard of the Strings. Before long, he had learned to play the entire recording in the same fascinating way we learn to speak our first language: by ear. Wynne is not Hawaiian by blood. His family does have a connection to Hawaii, however: In 19 ..read more