Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Sunday, December 06, 2009

I Got a Ukulele!

It's sweet as all hell. It's teeny, black and gleaming and looks like my big black gleaming Fender acoustic's sweet little baby! And so it is. I love it.

This little dude makes me unreasonably happy. I'm so glad I never got one before! It's this one.

The strings on a uke are of course, very differently strung and tuned. There are four of them, four strings. And they're tuned all crazy! I'm used to top string deepest, and then progressing higher right on down - each string down higher than the one above. These strings are strung with the two highest strings on the bottom and top, and the deepest two in the middle. When you strum it, the sound produced, the chime - there's a ghostly ache of happiness to the way the chord comes together.

But I'm starting from scratch, too, because none of my guitar-proven burned-in muscle-memory fretwork works on this new tiny landscape. My fingers must make strange shapes. I'm busy figuring them out.

These two sites have been invaluable:
* SHEEP ENTERTAINMENT : UKULELE CHORDFINDER
* Online Ukulele Tuner

I really only have one song I'd think would need or like a ukulele on it. I'm transposing "Your Grim Stevedores." Who knows - if it works incredibly well, maybe I'll start writing for the uke! I bet "Picture Postcard" would fly.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Is there no end to your talent? You're just full of surprises!

dogimo said...

Thank you, but at this point - I pretty much suck at it!

So there's an end to my talent right there.

Lunarchick said...

Oo Oo OOOO! I love me some ukulele! You MUST include a uke song if you ever post some of your music one day.

(Okay by must I mean please, pretty please :-))

Post some pics of the little guy sometime :-)

dogimo said...

I plan to! If "Your Grim Stevedores" works out, I was planning for the ukulele version to be the "official version."

A pic should be pretty easy in the interim, though. Yeah! I'll post a pic of my uke right next to its big daddy Fender!

I might have to polish up the Fender a bit first. The gleaming mirror black gets a little smudgy.

Anonymous said...

You make me sad to my TOES that I left my seafoam Fender Strat behind in NYC when I left last year (it's a long story, I'm in mourning and me and that guitar have been through a lot together over the years) but I have NEVER OWNED ME A UKE! (OR a nuke, but I don't really want a nuke) I did attempt a mandolin once with amusing results and a banjo, if those count? I need a good acoustic guitar FIRST damn it then I'll think about ukes.

This is the first time since I was ten that I am a guitar-free zone.

dogimo said...

Do you know who has it? Can you get it BACK?? Send them an e-mail! Reopen the lines of communication. It may be worth it! Your beloved guitar!! AUGH!!

I hate shit like that. Well, it's none of my business really - I know sometimes you just have to bolt and let go.

A banjo definitely counts! My next stringed instrument is this beautiful guitar banjo AKA banjo guitar AKA gitjo AKA ganjo AKA banjitar. I have played it; it loves me. I know where it hangs, in which music store, and I just need to drive those two hours.

It's still there. I would know it if it wasn't.

Anonymous said...

It sounds rather wonderful actually.

I would secretly like to replace my old strat (sniff) with a blue Gretsch acoustic. One day I just might.