Introduction from a 4 stringer.

[Tim2723]

...Plus it's waaaay too happy-sounding. Everyone knows folk music is all about misery and suffering. And when your audience get up and begin dancing in the aisles to "Streets of London" or "Kilkelly Ireland, 1860", you know something has gone horribly wrong.

Arrrggg!! That's happened to us even without a ukulele! We play mostly in bars and restaurants to audiences that may never have heard any 'Irish' music other than Danny Boy. They hear a tune that seems danceable and they just start dancing to it. I remember playing King of the Fairies once and having a whole group of Country-Western line-dancers jump up and do their thing. We try to take it as a compliment.

[MTGuru]

A friend stopped by last night for some music. And since I happened to have it handy, I grabbed my uke (not banjo-uke) in standard C6 tuning and launched into backing up a few Irish trad tunes.

It's hard to know what to make of the result. It was fun. It wasn't awful. Basically loud enough with just two of us. But ... I have no real handle yet on what to do. My "recreational" uke repertoire is mostly early 20th century popular song and 60s-80s folk-pop, and those voicings don't work well for ITM. My trad guitar tricks don't work because of the reentrancy and lack of string real estate. I can find open-5 chord voicings (i.e., no 3rds) as usable building blocks, but it would definitely take some time and experiment to knit things into a coherent approach. Could be interesting to try, though.

[Tim2723]

MT, don't forget that you can always use low-G tuning instead of re-entrant. That yields a more guitar-like voicing, but looses much of the ukulele charm. A banjolele in low-G is particularly banjo-ish.

[MTGuru]

Oh sure Tim, thanks. That's certainly very workable on a tenor uke, where the low G configuration is a fairly common option anyway. On soprano, maybe not so much - and I don't really want to mess around with my Aquila string setup. As you say, you'd lose some of the "jumping flea" charm. Plus, I think part of the challenge is to take the uke and apply it as-is, for better or worse.

[Thomaston]

I just remembered I actually posted a clip here several years ago where I had used Garageband and did a whistle/uke recording. Unfortunately, i linked the clip to my long defunct myspace acct. Too bad... I got good feedback in that thread and wish I could find that old mp3, but I think the only copy was on my Mac that died a couple of years ago.
The old thread is actually one of the first ones in the "hybridization" forum thanks to a recent bump.

[Thomaston]

Another thought- I've got a tenor banjo for sale in the classified area. If I can't find a buyer I've been considering getting a new nut and bridge and converting it into a giant banjolele. That could potentially be supreme bucket-loads of fun.

[robert schuler]

Another thought- I've got a tenor banjo for sale in the classified area. If I can't find a buyer I've been considering getting a new nut and bridge and converting it into a giant banjolele. That could potentially be supreme bucket-loads of fun.
Another thought- I've got a tenor banjo for sale in the classified area. If I can't find a buyer I've been considering getting a new nut and bridge and converting it into a giant banjolele. That could potentially be supreme bucket-loads of fun.

I built a 24" scale 5 string open back banjo with a 10" pot. Brass tone ring and tension hoop. Set it up with Chris Sands medium nylons. Tuned as a Uke it really sounds good. It also makes a good substitute for a bouzouki... Bob.

[MTGuru]

It also makes a good substitute for a bouzouki

I'm not sure how that follows. Can you explain?

[Thomaston]

Like I said earlier, zoukelele! It's the hybrid instrument that's just begging to be made!

[MTGuru]

Like I said earlier, zoukelele! It's the hybrid instrument that's just begging to be made!

I have a feeling that the name (great name!) may be better than the instrument.

[Thomaston]

It is a great name. It makes me want to request a username change. Possibly even start a band!

[MTGuru]

I run a blog aimed at beginners for that instrument and would be delighted to discuss / help.

Barry, I just had a chance to look at your site and your e-books. Very nice stuff. Good information, nicely laid out. Your two (non-chord) e-books look like they fill a real niche for beginners, and they're very reasonably priced. A+

[dunnp]

Just curious have any of you uke players heard ofthe timple?

Its basically a uke with an extra string popular in the Canaries.

When I lived in Lanzarote I had one made by a wonderful instrument maker there.

Its a great little thing
I will post pictures.

I think I bought it for like 500 euros than had an expensive pick up added so the thing was a fortune for a uke but I love it.

[Feadoggie]

Just curious have any of you uke players heard ofthe timple?

Yep! There is the timple in the Canaries, tiple in Spain and tipple here in the US. (Tipples aren't just for flutes You know!) The timple may be what I referred to above that Seamus Egan has played. The formats vary a bit.

C.F. Martin has made quite a few tipples over the ages starting in 1919 not long after the whole Hawaiian thing boomed. They are tuned either as a uke or as a guitar in my experience.

[dunnp]

Tiples are steel string for the most part.
Timple is really more uke like and nylon strung.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timple

I believe Seamus Egan played a cuban tres on his Weekend in January album.

I also have a purto rican cuatro built by my father that is amaziong and a bandurria I picked up for him while living in Barcelona.

I will try to figure out a picture later on of my timple.