Welcome to Ukulele Blog
Ukulele Assessment
Name: Nayeem Ali
Date: 06/01/2020
Student No: EC1859418
Contents
Introduction:
In this research I am going to explore the world of the ukulele, personally I have no experience with ukulele and this research will be interesting for me as well as I can learn more about the ukulele and the history behind it. In my research, I will divide in sections for each argument: First of all I will talk about how to get a ukulele and then I will talk about how to learn to play the ukulele. I will also talk about the story of the ukulele and we will explore the most famous ukulele players.
- How to get a Ukulele
- How to learn to play ukulele
- How to play ukulele
- Famous ukulele players
- History of the ukulele
- Evaluation
How to get a ukulele
Buying a ukulele, we can buy a used ukulele from eBay or Gumtree for cheap instead of paying the full price.
Buying a new ukulele: we can buy a new ukulele from many music stores around Edinburgh, but the price will be very high.
Example:
How to learn to play ukulele
We can learn how to play ukulele by watching tutorial videos on YouTube, which won’t cost us any money. Or we can hire an instructor who can teach us, but we will need to pay. A good website where to get ukulele lessons in Edinburgh is FirstTutors, I have chosen this website because it’s rated 4.5 stars on Trustpilot by 3.7k users.
How to play ukulele
The basics of how to play the ukulele can be learned from this YouTube video CLICK HERE I have chosen this video because this video explains very good how to do step by step and I think the source is reliable enough because the channel has 80k followers and talks only about ukulele.
This may sound stupid but it can help you a lot in the future! Take a few minutes and try some positions either sitting or standing. When you are sitting, you can let the body of the ukulele rest on one of your legs and rest your strumming arm on the top of the ukulele. That way the ukulele neck should “float” in the air. When you are standing you can hold it against your chest and keep it there with your strumming arm. All this may take some practice but it will pay off in the end because that way you will be able to pick up your ukulele and play (even when walking around), without messing around first. In my opinion a strap is unnecessary and it just adds bulk to the ukulele. I had some trouble at the beginning, but nowadays I’m walking around the house, in the garden with my ukulele. Small note: don’t hold it too tight! The sound still needs to vibrate properly through the body.
Source: Ukulele blog “Ukulele Tricks”, this website has a good amount of useful tips and tricks about the ukulele, the blog writer, Brett McQueen is a ukulele teacher who taught over 8000 students to play the ukulele.
Famous ukulele players
According to people’s vote on the website Ranker.com the greatest ukulele players in the world are:
- Grace VanderWaal
Grace Avery VanderWaal, born on January 15, 2004 is an American singer-songwriter from Suffern, NY. At age 12, she won the 11th season of the NBC competition show America’s Got Talent, singing her original songs and usually accompanying herself on the ukulele. Known for her distinctive vocals, she launched her first full-length album, Just the Beginning, in November 2017. She plays mostly the ukulele.
Famous songs:
I Don’t Know My Name
Moonlight
So Much More Than This
Ur So Beautiful
Source: I found all this source on the artist’s website https://www.gracevanderwaal.com/. It is the best source to get information about the artist, because it is the most up to date and accurate as it is ran by the artist herself.
- Jake Shimabukuro
Shimabukuro’s mother gave him a ukulele at age four and he quickly took an interest in the instrument, playing it many hours a day. His mother, an accomplished ukulele player and singer, was his first teacher, and he also took lessons for seven years under Tami Akiyami at Roy Sakuma Studios.
A fifth-generation Japanese-American, Shimabukuro initially gained attention in Hawaii in 1998 as a member of Pure Heart, a trio with Lopaka Colón (percussion) and Jon Yamasato (guitar/vocals). Shimabukuro was working at a music store in Honolulu when the group released its eponymous first album, which won them four Na Hoku Hanohano Awards (the Hawaiian counterpart of the Grammy Awards) from the Hawaii Academy of Recording Arts: Island Contemporary Album of the Year, Most Promising Artists, Album of the Year, and Favorite Entertainment of the Year, the latter determined by unrestricted public vote. The album, Pure Heart, was also named one of the Top 50 Hawaiian albums of all time by Honolulu Magazine.
Top Songs:
Over The Rainbow
Kawika
Crazy G
Don’t Stop Believing
Sources: Wikipedia and artist’s website https://jakeshimabukuro.com/. I tried to look more about the artist background and history on other sources, but without success. The artist’s website is not very complete but I could take something from it, however I chose Wikipedia as the information seemed accurate and up to date.
- Israel Kamakawiwo’ole
On May 20, 1959, in the final days of Hawaii’s territorial era, three months before the Hawaiian Islands would become America’s 50th state, a baby was born in Honolulu’s historic Kuakini hospital whose voice would unite the Hawaiian people and be heard all over the world. He was the third child of Evangeline Keale Kamakawiwo’ole, a Hawaiian woman born on Ni’ihau, and Henry “Tiny” Kaleialoha Naniwa Kamakawiwo’ole, a part-Hawaiian born on O’ahu. His proud parents knew he would be special even before he emitted his first bold vocals.
They named him Israel Ka’ano’i Kamakawiwo’ole. In Hawaiian his last name translates “the fearless eye, the bold face.” Tiny and Evangeline would spoil Israel far more than his brother and sisters; he could do no wrong. This native son was a rare breed, an almost pure Hawaiian of unusual lineage; he could trace his ancestral roots to an island that even today remains the most Hawaiian of all, the so-called “forbidden” island of Ni’ihau.
His first taste in performing was at Steamboats in Waikiki, where his father was a bouncer and his mother was the manager. He got to meet everybody and spend time with Gabby Pahinui and the Sons of Hawai’i. As early as 10 years old, they would call him up onstage with his ‘ukulele. Israel won the admiration and praise of his elders. All the musicians thought Israel was something special. They knew someday he would be somebody. For now, they called him “the kid with the ‘ukulele.”
Israel, now in his early teens, resisted a move to the country. Israel had no idea, nor could he have ever known, how the move to O’ahu’s Wai’anae Coast would cause fundamental change in his life. In Makaha, he would form a band that would rock the islands.
The chance encounter of two truant schoolboys (Israel and John Koko) at the beach was the beginning of a band everyone would soon know as the Makaha Sons of Ni’ihau. The Makaha Sons went on to record 21 albums, win many Na Hoku Hanohano Awards and change Hawaiian music history.
In 1993, following a successful run as one of the members of the Makaha Sons of Ni‘ihau, IZ decided to venture out on his own. He reached out to me because of my success as a producer of contemporary Hawaiian music giants like the Brothers Cazimero, Brother Noland, Rap Reiplinger and many more. Our meeting would set the stage for the rest of Israel’s career. IZ made it known that he wanted a solo career and wanted my help to chart this new course in the music industry. IZ felt that my track record as a producer and the strength of the Mountain Apple Company organization perfectly suited his needs. Our relationship blossomed and for the rest of his life, I was IZ’s producer, confidant and musical mentor. Our first release was his remarkable solo CD Facing Future.
Top Songs:
Somewhere Over The Rainbow
Take me Home
Source: I found all of this information on the artist’s website which is the most accurate source of information as the website is ran by the artist’s representatives. https://izhawaii.com/
History
The ukulele, a small four-stringed instrument of Portuguese origin, was patented in Hawaii in 1917, deriving its name from the Hawaiian word for “leaping flea.” Immigrants from the island of Madeira first brought to Hawaii a pair of Portuguese instruments in the late 1870s from which the ukuleles eventually developed. Trace back to the origins of the ukulele, follow its evolution and path to present-day popularity, and explore interesting facts about this instrument with Oxford Reference.
- Developed from a four-string Madeiran instrument and built from Hawaiian koa wood, ukuleles were popular among the Hawaiian royalty in the late 19th century.
- 1893’s World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago saw the first major performance of Hawaiian music with ukulele on the mainland.
- By 1916, Hawaiian music became a national craze, and the ukulele was incorporated into popular American culture soon afterwards.
- Singin’ In The Rain vocalist Cliff Edwards was also known as Ukulele Ike, and was one of the best known ukulele players during the height of the instrument’s popularity in the United States.
Sources: Ukulele blog “get-tuned” with 10.000+ followers and BBC, I think these are very good source of information as it’s trusted by huge amount of people.
Evaluation:
I have chosen these sources because I believe it’s trustworthy and it’s followed by huge amount of people passionate of ukulele. I was relying on official websites to get information because it is the most up to date and accurate than many blogs and Wikipedia itself. Doing this research I personally learnt a lot about ukulele and I think if I have to do it again it would be a lot easier because I know where to get trustworthy information. I used Wikipedia for sources that I cannot get from official sources, however I tried to use Wikipedia less as possible, because Wikipedia is not 100% accurate.
Ukulele 