Some of you know that the ukulele can have a different voice depending on wood, construction features, size, shape and strings. Ukulele Bartt has a short video in which he plays the same short progression in a wide variety of instruments.
I know that my comparatively heavily built tenor Pono, with Worth brown low G strings* has a completely different voice than my other ukes , and has a very different voice than my very lightly built Howlett tenor with NyGut high G strings (and it itself has a brighter voice with Southcoast light gauge strings).
* Worth brown strings are known to be a mellow string set and the low G adds to this voice.
This video highlights some of the differences that instruments have. Maybe this will encourage you to consider evaluating alternate string choices for your particular instrument.
Now for a bit of Bartt promotion. Here is his web page http://www.bartt.net/ and here is his web page with videos of a number of performances. http://bartt.net/MediaPage.htm
As is obvious when you see or hear him play, he was trained as a classical guitarist and loves this genre of music, but his performances include more popular material. He is a prolific song writer and some of these are highlighted in the media page . He is courted to come to ukulele festivals around the world to give workshops and concerts. (He has been to the Dallas festival and will likely be there in 2012.) His web page contains a wealth of material for ukulele folks including song charts, advice on instruments and a section where you can get his CDs and a very good uke starter DVD (which I have). Check it out.
Ralph
Hey, Ralph -
ReplyDeleteYour blog looks great - thanks for putting me in there. I'm proud to be a part of it!
Cheers,
Bartt