Confessions of a bogan pastor No.1 - Ukuleles

See what I did there? Ha? Ha? Clever eh? Hmm, perhaps not and you're thinking, "golly, it's dad joke city already and he hasn't even got to the point". And you're right. I'm not very clever and I tell lots of dad jokes, but what the heck. When you're no good you have to have a go at something, right?

Which brings us neatly to the "ukulele".

As soon as I put that word out there, I'm gonna get a reaction. "Ukulele". Bam! You're feeling it again. My guess is it's likely to be one of two reactions...

1. Ukeleles are cool and fun. 
2. Kill. Me. Now.

Well here's my confession. I think, and I don't say this lightly, I've reached the second of the two. It's taken a while and it's not like I've tried otherwise, but really, I think I'm there now.

I can't stand ukuleles.

Maybe there's a 12 step program for us, "Hi, I'm Pete and I hate ukuleles". Gee I hope so because I'm surrounded with them at the moment with one thing and another. One of the biggest offenders is my next door neighbor. He's an ex pro muso, but with arthritis giving his hands a hard time he's well into them. He's been telling me all about the groups he goes to. Even he admitted (words to the effect of),

"Anyone can play a uke, and that's not a good thing."

Which puts me in the this weird, weird corner. I am, to a large extent, a man of the people musically. I reckon anyone should be able to have a go. Music should be driven by lots of people from lots of places playing songs on easy instruments. Am I being a 'music Nazi'? Hmm, could be, a university education in music can do that for sure. Although I think mostly I'm pretty open minded.

The problem is, I encourage people to take up music so they think I can deal with anything. 

People are regularly telling me, "my daughter/son/grand whatever got a ukelele the other day. They can play a few chords. They're in a ukulele group at school. Isn't that great!". They expect me to say, "that's amazing!", but instead I'm smiling a bit too hard and trying to stop my right eye from twitching. Then I came across this article the other day...

 
What a relief. I'm not the only person who winces every time someone even mentions a uke. At this point, I better own up to the fact that I have in fact played the ukulele semi properly for two things.

1. I was teaching at a school and had to walk every week. The uke fit in my backpack. My guitar didn't. So the uke got some action for a few months. Once I got the car back, the uke returned to the cupboard.

2. I was recording an album and we really wanted mandolin on a certain tune. I didn't own one and couldn't borrow one, so we multi-tracked uke. Most people didn't know the difference, but when I listened to it just now...


I wish I'd hired a mandolin after all.


As with beer, beanies and bikes, Hipsters have done the same things to ukuleles as everything they touched. They've made them 'boutique'. So now of course you can buy exquisite, custom inlayed, "tonewood", hand built ukuleles. So I can hear a few people thinking, "well they would sound amazing!"

Well this vid should sort that illusion out for you. Sure, they sound slightly different. Sure, the guy can play. However at the end of the day, you're putting lipstick on a pig. It might be a tiny, cute pig, but it's still a pig. The guy even concedes the $20 (you read that right) uke sounds ok next to his $1000 uke.

Because no matter what you do with a uke, it's still just a uke. 

This is the bit that truly hurt my head, because I trawl a few luthiers forums and I have a great friend who's a good luthier. Many such luthiers I come across are building works of art in the shape of ukuleles. The other day a build thread was titled, "tassie blackwood tenor".

I clicked on the thread hanging out to see a tenor guitar. Excitement!

But no, another uke. I won't say it wasn't beautiful to look at. The guy is an amazing builder and woodworker, but when you strum the strings... werl, you get the point. I've seen ukes in a million different shapes. For example, the shape of heavy metal flying V guitars. Dude, it's still a uke. Like I said though, it's not like I haven't tried to give them a fair go. I've pursued a number of clips on youtube showing the greatest players of the uke. There are surely some guys who can do some great things with the instrument. They are virtuosos. However, they're an absolute minority.

I echo Marsden as he compares the uke to the descant recorder... a weapon of torture.

Which brings me to the event that tipped me over the edge of the abyss. As I fell, I passed the other instruments I dislike immensely, the flute and the tuba. You see, last year we went to the worst schools music concert ever. At the event, our seats and some on stage screens made it impossible even to see my daughter in her choir. There were terrible rock bands, weird dramas, apalling sound mixing and very questionable dancing. None of that was the worst though. The absolute low point of a long night was the following.

Thirty kids their their teachers murdering "shake it off" with ukeleles & tuneless singing.

There have been few times I wanted to be deaf. This was one of them. My wife was looking worried as I sat hunched over with my head in my hands. Literally. So, if you want to learn to play something that's great! I'll happily get you going on the guitar. It's really cool and pretty cheap.

Just don't buy a uke. Please...