By Greg Olwell Using “12th Street Rag,” a popular early ukulele showpiece, as a demo piece, Rachel Manke introduced the new vintage-style Ohana SK-39 at our booth at the 2017 NAMM show. Taking its design cues from the desirable Martin Style 3…
By Greg Olwell For players not able to spend the money on one of Kanile’a‘s Hawaii-crafted ukuleles, the company developed the Islander line. Developed by Kanile’a’s Joe Souza, this line includes several features from the higher-end line, but in a more affordable import line…
By Greg Olwell No tour of the NAMM show is complete without a stop at one of the most popular ukulele booths, Kanile’a. Not only do they have regular performances by some of the Oahu maker’s artists, the wall of sumptuous ukuleles…
By Greg Olwell Martin is celebrating the ukulele in 2017, the centennial of the vaunted guitar-maker cataloging the ukulele. Though the company had built ukes since 1906, steam really picked up once the company began placing them in the catalog as…
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By Greg Olwell One of Kala’s exciting debuts for 2017 is a dramatic new finish available on the Elite line’s mahogany tenor. The new Kala Elite Salt & Pepper Doghair Tenor is a tribute to a recent Collings guitar that…
By Greg Olwell Ukulele hotshot, Taimane Gardner recently created an instructional video for her triplet-strumming technique. Now, she’s back with a new tutorial on triple PICKING. She mostly focuses on using a thumbpick (an extra-heavy Herco thumbpick, in this case), but also goes into…
From the Winter 2016 issue of Ukulele | BY PAT MORAN “Rule number one—if you know the words, sing along.” From the darkened stage in Charlotte, North Carolina, Age Pryor intones the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra’s “rules of audience engagement.”…
By Greg Olwell Though it began to make ukuleles prior to 1917, C.F. Martin & Company began offering ukuleles to the public in earnest 100 years ago. To celebrate this centennial , Martin is kicking off the anniversary celebration with two…
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By Greg Olwell What we’re in love with today: A recent cover of a hot-ukulele classic from “King” Bennie Nawahi. In this clip shot for the Japanese Ukulele magazine, Belgium-based ukulele phenom Ukulelezaza and “Masked” Mario Takada play “Ukulele Benny,” one…
By Greg Olwell A version of this article originally appears in the Spring 2017 issue of Ukulele. Several months ago, ukulele star Jake Shimabukuro began posting pictures to his social media accounts of himself with what appeared to be ukuleles in…