Ukulele For Dummies (65 page)

Deciding Where to Buy

Buying a ukulele in a shop used to be a very dispiriting experience. You'd see walls packed with guitars and a couple of ukuleles collecting dust in the corner. Fortunately, that situation is slowly changing. But you can still find a much wider and better selection online.

Buying from a shop

A few specialist ukulele shops do exist, but you're most likely to have to go to a general music shop. In recent years, finding ukuleles in guitar and general music shops has become much easier. If you have a shop near you that sells ukuleles, go along and try some instruments out.

The first thing to do in the shop – whatever your budget – is to check out the most expensive instrument, because doing so gives you a good point of comparison. When you've got a feel for this expensive uke, see which instrument in your price range shares its characteristics.

Here are a couple of things to pay attention to when trying out ukes:

How well made is the ukulele?
Even if you're not familiar with the technical parts of the ukulele, you can get a good idea of the care that's gone into making it (take a look at Chapter 1 for a list of the various parts). In particular, check out the inside of the uke. If you can see glue spatters and splinters all over the place, move on to another instrument. Also, hold the headstock of the uke up to your chin and look down the fretboard towards the bridge so it looks like a railway track heading off in front of you. The frets should be perfectly parallel. If they're even slightly off, the uke isn't going to play correctly.

How high are the strings?
The height of the strings above the fretboard is known as the
action
. The higher the strings, the more you have to press down on them and the harder the uke is to play. The action can also be too low – creating buzzes when you play – but finding ukes with the action set too high is more common. If you bought a uke with a very high action, the problem can be fixed (flip to Chapter 19 to find out how).

Purchasing online

Despite the massive increase in the number of ukuleles available in shops, the selection is still limited and you may have to buy your uke on the Internet.

You do have to be more careful when buying on the Internet than in a shop and make sure that you read and take notice of the posted reviews.

But as long as you carry out some diligent checking, you can buy confidently on the Internet. I've bought all but one of my ukuleles online and never experienced any problems.

The biggest selection of ukuleles is on eBay, where you have to be particularly wary. The best and safest idea, to start with anyway, is to buy a new ukulele from a
power seller
who specialises in ukuleles (so they can give you expert advice and ensure that the ukulele is set up correctly).

Obtaining Your Second (and Third, Fourth, Fifth . . .) Ukulele

After you've been playing the ukulele for a few months you may well be itching to buy a new one. As you'd expect, a better uke provides plenty of advantages. As well as producing a better sound and being easier to play, better ukuleles reward better playing because they're more responsive to how you play.

Also, having access to a variety of sizes, styles and woods gives you more options in the way you play and the sound you make.

Before long you'll be a sufferer of UAS (ukulele acquisition syndrome), for which only one cure exists: bankruptcy!

Thinking about solid versus laminated

One distinction to be aware of is between solid wood and laminated ukuleles.

Solid wood
ukes are made of a single wood whereas
laminated
ones have a thin layer of a nice-looking wood (such as mahogany or koa) on top of a cheaper wood. You may have seen an old table or counter-top where the thin layer of fancy wood on top has started to come away and plywood is visible underneath. Laminated ukuleles are like that.

The additional layers of wood deaden the sound. Laminated ukuleles tend to be quieter and produce a more muffled sound compared to solid wood ones.

Laminated ukes do have their advantages, though. As well as being cheaper, they also handle humid environments better and are less likely to crack. But if you can afford a solid wood ukulele, buy one.

Sellers aren't always up-front about their ukuleles being laminated, but they're always eager to advertise the fact that a ukulele is solid. So if you read a description of a uke that doesn't say whether the instrument is solid or laminated, you can assume that it's laminated.

Considering types of wood

A whole range of woods is used for making ukuleles. If you're buying a laminated uke, you can base your choice on aesthetics. But for solid wood ukuleles, each wood gives you a slightly different tone:

Cedar:
Cedar is the most popular wood for classical guitars because it provides a warm and open tone.

Koa:
Originally, all ukuleles were made of this wood – with it being native to Hawaii – and koa is still very popular today. The wood produces a very clear, sweet tone. It responds very well to higher notes, which makes it suit the ukulele perfectly (much better than the guitar). My favourite ukulele is made from koa.

Koa also has the advantage of being a very pretty wood. With the trees growing on a volcanic island with no protection from the wind for thousands of miles, they can produce some very beautiful patterns.

Unfortunately, koa has been over-logged and supply has been gradually depleted, which makes koa instruments relatively expensive. Many ukuleles, however, are being made of woods from the same family as koa (acacia), such as Australian blackwood. They are a really close substitute: you'd need someone with a better eye and ear than me to reliably tell them apart.

Mahogany:
Mahogany is the most common wood used in ukuleles. It gives you a more mellow and rounded tone than koa and really suits a more laid-back and smoky style of playing.