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| Name | Ukulele |
|---|---|
| Image capt | Martin 3K Professional Ukulele |
| Background | string |
| Classification | String instrument (plucked, nylon stringed instrument usually played with the bare thumb and/or fingertips, or a felt pick.) |
| Hornbostel sachs | 321.322 |
| Hornbostel sachs desc | Composite chordophone |
| Developed | 19th century |
| Related | *Bowed and plucked string instruments, in particular the cavaquinho |
The ukulele originated in the 19th century as a Hawaiian interpretation of the cavaquinho or braguinha and the rajão, small guitar-like instruments taken to Hawaii by Portuguese immigrants. It gained great popularity elsewhere in the United States during the early 20th century, and from there spread internationally.
Tone and volume of the instrument vary with size and construction. Ukuleles commonly come in four sizes: soprano, concert, tenor, and baritone.
Developed in the 1880s, the ukulele is based on two small guitar-like instruments of Portuguese origin, the cavaquinho and the rajão, introduced to the Hawaiian Islands by Portuguese immigrants from Madeira. Three immigrants in particular, Madeiran cabinet makers Manuel Nunes, José do Espírito Santo, and Augusto Dias, are generally credited as the first ukulele makers. Two weeks after they landed aboard the Ravenscrag in late August 1879, the Hawaiian Gazette reported that "Madeira Islanders recently arrived here, have been delighting the people with nightly street concerts."
One of the most important factors in establishing the ukulele in Hawaiian music and culture was the ardent support and promotion of the instrument by King David Kalakaua. A patron of the arts, he incorporated it into performances at royal gatherings.
The ukulele soon became an icon of the Jazz Age. Highly portable and relatively inexpensive, it also proved popular with amateur players throughout the 1920s, as is evidenced by the introduction of uke chord tablature into the published sheet music for popular songs of the time, A number of mainland-based instrument manufacturers, among them Regal, Harmony, and Martin, added ukulele, banjolele, and tiple lines to their production to take advantage of the demand.
*Japan: The ukulele came to Japan in 1929 after Hawaiian-born Yukihiko Haida returned to the country upon his father's death and introduced the instrument. Haida and his brother Katsuhiko formed the Moana Glee Club, enjoying rapid success in an environment of growing enthusiasm for Western popular music, particularly Hawaiian music and jazz. During World War II, authorities banned most Western music, but fans and players kept it alive in secret, and it resumed popularity after the war. In 1959, Haida founded the Nihon Ukulele Association. Today, Japan is considered a second home for Hawaiian musicians and ukulele virtuosos.
*Canada: In the 1960s, educator J. Chalmers Doane dramatically changed school music programmes across Canada, using the ukulele as an inexpensive and practical teaching instrument to foster musical literacy in the classroom. There were 50,000 schoolchildren and adults learning ukulele through the Doane program at its peak.
Ukulele Ensemble “The Dukes of Ukes”]]*UK: The singer and comedian George Formby was perhaps the most famous ukulele player in the UK, although this is technically a misnomer as what he actually played was a banjolele, a hybrid instrument comprising of an extended ukulele neck with a banjo resonator body. There has been a recent upsurge in demand for the instrument, due to its relative simplicity and portability.
Typically ukuleles have a figure-eight body shape similar to that of a small acoustic guitar. They are also often seen in non-standard shapes, such as an oval, usually called a "pineapple" ukulele, invented by the Kamaka ukulele company, or a boat-paddle shape, and occasionally a square shape, often made out of an old wooden cigar box.
These instruments may have just four strings; or some strings may be paired in courses, giving the instrument a total of eight strings.
The soprano, often called "standard" in Hawaii, is the smallest, and the original size ukulele. The concert size was developed in the 1920s as an enhanced soprano, slightly larger and louder with a deeper tone. Shortly thereafter, the tenor was created, having more volume and deeper bass tone. The largest size is the baritone, created in the 1940s.
{|class=wikitable
!Type !!Scale length !!Total length!!Tuning
(Helmholtz notation)
|-
|soprano or standard
|13" (33 cm) || 21" (53 cm) || g'c'e'a' or a'd'f#'b'
|-
|concert
|15" (38 cm) || 23" (58 cm) || g'c'e'a' or gc'e'a'
|-
|tenor
|17" (43 cm) || 26" (66 cm) || gc'e'a', g'c'e'a', or d'gbe'
|-
|baritone
|19" (48 cm) || 30" (76 cm) || dgbe'
|-
|}
Another common tuning for sopranos and concerts is D-tuning, a' d' f#' b', one step higher than the g'c'e'a' tuning. D tuning is said by some to bring out a sweeter tone in some ukuleles, generally smaller ones. This tuning was commonly used during the Hawaiian music boom of the early 20th century, and is often seen in sheet music from this period. D tuning with a low 4th, ad'f#'b' is sometimes called "Canadian tuning" after its use in the Canadian school system, mostly on concert or tenor ukes.
Hawaiian ukuleles may also be tuned to open tunings, similar to the Hawaiian slack key style.
Close cousins of the ukulele include the Portuguese forerunners, the cavaquinho (also commonly known as machete or braguinha) and the slightly larger rajão. Other stringed variants include the Puerto Rican bordonua, the Venezuelan cuatro, the Colombian tiple, the timple of the Canary Islands, the Spanish vihuela, and the Andean charango traditionally made of an armadillo shell. In Indonesia, a similar Portuguese-inspired instrument is the kroncong.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
