Ukulele nirvana at Watermelon Music in Davis
About six or seven years ago I was given my first ukulele. It was a very cheap and basic uke, but I loved it, and really enjoyed the tone it had. I quickly tried writing a song based around a simple ukulele hook and this was the result:
(download)
(song '33 not out' by Keith Bradnam)
A few years later I discovered the joys of the baritone ukulele and swiftly purchased one (by Lanikai) from the fantastic Watermelon Music in Davis. People have often remarked to me 'That's a small guitar!' to which I always respond 'No, it's a big ukulele'. When I bought the baritone uke, it was the only non-standard uke in the store. Fast forward a few years and things have changed a lot. First off, Watermelon now have a huge display of ukuleles:
The range at Watermelon comes in a myriad selection of styles and shapes. However, what really amazed me was discovering that you can now buy an electric bass ukulele! The strings on this baby were really thick and rubbery. Hard to hear it if not plugged in.
Just when I was recovering from the shock of seeing a bass uke, my eyes then spied this gem:
A thin-body 'travel' ukulele! If it wasn't already obvious, ukes are already small, so the idea of making one even smaller seems a little unnecessary. Despite the tiny body on this, it still produced a noticeable sound. I then noticed the most pointless ever feature on a musical instrument...ladies and gentlemen, I give you the ukulele-headstock-compass!
Never get lost while playing your Ukulele again. In addition to all of these wondrous musical instruments, they also had some 8-string ukuleles and behind the counter they had a mysterious 10-string ukulele. Took me a while to work out how this worked. Normally, you can just have two sets of strings on some instruments with the second set of strings being tuned an octave higher. The 10-string uke, had the higher and lower strings doubled up, but the middle two strings were tripled, with both additional strings being an octave higher. Not sure if that quite makes sense. But anyway, thank you Watermelon music for being a feast of ukulele goodness. I'm severely tempted by some of the electro-acoustic ukes....when do I next get paid?
