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May 31, 2005 1:51 PM

Brudda Bu's Ukulele Heaven has excellent info on ukulele creation and history. If you want to play, you can learn all of your chords at Ukulele Strummers. If you are looking for some easy songs, try Ukulele Boogaloo for an eclectic songbook with tablature right on the page. Ukulele Beatles Fun provides strum-along Beatles tunes in a flash app. Finally, for the more advanced, Dominator provides beautiful transcriptions of songs (scroll down) by artists like Herb Ohta and Jake Shimabukuro.
posted by Roger Dodger (5 comments total)

No ukelele post would be completely complete without a link to my fave proponents of said underappreciated instrument, Petty Booka.

Still . . . muchas gracias, señor Dodger.
posted by ToasT at 2:27 PM on May 31, 2005

Thanks for the great uke links!
posted by Songdog at 4:54 PM on May 31, 2005

A fitting thread in which to mention 2004 Ukulele Hall of Fame inductee Bill Tapia. Born in 1908, he began playing the ukulele in 1915, at age seven, on an instrument he bought from Manuel Nunes, one of the first Portuguese craftsmen to manufacture the instrument in Hawaii. Probably the inventor of the "drum roll strum," he joined vaudeville at 12, and by 15 he was a regular at the Moana Hotel with Johnny Noble. He switched to banjo and then guitar and spent most of his career in California as a jazz guitarist with various bands, including Charlie Barnet's, teaching and doing session work.

He didn't touch the ukulele for 56 years, but has now returned to his first instrument and is back on the road at age 97 to promote his new CD "Duke of Uke"! Catch him this weekend in Honolulu, or at various locations in California over the summer.
posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 8:46 PM on May 31, 2005

What amazing coinkydink, I just bought my first ukulele at NW Folklife the other day.
posted by nomisxid at 9:28 AM on June 1, 2005

I got a Uke for xmas this past year, but only recently re-strung it left handed. I was playing for only a few days before this link was posted... two clicks from the MeFi front page and I'm looking at Uke Tab for "The Universe Song" by Monty Python, a song I sing for my daughter nearly every night... Thanks Roger Dodger, great post!
posted by Hanover Phist at 12:21 PM on June 7, 2005