The ukulele: It’s not just for your weirdo cousin anymore.
We all know the ukulele — that cute, guitar-ish instrument (that’s right, we said “ish”) that has played a pivotal role in everything from “The Jerk” to a billion Hawaiian music pieces. But the instrument is much more than that, as Saturday’s first-ever Colorado UkeFest intends to prove.
The small but rabid national following that has recently evolved around the traditional instrument will be on display in a series of workshops and performances throughout the day at Swallow Hill Music Association. We recently spoke with Swallow Hill school director Michael Schenkelberg and musician/co-producer Aaron Keim (bass player for Boulder Acoustic Society), about the unique appeal of the instrument and why its time has come yet again…
Where did the idea for the festival come from?
Michael: It was Aaron’s idea. He’d been talking about it for five to six years but didn’t really have a chance to do it until I came into town (Schenkelberg formerly worked for Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music). Ukulele festivals are all over the country now, so we sort of patterned it after those, but we’re trying to move away from the traditional Hawaiian-based history and Tin Pan Alley definition of the ukulele because it’s having a renaissance.
Do you have any specific aims for the festival, beyond celebrating the instrument?
Michael: We’re trying to make it more relevant to the sort of hipster, 20-to-30-year-old crowd. A lot of bands are playing ukulele fusion these days, crossing between blues and rock and indie.
Why is that?
Aaron: Well, when anything becomes more popular people find it and claim it as their own. The history of the instrument is heavily related to vaudeville and Hawaii but I don’t play any music that’s related to that. Indie rock and pop acts have been using it lately. It’s on dozens of soundtracks and commercials lately… I actually hear it on at least a few a day.
Boulder Acoustic Society will rock you. Acoustically.
Can you name some examples of musicians using it?
Aaron: Stephin Merritt (of Magnetic Fields) used it on “69 Love Songs.” I saw them at Macky Auditorium and it was great. Sarah from Nickel Creek has been playing it recently on stage, which has been spreading it to the folk/bluegrass people. All the time on the Internet I see people using it, including Joni Mitchell. Eric Clapton started on the it as child, and Jack Johnson is a big fan and brings it on stage quite a bit.
Is there any way to sum up the instrument’s appeal?
Michael: I compare it to riding a scooter: It’s fun, it’s easy, it’s portable and it’s pretty cheap.
Do you feel like it doesn’t get enough respect?
Michael: I think by nature the instrument’s kind of humorous but there are some virtuosto players out there. There’s this guy from Japan — he plays the uke like Clapton plays guitar.
Aaron: What I like is that when you sing or play something there’s very little to get in the way of the listener and the song. It’s the bare-bones sound that the instrument makes, with just enough harmony, rhythm and melody to make the statement, but not a lot strings, effects, fancy sounds and volume. If you sing a piece of music with it, it’s almost like a direct thing from your heart to the listener’s heart. It’s that utilitarian approach.
And I’m sure its size doesn’t hurt.
Aaron: Yeah, it’s also very small and very portable. I teach a lot of lessons and there are frustrated Baby Boomers that can’t play guitar. But with a ukulele there are four nylon strings instead of six thick steel ones. That kind of modesty mixed with the lack of pretension… you can’t be high and mighty while you’re strumming the uke. And this connection right now where people want to make their own music, the DIY attitude throughout pop culture. It’s a way for people to make a quick and intimate connection.
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