3 String Cigar-box Uke building workshop at GNUF 2015...

Just one of the great things about a ukulele festival is the workshops. At the Grand Northern Ukulele Festival (GNUF) in Huddersfield a few weeks ago, I put together a 3 string "cigar-box" uke in a workshop by Rob Collins of tinguitar.com These things fascinate me, especially when I hear someone who can play one.

Here's Emerson Rogers playing his - he certainly knew what to do with it! The slide is simply a small piece of copper tubing.
I was really impressed with the way Rob had prepared this workshop. It was an hour in length - no time to do detailed building instruction or to drill holes etc... but enough time to do an assembly job on the kit provided.

It's the sort of project that will benefit from a bit of finishing off - a sanding and coat of varnish of some sort. And the box (not a cigar box actually but it does the trick) would look good decorated. And then to get some music out of it..... it will wait til the winter months.
Rob was very innovative with the nut and bridge for this little "uke"...

As you caan see, the nut is a bolt - yes, the nut is a bolt! (Groan...) and the threads make good slots for the strings to fit into!

The bridge appears to be a bolt with the end cut off - the threads hold the strings in place. Very neat.
You'll notice that there's no sound hole - Rob explained that with a large enough sound hole, the top would be weakened and would need bracing - as a ukulele has. So there we go, we all had a neat and practical first foray into basic uke building! It was great fun, and everyone got their three string cigar box finished in the time. "f" holes would be cool though... I wonder....

Speaking of "cool"... this ranks pretty high on the list... In May we were fortunate to be able to visit the Kamaka factory in Honolulu, for the tour given by Mr Fred Kamaka himself - and here he is, showing me the museum-piece cigar-box uke made by Sam Kamaka... what a wonderful experience that was - and that's simply beautiful!

Well, I've got my porch, got my cigar box uke, all I need now is an injection of blues-ology to get me going! I live in hope.....

With the Sound of Purple! Ken Middleton improvisation - My Bonnie

TURNING A FOLK SONG INTO A JIG

I love what Ken Middleton does. He's a great player. Improvisation and what he calls "noodling" are his specialities, I think, and every now and then he comes up with something that just grabs me. This is one such, turning the old folk song "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" into a jig by altering the timing. The hammer-ons and pull-offs are magic.

I noticed Ken's use of triplets here, but didn't notice immediately that he's using the thumb-led triple. I'm used to the fore-finger led triple, but the thumb-led triple isn't tricky, it's just different!

Ken says....

"I wanted to try the well-known Scottish folk tune "My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean" as a jig. The song is normally played in triple time (3/4), but, after the slow intro, I am playing it in compound duple time (6/8). A jig should have a clear 2 beat feel, with each beat subdivided into 3. Pretty much any tune with a good melodic line can be played as a jig, but folk songs work really well.

The strum I am using is basically a triplet strum: thumb down, pointer up, pointer down. But I don't always play the full triplet. And, I do use other finger and the tune is sometimes played as the triplet, sometimes with just thumb and sometimes with hammer-ons and pull-offs.

I chose to play it in G and often use the 4th string as a melody note."

I do hope you enjoyed that! I've watched it about four times already... one to try and play along with?

Oh - and did you clock that beautiful purple-coloured uke? Custom built for Ken by Rob Collins of Hebden Bridge here in England. It's a deep-bodied uke, 6mm deeper in the body than the normal tenor, for a fuller sound. And the purple colour comes from the wood itself, it's not painted. Purple Heart wood. There you go. For the sound that Ken wanted.

To find out all about this beautiful Purple Heart uke, see Ken's full youtube review... check it out here!

Thanks for dropping in - do call again!