The Alternative Ukulele--From the Ridiculous to the Sublime

What I have called "the Alternative Ukulele Movement" I look at as one thing (a unified phenomenon, so to speak) because the impetus for making any sort of "different" type of ukulele comes out of the same one thing--the particular personality of the ukulele, and its basic appeal to masses of people,  as a non-serious, "fun" instrument.  I think builders have felt free, all through the uke's history, to be creative with the form of the ukulele, and players receptive to variant shapes, because the instrument has been regarded in this way.

When you look at examples of Alt Ukes, though, they usually fall into two categories--the Artful Type or the Novelty Type.  Both types differ from the norm (the norm being a ukulele that looks a miniature guitar), but in different ways.

The Artful Type tries to be different in an aesthetically pleasing, artful way, competing with the guitar shape on its own ground--because the guitar shape is certainly a lovely thing, refined over centuries, a sort of a compendium of the "greatest hits" that many creative luthiers have come up with over time.  It is a beautiful thing, like so many products of a long tradition.

By contrast,  the NoveltyType of alt uke tries to be different mainly for the fun of it, like a "novelty song" on the pop charts.

The Aero Uke , replica

The Aero Uke, introduced in the 1920s, when commercial aviation was the coolest new thing, is a great example of the Novelty Type of alt uke.  It's deliberately and extremely weird--I guess you could call it "surrealistic" in the art history sense of that term, juxtaposing two different realities:  it's a ukulele and an airplane.

A good example of the Artful Type of alt uke is the Bell Ukulele, which also came out in the 1920s.  It's not a completely original shape. I once came across a picture of a stringed instrument centuries old, with this same basic shape.  Too bad I lost track that picture.  I don't remember the number of strings or what it was called, but the basic shape of the body was the same.

An Oscar Schmidt Bell Ukulele

Texalele, special Eyes of Texas version

Just for the heck of it I'm going to throw in another example of a Novelty Type, one of my own wacky creations, the Texalele.

It's important to point out these two categories are not mutually exclusive.   For example, novelty aspects can be present in a uke that is  mainly of the Artful Type,--like in the case of the classic Pineapple Ukulele: the shape is elegant, with a simple organic feel, while at the same time the name (given to it only after it was made) is fanciful, and details applied to certain versions of it can be fanciful too (like painting the top to look like a pineapple).

Also, a ukulele can be a Novelty Type in it main conception, but executed in a restrained way with an eye toward making it aesthetically pleasing--like the Cat's Eye Ukulele I came up with as the very  first instrument I ever made.  The body is a cat's eye and  the headstock a cat's head--anatomically incorrect, but oh so clever. ;-)


This post TO BE CONTINUED. . . .