As musical trends spread through our “connected” world, there is more exposure to diverse musical approaches than ever before. Genre’s are now melting together and influences include 10, 20, 80 GB of hard drive space from 6 different genre’s in your average musicians iPod. It has been a while now since the ukulele was just used for Hawaiian or Swing music. And luckily, most people now do not even now who Tiny Tim is, so associating him with the ukulele is not really holding the uke down anymore. In fact nothing is. It is a bona fide cool instrument, in fact many current pop and indie singer/songwriters like Ingrid Michaelson, Jason Mraz, Jack Johnson, Portishead, and many others. Train’s “Hey Soul Sister” has sold over 4 million copies and spent 22 weeks at No.1 in the adult contemporary chart, and it was their first single in five years to even make the charts. It is in some part because he picked up a tenor ukulele. So tell your guitarist/singer friends, if they want to write a hit…. But seriously, this comfort sized instrument has proved to be the perfect harmonious companion to many great songs, and it is getting more love than ever.
this one looks great fullscreen!
This is the first time I am putting a link to a video I did not shoot, but it is a beautifully filmed performance at the UK MTV awards of Bruno Mars playing his Pono Tenor Ukulele. A good example of the ukulele in the most current, popular music of the day. Bruno’s album is at #1 on the pop charts in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Austria, Belgium (isn’t that a waffle?) Watch this video. It’s Nice! It’s worth waiting for it to buffer. Hit the back arrow after to get back. ~Aloha from Hawaii
