Fretboard Journal Blog

Posts filed under 'Ukulele'

It’s Good To Have a Backup Plan

Warren Buffet shows that if the whole billionaire investor thing doesn’t work out, he can always get a gig as a rhythm uke player in a western swing band. It’s important to have a good backup plan.-MJS

1 comment March 24th, 2008

The First Talkie Movie Featuring Ukulele and Guitar?

I got this clip from Gary Peare over at Ukulelia, who had been doing some sleuthing on YouTube and turned up this wonderful clip of Witt and Berg, a guitar/ukulele duo from the 1920s, playing in a Vitaphone short. In an extra cool addition, he also found a documentary about early sound movies that includes a segment filmed in 1926 at the Vitaphone studios that shows the company filming the Witt and Berg segment. It worth heading over to Ukulelia to read his full post, which includes a link to the documentary and some speculation from me about the instruments Witt and Berg are playing.-MJS

Add comment January 8th, 2008

S.S. Stewart’s Banjo and Guitar Journal treasure trove

FJ contributor Andy Volk alerted us to this great online find: “The University of Rochester has digitized and posted online its archive of public domain scores and music ephemera. Included are copies of the amazing S.S. Stewart’s Banjo and Guitar Journal from the 1890’s.”
Andy describes the rag as “The Fretboard Journal of a century ago” (which we’ll take as a compliment). For those who don’t know about the Banjo and Guitar Journal (original copies sometimes show up on eBay), the mag was published by the S.S. Stewart company, ostensibly to promote their instruments and network of dealers. But the writing is filled with fascinating (and sometimes just plain bizarre) commentary on the then-current state of music (when banjos and mandolins were more popular than guitars): how lazy music students can be, random notes about instructors who have moved or plan to sometime and now quaint editorials about gear and live performance trends. There’s also sheet music in each issue. At the risk of getting even more obscure in this posting, if any of you are fans of illustrator Chris Ware (and especially his self-published Ragtime Ephemeralist magazine), when you download these files, you’ll see the huge influence that magazines such as this have on his artwork. -JV

Add comment November 15th, 2007

“It’s Turned Out Nice Again!”

Wiganworld.co.uk, which describes itself as the “Wigan Site for Wiganers,” has is a nice batch of photos of the unveiling of the long-awaited George Formby statue, Wigan’s favorite son. Or should that be “favourite son?” Anyway, Formby was a huge movie and recording star in England in the 1930s and 1940s who played the banjo-uke and regular ukulele and sang slightly naughty songs that got him banned by the BBC. Here’s a link to clip of Formby playing one of his most famous songs, “When I’m Cleaning Windows.” Formby used a complicated rhythm pattern that’s come to be called the Split Stroke that’s baffled players for years. (Check out the instrumental break in this clip to hear a good example of it.) Here’s a link to Matthew J. Richards explaining how to play it.-MJS

1 comment September 18th, 2007

Bad Girl

So, I don’t remember where I found this image but I sent it to Gary over at Ukulelia for obvious reasons. He mentioned it on the blog and his readers turned up quite a bit of info about it. Like, for example, Bad Girl won two Academy Awards in 1931. Head on over to Ukulelia.com see what else they found out.-MJS

Add comment August 16th, 2007

In Search of the Wily Taro-Patch Fiddle

A friend of mine was going through his old records and he found this sleeve from an old Edison record that has a brief description of Hawaiian music. It’s actually a pretty accurate and only slightly romanticized history but what caught my eye was the mention of an instrument called the taro-patch fiddle. (Click on the image to enlarge.) From the way the word is used it’s obvious the instrument is not a ukulele and since the sleeve was printed around 1915 it predates the introduction of the 8-stringed ukulele that Martin introduced around 1918 and called the taropatch. This article by Dan Scanlan suggests the taro-patch fiddle was a variation of the rajão, a five-string relative of the braguinha with a larger body. I’ve seen old, pre-1900 photos with musicians holding what look to be five-string ukes, so maybe those are taro-patch fiddles. In this short article by John King, though, he suggests that there were a number of instruments called taro-patch fiddles but he doesn’t describe them. So, what the heck was it?-MJS

1 comment August 1st, 2007

UNICEF-Supporting Ukulele

A portion of the proceeds from the sales of these world-themed Flea ukuleles will go to UNICEF, which means that Jim Beloff, the guy who makes them, is really starting to live his company’s slogan,”Uke can change the world.”-MJS

Add comment July 2nd, 2007

Harp Ukuleles

Before Jason and I started the Fretboard Journal, we published two issues of a magazine called the Ukulele Occasional. In issue 2 we published an article by Gregg Miner about about the harp ukulele. I’m very pleased to see that Gregg has posted the article online and, as an added bonus, he’s added more info and more pictures than the print version. Is this Internet thing cool, or what?-MJS

Add comment June 28th, 2007

Mr. Wizard, Uke Dude

According to this obituary of the science popularizer Mr. Wizard, he was an accomplished uke player. I wonder if there is any video of him playing?-MJS

1 comment June 15th, 2007

The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi

I’ve had this banjo-uke for years. (Click on the photo to enlarge the image.) It’s not a particularly good instrument, but I’ve always liked the drawing on the head, which is a nice 1920s cartoon of a little guy worshiping the giant head of the Sweetheart of Sigma Chi, who was apparently some form of flapper Zardoz. Anyway, I turned it up in a closet the other day and it inspired me to do bit of online research about the song and I found this nice site devoted to it.-MJS

Add comment June 9th, 2007