À venda Ukulele Concert Koa

Excelente instrumento, todo em Koa maciço. Braço em mogno. Escala em ébano. Marchetaria tradicional. Uma unidade apenas. Preço excelente. Contato pelo email ukulelebrasil@gmail.com

Ukulele duo " The Nightingale"

Excelente duo para dois ukes, com arranjo de Herman Vandecauter, executado por ele mesmo e sua aluna Paulien. Ukes usados: Honu soprano e um tenor Kiwaya.

Grandes artistas do ukulele: Amanda Palmer

Com um uke de 20 dolares e muito talento Amanda Palmer emociona. Quer saber um pouco mais sobre Amanda? Aqui você encontra um ótima matéria em português sobre ela.

Ouça mais Amanda Palmer no player abaixo.

Via Humble Uker

Sophie Madeleine - Little One

Little One - Sophie Madeleine (tWhp BUZZsession) from the WILD honey pie on Vimeo.

Vídeo da nova canção da Miss Sophie Madeleine.

À venda

Ukulele concert Mahalo U320C, oportunidade única com preço excelente. Mais informações pelo email ukulelebrasil@gmail.com
Update: vendido!

Guitarras Custom Shop Marricchi

Nosso amigo Marricchi, disponibilizou duas obras de arte para venda.  Uma réplica da famosa SG e uma da Strato. Instrumentos custom shop com as melhores captações e hardwares. Valem muito à pena. Para quem não conhece, o Marricchi é um dos melhores e mais antigos construtores de guitarra do Brasil, seus instrumentos são impecáveis.  Agora se você quer algo feito sob medida fale com ele, com certeza seu sonho de ter aquela guitarra especial, ou uma réplica da Rickenbacker, será realizado. Maiores informações pelo email mevema@gmail.com ou marricchiluthier@gmail.com.

Curso Luthieria: Ukulele

Após muitos pedidos resolvi por em prática um projeto que já estava a algum tempo na gaveta, o curso de construção de ukulele. O curso aborda especificamente a construção do uke, mas as técnicas poderão ser aplicadas em outros instrumentos de corda, como viola, violão e cavaquinho. O curso é totalmente hands-on e não é necessário ter experiência.

Maiores informações pelo email mevema@gmail.com ou ukulelebrasil@gmail.com.

Cordas Koolau Alohi



Alohi é a palavra havaiana para brilhante.  As cordas Koolau Alohi, são feitas de um monofilamento mais denso de nylon de cor levemente púrpura.  Muito brilho e uma grande projeção. Embalagem reciclada feita de fibra banana. Apenas algumas unidades para concert e soprano. Mais informções pelo email ukulelebrasil@gmail.com

Grandes artistas do ukulele: Les Poupées Gonflées

Les Poupées Gonflées é um trio feminino francês que faz um som muito legal. Formado pelas belas,  Bebop, Titi e Valéri, "As Bonecas Impertinentes" são três meninas, três vozes e três temperamentos. Eles tocam com uma cumplicidade comunicativa e alegre na criação de um novo mundo sonoro, colorido e divertido, onde a  harmonia vocal tem o centro das atenções . As vozes são os instrumentos, as meninas são artistas, a animação faz o resto!

Senhorinha

Que combinação. O clássico Senhorinha do Guinga nas vozes de violão e ukulele. Simplesmente maravilhoso.

Sophie Madeleine - Zorbing

Acabou de sair do forno, nova gravação de Sophie Madeleine, Zorbing.

Grover Ukulele Friction Pegs

Olá pessoal, recebemos tarraxas para uke Grover Sta-Tite Champion 2B. Interessados entrem em contato pelo email ukulelebrasil@gmail.com.

Ukulele Play-Along com Aldrine Guerrero

Aprenda a tocar a música The Man Who Can't Be Moved com a ajuda de Aldrine Guerrero.

A arte da dança Hula

Este vídeo mostra muito bem a arte da dança Hula havaiana. Ao som da tradicional música Pua Lililehua na voz de Uluwehi Guerrero as dançarinas da Halau Hula Kauluokala demostram toda a sua arte. Emocionante.

Rosie and Me

A banda Rosie and Me, faz um som folk de qualidade com letras em inglês. Nascida em 2006 em Curitiba, Paraná (minha cidade natal), eles lançaram em março seu primeiro EP "Bird and Whale". Ouça o som da banda, se gostar, faça como eu,  vote para que eles toquem no SXSW de 2011, para isso basta clicar aqui, depois é só dar RT no twitter ou facebook e receba um link exclusivo para baixar as músicas do EP.

Lady in Red

Uma das minhas músicas preferidas. Tocada em um uke Kamoa.

Palheta Surf Raider III

Uma nova palheta com detalhes incríveis. Edição Limitada, apenas 30 unidades.

Composta das seguintes madeiras: Brazilian Walnut, Cedro, Rosewood e Jatobá.

Interessados entrem em contato pelo email ukulelebrasil@gmail.com

Jake Shimabukuro - Hula Girls

Via Koyamauke

Palheta Surf Raider II

Conforme prometido, ai estão as palhetas Surf Raider, agora em madeira clara.

Dúvidas, pedidos e sugestões pelo email ukulelebrasil@gmail.com

Beirut em Paris

“Encontrar um lugar, em Paris, para fazer o “take away show #64”, produzido por Vicent Moon. Ao ensaio de uns acordes, à cata de “un bar sympa” que aceitasse ser palco, Zach Condon (Beirut) desfila seu francês com intimidade. A atmosfera cresce envolvente, até ficar tudo escuro. Então surge Zach, novamente, com seu Uke. Será um Bushman? O link aqui pode ajudar. Entre com ele naquele simpatisíssimo bistro, à Rue Jacquard, e tente não querer ter tido a sorte de estar ali, com aquelas luzes todas, de um dia qualquer, em meio aos talentosos músicos dessa grande banda, Beirut.”

Pelo Colaborador Alexandre Ferreira Lopes

O nascimento de um Ukulele

Excelente vídeo feito pelo luthier James Curtis.

Via Humble Uker

Bill Tapia, 102 Anos e ainda tocando o ukulele

Em 2007, Alyssa Archambault produziu um show para comemorar os 100 anos de Bill Tapia. Na ocasião o show foi gravado, mas por questões financeiras ele nunca foi finalizado. Agora, depois de 3 anos, ela resolveu fazer uma  campanha para angariar fundos para este projeto.  Veja mais detalhes aqui.

O Gordo, o Magro e o Ukulele

Muito bom.

Palheta Surf Raider

Palheta especial feita em madeira tricomposta (Cedro Vermelho, Rosewood e Maple).

Lembrando as pranchas de surf long board havaianas.

Edição Limitada.

Update: Pessoal, esgotado. Aguardem um novo lote.

Interessados, contato pelo email ukulelebrasil@gmail.com

À venda

Ukulele concert, custom shop Martinez hand made. Único no Brasil. Tampo em abeto top, fundo e faixas de curly maple, braço em mogno e escala em rosewood. Um excelente instrumento, realmente profissional, acompanha hard case luxo. Aos que tiverem interesse, contato pelo email ukulelebrasil@gmail.com
Update: vendido.

Global Music Video Sophie Madeleine

Postei, acho que uns dois meses atrás, sobre um concurso que a Sophie Madeleine fez, ela incentivava seus fãs a envierem vídeos tocando e cantando a música You are my favorite.  Pois ai está o resultado, o clipe oficial da música, rola até uma bandeira do Brasil.

Uke em destaque na Revista Reminisce

A revista Reminisce destaca em suas páginas os anos dourados da América, por coincidência os mesmos do nosso querido pequenino havaiano, que é capa da edição de Junho/Julho.

Via Humble Uker

10000 Visitas!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Quanto criei o blog em outubro do ano passado, não achei que chegaria em dez mil visitas tão rápido. Meus sinceros agradecimentos a todos que estão prestigiando este trabalho. A imagem acima, mostra a posição do nosso blog no ranking dos top 100 ukulele sites.

Sophie Madeleine & Hannah Rei ao vivo na Itália

São pouquíssimos os registros de apresentações ao vivo da Sophie Madeleine. Aqui uma muito especial,  junto com Hannah Rei no Spazio Gloria  na Itália. Curtam.

Ukulele Gianinni

Muitos não sabem, mas a nossa querida Gianinni já fabricou ukuleles na década de 50/60. Encontrei essa imagem em um catálogo antigo deles, o que mais me espantou na descrição foi, "com cordas de aço".

Grandes Artistas do Ukulele: Tiny Tim

Nascido Herbert B. Khaury,  em 12 de abril de 1932, Tiny Tim foi um grande artista americano, tocava muito bem o ukulele. Famoso pela sua canção "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" e pelo seu falsete,  em seu auge na década de 60, chegou a ter um salário semanal de US$50000 se apresentando em Las Vegas.  Faleceu em 30 de novembro de 1996 de um ataque do coração no backstage de  um show beneficente onde iria se apresentar.

Justin James - Perfect Sometimes

Justin James é um ex-surfista que quase morreu após um ataque de tubarão. Durante a sua recuperação que durou um ano, ganhou um violão de presente de sua avó, apesar de não ter gostado muito do presente, começou a compor e não parou mais. A música do vídeo faz parte do seu mais recente album Perfect Sometimes, com a participação  mais que especial de Jake Shimabukuro.

Palhetas Wedgie

Olá pessoal, recebemos algumas palhetas da Wedgie de Santoprene (borracha), 3,1mm Hard, Medium e Soft. Interessados contate-nos no email ukulelebrasil@gmail.com

Cordas Ko´olau Gold

Recebemos cordas Ko´olau e Hilo com excelente preço.
Ko´olau Concert High G
Ko´olau Tenor High G
Ko´olau Tenor Low G
Hilo Baritone GCEA


Maiores informações pelo email ukulelebrasil@gmail.com

Ukuleles Fender, agora com cordas Aquila

Pois é, até a Fender se rendeu a qualidade das cordas Aquila.

Agora todos os modelos de Ukuleles da Fender vem de fábrica com as cordas Aquila.

Grandes Artistas do Ukulele: Roy Smeck

Roy Smeck, nascido Leroy Smeck em 6 de fevereiro de 1900 e falecido em 5 de abril de 1994. Foi um grande músico americano. Muito abilidoso em vários instrumentos, como banjo, guitarra, steel guitar e especialmente  o ukulele. Também conhecido como o Mago das cordas. Neste vídeo, super interessante, Roy aplica várias técnicas, inclusive o tapping, uma das técnicas preferidas de Eddie Van Halen.

Artistas brasileiros que tocam ukulele: Mallu Magalhães

Eu confesso que gostava mais dela quando ainda era uma desconhecida do grande público. Mas como tudo na vida muda, ela também teve sua mudança. Para os que ainda gostam, apreciem.

Grande Cover: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Excelente cover da música Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, pela banda The Covers.




Via Humble Uker

Entrevista Ukulele Brasil na Band News FM

Olá pessoal, foi ao ar dia 17/04 uma entrevista que dei para o programa É Brasil que não acaba mais da Band News FM. O programa é conduzido pelos jornalistas Marcelo Duarte e Luiz Megale. Com uma hora de duração, o programa tem reportagens com personagens, histórias, valores, culturas e sotaques de todo o país e vai ao ar todo sábado às 13:00 com reprise aos domingos às 7:00 e pode ser ouvido nas seguintes cidades São Paulo, Campinas, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Brasilia, Salvador e Curitiba e também ao vivo pelo site  http://bandnewsfm.band.com.br/.

Abaixo o trecho do programa onde está a entrevista, quem quiser ouvir o programa na íntegra e só clicar aqui. É o programa com a data do dia 19/04.

Revista Ukulele Brasil

Olá pessoal, aí está a surpresa que eu estava guardando para vocês. Espero que gostem. Comentem, deêm sugestões, afinal o ukulele é nosso. Colaboradores serão benvindos. Quem quiser baixar o arquivo em PDF é só clicar aqui.
Quem quiser ler online é só entrar no Issuu.

Ukulele Underground - Uke Minutes

Aldrine Guerrero do site Ukulele Underground apresenta uma micro série chamada Uke Minutes. Nela, Aldrine ensina muitas técnicas que farão você evoluir na arte de tocar ukulele. Abaixo algumas das técnicas. A série já tem 83 episódios.

TWO-STRING PULL-OFFS

STRUM PICKING

SCALE EXERCISE I

SCALE EXERCISE II

HOW TO READ TABS

HARMONY THIRDS

BASIC TAB NOTATION

C-STRING BASS TECHNIQUE

3-FINGER CHUNK

ONE-HANDED HARMONICS

ARTIFICIAL HARMONICS

FIRST BEAT C-STRING

MUTED OCTAVE STRUM

SUSPENDED CHORDS



via Humble Uker

Magic Fluke: visitando a fábrica

O Fluke é um ukulele feito de uma maneira bem inusitada, seu fundo é de fibra de vidro feito por um processo de injeção a partir de um molde, sua escala é de policarbonato, mas tem um som muito legal. Em dez anos já vendeu mais de 35.000 unidades. Neste vídeo vocês poderão ver como ele é fabricado.

Palestra do Jake Shimabukuro para o Google

Palestra realizada no dia 22 de março de 2010 para o Musicians@Google. Ele fala muita coisa sobre o ukulele e suas técnicas. Imperdível.



Dica do Guilherme.

Palhetas de madeira

Uma boa alternativa as palhetas de plástico são as palhetas feitas de madeira. Estamos disponibilizando palhetas feitas de madeiras nobres, elas evitam aquele plec plec do plástico e não deixam um timbre tão abafado quanto o feltro, quem tiver interesse é só nos contatar através do email ukulelebrasil@gmail.com.

Pela ordem, da esquerda para a direita: Em cima: Jacarandá, Pau Ferro, Jacarandá, Ébano. No meio: Jacarandá, Jatobá, Maple, Mogno e embaixo, Freijó, Louro Faia e Grevilha.

Artistas brasileiros que tocam ukulele: Tuco Marcondes

Tuco Marcondes é músico, cantor, compositor, arranjador e produtor. Já tocou e gravou com muitos astros da música brasileira, entre eles Zeca Baleiro, Zelia Duncan, Edson cordeiro, Fagner, Elba Ramalho, Ana Carolina, Sandy & Jr, Paulo Ricardo, Belchior, Cássia Eller, Zé Geraldo, Simoninha, Pelé, Karnak, Veronica Sabino e muitos outros. Neste vídeo feito pela trama para o quadro Meu Instrumento do programa Radiola, exibido pela Cultura, ele mostra os detalhes do ukulele.

Artistas brasileiros que tocam ukulele: Gabriel Guerra

Gabriel Guerra é cantor, compositor e instrumentista,  mineiro de Poços de Caldas, seu som nos remete a MPB. Foi contratado recentemente pela Som Livre. Abaixo um vídeo de seu show em novembro de 2009 em Poços de Caldas.

We are the Uke

Veja o que um ukulele e vários malucos é capaz de fazer.

Cordas Hilo

Recebemos algumas unidades das cordas Hilo.

Soprano High Tension
Tenor Low G
Baritone GCEA

Update: Agradeço a todos que depositaram sua confiança no nosso trabalho, as cordas Hilo acabaram muito rápido, irei trazer mais, mas ainda tenho Aquila Soprano e Tenor.

Maiores informações no email ukulelebrasil@gmail.com

Quebraram meu ukulele :(

To Uke: Músicas brasileiras com acordes para ukulele!

Grande ídeia do nosso amigo Thiago Colares. Sabia mais sobre o To Uke pelo próprio Thiago:

"O objetivo do To Uke é traduzir para ukulele qualquer música cifrada. A idéia surgiu da falta que eu sentia de sites com músicas nacionais cifradas para ukulele. Eu encontro muito site estrangeiros com diagramas de acordes (por vezes limitado), músicas e músicas cifradas, mas pouquíssima coisa para música brasileira. Como eu não pretendia fazer um outro Cifraclub ou um outro Cifras, eu resolvi aproveitar o conteúdo que já existe na internet. O desenvolvimento ainda está no começo, mas já é possível utilizar o site. Já existem muitas idéias que estão sendo desenvolvidas aos poucos e lançarei versões periódicamente. Muitas pessoas já estão testando, e o que é melhor, comentando, dando idéias etc. Algumas já se disponibilizaram até para colaborar no desenvolvimento. Sem dúvida, todas essas participações é que farão o site uma ferramenta muito legal!"

Quem é o Thiago Colares?

"Sou amante de música e instrumentos musicais, formado em Ciência da Computação e um dos fundadores da Apimenti, uma recém-formada empresa que tecnologia que desenvolve coisas para internet. Estamos envolvidos em diversos projetos com clientes de Salvador, mas paralelamente temos cedido pedaços de tempo para que nossos colaboradores desenvolvam seus projetos, foi assim que o To Uke teve espaço. Sou um curioso e estudante de música, o que me ajudou bastante no desenvolvimento do To Uke, e também tenho uma banda de rock chamada Elipê."

Braguinha o pai do Ukulele

Conhecido como Braguinha da Madeira ou Machete, este instrumento português é o pai do Ukulele.

Cousin Alice no Brasil

 

A cantora e compositora Cousin Alice esteve recentemente no Brasil para remixar e gravar o clipe do seu mais recente trabalho,  "Swinging on Rainbows".  Abaixo uma breve biografia da cantora.

"Cantora e compositora inglesa, Cousin Alice é um autêntico expoente do espírito do jazz e do blues. Sua voz grave e refinada é capaz de transportar o público para uma atmosfera repleta de frases melódicas, tornando sua interpretação algo de único. Suas músicas originas bem como os arranjos para jazz standards, blues e pop, sem dúvida compõem um sofisticado e sensual repertório. Uma verdadeira reunião entre técnica e insight, com toques de swing e reggae. Entusiasticamente recebida pelo público da Nova Zelândia, do Caribe (sua terra ancestral) e de Londres, foi residente do Soho's Cafe Boheme e fez vários shows no famoso Café de Paris, Pizza on the Park, The Connaught Rooms, The Savoy, The Black Cotton Club and The Volupte Lounge , além de tournés pela Alemanha, França, Barbados e Australia. Transitando entre o clássico e o novo, Smokey voiced Alice e seu antigo banjo ukulele sem dúvida constroem um repertório original e contemporâneo. No início deste ano, acompanhada pelo virtuoso guitarrista multi-instrumentista Martin Wheatley e pelo baixista Jonny Gee, ela surpreendeu um dos mais experiente engenheiros de som de Londres, gravando não menos que vinte músicas ao vivo em um dia. A compilação inclui, além de seus arranjos para You're just too good to be true e I can’t help falling in love with you, suas próprias composições."
O clipe foi produzido pela Sinapse Comunicações.

Assita o vídeo com o making off de sua visita ao Brasil.



E o vídeo com o ukulele em ação.

Mallu Magalhães inicia turnê do segundo CD

Depois de cair nas graças dos fãs e da crítica, Mallu Magalhães prepara o show de lançamento do segundo cd homônimo. Do novo álbum a cantora optou por um misto entre as canções calmas e as mais agitadas. My Home Is My Man, O Herói e o Marginal, e é claro, Shine Yellow, faixa que inspirou o primeiro videoclipe do disco, farão parte do setlist. Do primeiro CD Mallu herdará para a estréia hits como Tchubaruba e Vanguart. As participações especiais ficam por conta do cantor Marcelo Camelo, que promete aparição em música surpresa, e da banda Jennifer Lo-Fi, que, assim como Camelo, participou da gravação do cd. O quarteto de cordas acompanhará a música É Você Que Tem. Uma novidade da turnê é que a jovem cantora será responsável pelos figurinos da banda, que é formada por Kadu Abecassis (guitarra) Jorge Moreira (bateria), Thiago Consorti (baixo) e Andre Lima (teclado). A Direção Geral é de Rafael Rossatto, cenografia de Fabio Delduque e produção da Agência de Música.

Dia: 19 de Março de 2010

Horários: Sexta, 21h
Duração: 90 min (aproximadamente)
Ingressos: R$ 30,00 e R$ 15,00 (meia-entrada)
Gênero: MPB
Classificação Indicativa: Livre para todos os públicos
Reservas


Via Auditorio Ibirapuera

Vídeo Aula com Sophie Madeleine

Aprenda a tocar a canção "You Are My Favourite" com Sophie Madeleine. Essa aula particular pode te levar a estrelar o próximo clipe de Sophie, saiba as regras baixando este arquivo, que contém a cifra e o backing track da canção. Update: o deadline para o envio dos vídeos foi alterado para 21/03/2010.

Buster Keaton e o Ukulele

O video abaixo faz  parte do filme "Pest from the West", de 1939.  Foi produzido por Jules White, o homem por trás dos Três Patetas. Buster Keaton tenta fazer uma serenata para uma jovem senhorita,  mas descobre que os problemas que ele arruma são maiores do que ele imaginava. Boas risadas estão garantidas.

Ukulele por uma causa nobre

A nóticia não chega a ser novidade, mas a história de Killian Mansfield me tocou profundamente. Killian sofria de um tipo raro de câncer e gravou um álbum com grandes artistas tocando ukulele. Killian lutou contra o câncer até o fim, mas infelizmente não resistiu ao tratamento e deixou este mundo no dia 20 de Agosto de 2009, toda a renda da venda do disco vai para a Fundação que leva o seu nome e que ajuda crianças com câncer e outros graves problemas de saúde. 

Ouças as músicas.

Leia a história por trás das gravações.

Cordas Aquila

Pessoal, restam poucas peças. Ainda temos cordas Aquila: Soprano, Concert e Tenor, todas High G, melhor preço do Brasil, mais informações pelo nosso email ukulelebrasil@gmail.com, em abril estamos recebendo cordas Hilo HighTension, Tenor Low G e Baritono para afinação GCEA.

Ukulele Pineapple

Os filhos de Sam Kamaka

com o Pineapple número 1,

durante a Expo Ukulele 2000

Você sabia que o modelo de Ukulele Pineapple foi inventado por Samuel Kamaka, e que teve sua patente registrada em 1927? Este modelo foi fabricado exclusivamente por Kamaka até 1942 quando a patente expirou e então outros fabricante passaram a produzir. Samuel Kamaka foi aprendiz de Leonardo Nunes, filho de Manuel Nunes, um dos responsáveis pela introdução do ukulele juntamente com José do Espírito Santo e Augusto Dias,  fundou sua própria empresa em 1916 e é o único fabricante havaiano a se estabelecer antes da década de 30 que ainda está em atividade.

Brittni Paiva, jovem promessa do Ukulele

Brittni Paiva é uma jovem de apenas 21 anos. Natural de Hilo no Havai, ela é uma jovem promessa da música instrumental havaiana. Apesar da pouca idade, ela já tem 5 anos de carreira, 4 discos gravados e muitos prêmios do Hawaii Music Awards. Curtam um pouco de seu mais recente trabalho.

FOUR STRINGS: THE FIRE WITHIN (fragmentos de 60 segundos)

1. Tamacun
2. Cruisin' on 7
3. Sunday Morning
4. Acelerou
5. Hour of the Lamps
6. Somewhere Over the Rainbow
7. Made for Me
8. Europa
9. Fusion: West
10. Fusion: East

Entrevista exclusiva Megan Lynch (2)

Leia a versão original em inglês.

UKEB –Tell us a bit about you.


I'm the eldest child in a large family. I was always very creative but it wasn't encouraged much - my parents wanted me to do more practical things that they saw as being more secure ways of making a living. My mother is a very good singer and I grew up listening to her and learned harmony from her. My mother also plays piano and we kids were forced to take lessons. I think if I'd had a teacher who could have introduced me to boogie-woogie, ragtime, and stride that I would have been very interested in my lessons. I wasn't that lucky, though. I really didn't like lessons. I learned the rudiments of notation but I find it pretty hard to read musical notes. So I learned the pieces by ear and pretended to read the notes.

I did much better with guitar. I took guitar lessons alongside my brother while I was in high school. Our teacher would let us bring in punk, rock and rockabilly songs we liked and he would learn them and then teach them to us. My younger brother pretty quickly started his own band but I never could get my friends interested in putting a band together. I've remained a solo artist just because I've never been able to find people who want to form a band. I started writing my own songs in college.

I didn't start performing publicly until I moved from Los Angeles (where I was raised) to San Francisco. A friend performed in an open mike and after I saw that I decided to try it, too. I was about 20 or 21 then when I first performed in public as a singer and guitarist/ukeist. (I'm 44 now.)


UKEB –What was your first contact with ukulele and what kind of instruments you play?


The big music for me in my teens was punk and post-punk. There's a lot of attitude that goes with that - seeking things that are "uncool" and grabbing onto them for irony or to be provocative. While in retrospect it's a pretty childish and superficial thing to do, it actually did me a big favor by introducing me to things that I eventually became GENUINELY interested in. In the early '80s, the ukulele was still associated with corny images of the 1920s college freshman and Tiny Tim. It was very out of style. Which made it perfect for punks to pick up. So I bought a cheap (and cheaply made) ukulele from the local music store in 1986 or so and started teaching myself how to play with the help of a Mel Bay chord book. I had never held one in my hands before buying one. I didn't have a relative who owned one or anything so I'd never seen one in person before. I was a fan of Carmaig de Forest but I think I bought my first uke before I actually became aware of Carmaig's work. I heard Cliff Edwards' version of "Singin' in the Rain" from Hollywood Revue of 1929 when I was in college and was blown away by it. I didn't get any more leads on him for a couple years until I found a record store that carried some reissue albums of his stuff. I bought as many as I could afford. At the same time, I heard about the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain via Folk Roots Magazine and picked up one of their albums. Just as had happened with the accordion, the ukulele was being rediscovered and brought back to the limelight by a number of creative artists. Now ukulele is incredibly huge. I'm blown away with how many players there are playing in a number of different styles and really expanding the idea of what one can do with an ukulele.

I was always a strummer, not a picker. No matter how many hours I practiced a week, I couldn't manage to pick cleanly on the guitar or any stringed instrument. I could just barely pick an alternating country bassline strum on the guitar. So when I first got Repetitive Strain Injury in 1995 and finally had to give up playing instruments for the most part by 2000, it was no great loss to the music world. I was a pretty decent rhythm player in a punk kind of way, but my playing was always mainly to accompany my voice. I taught myself to play a little bit on other instruments, too. I have a huge basket of novelty instruments that I used on various 4-track recordings: practice bagpipe chanter, nose whistle, musical saw, wooden toy xylophone...things like that. The main instruments I used when I started performing out were guitar, ukulele and a tenor banjo.

Because it is very physically painful for me to play ukulele (or many other instruments) now, I am not playing ukulele on my album. Robert Armstrong played uke on "The Gold Diggers Song (We're in the Money)" and Steven Strauss plays uke on "I Love to Sing" and "Someone's Rocking My Dreamboat". Steven is a musician who is well-known in the SF Bay Area for his skill and taste. He has played with a LOT of bands, including Penelope Houston's band. He also performs solo and has put out a whole album of ukulele called "UKEBOX". When I first met him, he was mostly playing upright bass. He still does, but a number of years ago he started performing on uke as well. I brought him in to do ukulele on "Someone's Rocking My Dreamboat" because Mike Da Silva, who recorded & mixed the album at his ukulele workshop/studio, suggested that we need something more going on in the treble part of the spectrum. Robert could have played uke on that but he lives 60 miles north of Berkeley and we had already finished his scheduled recording sessions. I didn't want to put him to the trouble of traveling so far again. Steven is so great that without having had a long time to learn the song, he just went in and recorded it in a couple takes. Later, while putting together "I Love to Sing", I felt it needed bass. Tony Marcus, the guitar player, can really swing a tune but he didn't have much to play off of. I was doing the album on a real shoestring budget so I couldn't afford to pay for anywhere near the amount of musicians and sessions that I would have liked. So we were thinking it was going to be just guitar and voice until I heard how much the song seemed to need more. I decided I had to scrape up some more money somehow and get some more instrumentation going. So I called Steven in again. Steven not only laid down a rockin' bassline, he offered to perform uke as well. And the song really took off! It went from a song I felt was not achieving its potential to something that made me really happy and made me want to dance.


UKEB – About your albun Songs the brothers Warner taught me, where you did this Idea?

Because I am disabled and can no longer play my own instruments, I have to hire musicians every time I want to play and I usually can't afford to do that. So I don't perform live that often. Which means the audience I built up when I was a solo performer slowly forgot about me. It also means that performances since becoming disabled have featured none of my original material - I had to stick with jazz standards that the musicians would know already or could read off chord charts.


This is my first album and I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to afford to do more than one in my life so I had a hard choice to make: Do I do an album of my original songs even though the people who've seen me for the last 15 years have never heard them? Or do I do something closer to what they've come to associate me with? If the latter, how do I approach the album so that I'm not labeled as just another female jazz singer? I'm a big fan of songs that are obscure but good. I like bringing things to people's attention. But obscure songs aren't going to make anyone pick up an album unless you've already got a name. I also like albums that have a strong link between the songs, that have a reason for being together. Either a theme or telling a story or a concept.

No matter how much I like my original songs and want to record them in a studio and get them out there, I decided that I would more likely be able to get people to listen by doing something closer to they style I've had to pursue since being limited to hiring an accompanist. It would be better to do an album of jazz standards. And it was important to pick a strong theme. I had a couple ideas but once I struck on the idea of doing songs heard in Warner Brothers cartoons, I felt I had something I could get excited about and that other people could also relate to. I had always done a couple cartoon theme songs as part of my solo act. Warner Brothers cartoons were a huge part of my childhood (not just childhood) and are important to a lot of other people as well. And music was enormously important to WB cartoons. The cartoons were originally created at least partially with the idea of selling sheet music that Warner Brothers owned the publishing rights to. They wanted audiences to go out of the theater singing the song and wanting to buy the sheet music. Hence in addition to the song being featured in a Warner Brothers film, it would be featured in a Looney Toon or Merrie Melodie. For instance, "I Love to Sing" was introduced in the Al Jolson picture "The Singing Kid" but it was also in the Tex Avery Merrie Melodie "I Love to Singa" where it was sung by a character called Owl Jolson.


I knew that, like me, a lot of people would have nostalgia for the cartoons and their music. With the exception of the very earliest Looney Toons and Merrie Melodies, the cartoons did not usually feature the entire song. The cartoons we know best today, the ones featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy, Porky and other major characters, only have short snippets of the songs, often not sung but played by the orchestra as part of the Carl Stalling* soundtrack to the cartoon. So many people don't know more than about 10 seconds of these tunes. I hoped that people would be as interested as I was in learning how the entire song went.

When selecting which songs to include on the album, I looked around at what was already out there. I didn't want to perform only obscure songs but I also didn't want to perform songs that had been done many times before. So, for example, though I love "As Time Goes By" and it's a song that was used in Looney Tunes, I chose not to perform it on this album. The only song on the album that I did despite the fact that there are many versions of it is "Blues in the Night". I just love the song too much and it had already been part of my repertoire for years. I tried to balance slow songs and fast songs. There were songs like "A Cup of Coffee, A Sandwich & You" that I enjoy but that are very shallow in lyrical content. I opted not to do them even though I like them. Other tunes like "Return My Love" from "What's Opera, Doc?" I didn't do because I would have had a hard time teaching them to the musicians and because they would have been difficult to license (the tune is Wagner but the lyrics were probably written by Michael Maltese, a writer who worked on the cartoons).

UKEB – And how was the process to music´s choices?

I guess I'll address instrumentation a bit. As I said, money was definitely a limiting factor for me as always. Ideally I would have liked to have hired 4 or 5 musicians and paid them for rehearsals together and then record the album when we had coalesced as a unit. It was financially impossible to do that. I approached Tony Marcus first, then Robert Armstrong. Tony & Robert are both members of The Cheap Suit Serenaders and have played gigs with each other for 30 years now. Not only do I like their work, I hoped that they were used enough to working with each other that they'd fall into a groove pretty quickly. I also very much wanted to work with them personally because they are two of the nicest guys in the world. Both are multi-instrumentalists so I would get a lot of bang for my buck by hiring them. Tony plays guitar, mandolin and fiddle. Robert plays guitar, Hawaiian guitar, ukulele, banjo and musical saw. Mike Da Silva very generously offered to record and mix the album. Tony did the initial recordings at his studio and then we continued at Mike's.

Initially I was doing the album just with Tony and Robert. But when we got further along and figured that we wanted to go back and add ukulele in on some other songs, I didn't want to bother Robert by hauling him all the way back to Berkeley (he lives about 60 miles north of Berkeley) just to record a small part. That's when I asked Steven Strauss if he'd be willing to play. I had already called in Brandon Essex earlier to lay down some bass on "The Lady in Red" because we really felt the track needed the bass end. That will show you how loose the process of doing the album was. If I had had it all planned out, I would have called Steven in because he can do both bass and ukulele but I wasn't thinking about those tracks at that point. Brandon came in and did a very pro job on the bass. He was excellent. Very little time learning it and boom - just did it. It's interesting to compare the different work by the two different bassists.

There were a couple tunes where I knew ahead of time what I wanted the instrumentation to be. "The Lady in Red" was like that. I wasn't always able to achieve what I wanted to, but I knew the sound I wanted to try for so I wanted fiddle, accordion and a lead guitar on that song. But there were other songs where the instrumentation wasn't as clearly worked out in my mind. Everything on the album started out as just rhythm guitar and voice. And I got used to hearing that for weeks. Sometimes you get so used to what you're hearing that you have trouble imagining what else you can do with it or it drives out the ideas you already had in your head before. Sometimes the musicians would make a suggestion about what instrument they thought would go well but most of the time I would look at what instruments they could play and choose what I thought would work best. Ukulele was used as a way to thicken the sound of the "band". I think part of that is because I myself was always a strummer with the ukulele. If I had been more of a picker, I might have conceived of ways to use the ukulele as a soloist in parts. However, the two ukulele players I had - Robert and Steven - are both very skilled players. And they each added some very nice picking even when the ukulele was playing as support to the Hawaiian guitar or rhythm guitar. There are some very pretty uke runs if you listen closely. We really tried to bring focus to the best runs while mixing the album.

And, just as an aside, we were completely surrounded by ukuleles while recording this album. Mike Da Silva is a very talented ukulele luthier. His workshop/studio is not only filled with the ukuleles he's making but with his own collection of vintage ukuleles. So we were surrounded by old Martins, Johnny Marvins, Roy Smecks, cheap plastic ukes from the '20s - '50s, and even gorgeous handmade instruments from the late 1800s.

UKEB – I like very much Warner´s cartoons, and listen this songs in your voice, brought me good memories. What is your feelings about this songs?

It's very nostalgic for me as well. Even when I was accompanying myself and performing solo, I always played a lot of songs from what is called the Golden Age of American Popular Song. That would be roughly from the '20s to the '50s. I didn't see "The Gold Diggers of 1933" until I was in my late 30s yet I knew the melody to "The Gold Diggers Song(We're in the Money)" when I was a little kid. There are just certain tunes that are burned into my brain because of how Carl Stalling chose to use them in Warner Brothers cartoons.

Some of the songs on the album are silly. They're not what you'd call "classics". "The Latin Quarter" is an example. That's what you'd call a novelty tune. But "Blues in the Night" is one of the greatest songs ever written, in my opinion. A true classic. And some of the songs on this album I will always hear in the cartoon character's voice. I always hear Bugs singing "Someone's Rocking My Dreamboat" and Michigan J. Frog singing "Hello Ma Baby".

Though these cartoons were actually made to be screened before a feature film and seen by adults, most of us saw them on TV as kids. For most of us, our childhood is something we reflect back on fondly. An uncomplicated time when we didn't have to worry about a job or bills or paying taxes. So the cartoons and the music associated with them have an ability to sweep our worries away and let us go back to just having fun for a little while. You will always have good feelings associated with these classic cartoons and the classic melodies that you learned from them.


UKEB – What you know about Brazil and brazilian music?

Around 1987 I got bored with what was happening in alternative rock and started discovering other genres, including world music. The UK's Folk Roots Magazine really helped me find new things. So I am a little familiar with tropicália, samba, boss nova, choró and forró in their modern forms. I've also heard Olodum and drum troupes like that although I don't know what that genre is called. Although I'm definitely not up-to-date with the Brazilian scene. I'd say that my knowledge of Brazilian music is stuck somewhere between the 1930s and the 1990s. Most of my knowledge comes from compilation albums so I've been a bit lazy about identifying individual artists whose albums I should buy. David Byrne has been very good about introducing the Anglophone world to various Brazilian artists via compilations on Luaka Bop and Rykodisc also put out some good compilations. What's kind of funny is that I have several siblings who were adopted from Brazil and I listen to more Brazilian music than they do! Brazil clearly has a very rich musical history. I don't speak Portuguese and my level of Spanish attainment only partially helps me understand the lyrics without translation, but the lyrics to Brazilian songs seem very poetic to me and I like that. Just listening to the voices even without understanding everything they are singing, the voices are very rich and expressive. Clearly I have a lot more to learn to even get to a basic understanding of Brazil's rich and diverse music history and scene!

This is going to sound cheezy, but I'm a HUGE fan of Carmen Miranda. I am really bummed that I didn't have enough money to both put out my album AND put together a live performance tribute to her for the centenary of her birth last year. This is another example, like ukulele, of something I pursued in a sort of punk way at first and then became interested in a totally unironic manner. It also relates to Warner Brothers cartoons because that's how I knew of Carmen long before I ever saw any of her film appearances or heard any of her songs. Instead I would see Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck in drag doing an imitation of Carmen. So I knew that sort of cartoon image of a Baiana long before I knew about Carmen and long before I ever knew what a Baiana is.

She has become sort of a punchline, which I think is really sad. Not because I don't like that sort of cartoon as a joke in Warner Brothers films but because I think she became a woman who wasn't fully appreciated by either Brazil or the US. She became an enormous star here and then became trapped in that stereotypical character, which was very limiting to her as an artist. And in Brazil I gather she was thought of as a sellout. This all ignores her talent. When I finally saw her in one of her American film appearances I could instantly see why she was so engaging that when they saw her on Broadway in "Streets of Paris" and "Sons o' Fun" and they immediately signed her to a Hollywood film contract. She was so full of life! Her eyes were like shimmering pools - they just invited you in. It's not that her voice was the greatest voice ever. It was fine. It was nice. But it was her ability as an interpreter and a performer, as well as her comedic timing, that made her a star in the US. I say "in the US" because even though I know she was a star in Brazil before she ever came here, I'm not qualified to judge how Brazilian audiences saw her and how she first came to prominence there. Anyway, I really love her music and it's also due to her band O Bando da Lua. They were great. I've only go a little bit of samba music from that era and would very much like to obtain more. I have one compilation of samba groups from the '40s called "Samba da Minha Terra" and it's great stuff.

I don't know exactly why but I tend to be old-fashioned in my tastes. That is, I like older jazz (pre-'50s), older Hawaiian music (pre-'50s), older calypso (pre-'60s) and the same thing goes for samba. I tend to like samba from Carmen's era more than later period samba. The older version of a genre is usually more exciting to me than the stuff that came later. It's more vital-sounding. That may be because there's less recording studio trickery involved. They really had to play well because they made the majority of their living off of live performance, not record sales. They had to be able to deliver live.

UKEB – Was you expect your albun had been a impact in a country that has no ukulele tradition?

I guess what I'd say is that I was surprised to find an ukulele-specific blog in Brazil. I'm not surprised there are uke players in Brazil because the instrument is popular in many countries because of its portability. I guess I'm curious as to how different the uke sounds from a cavaquinho, given that the instruments are related. I was definitely surprised that a blog in Brazil picked up on my album given that various things have gotten in the way of me really promoting the album [lack of $, lack of experience doing promo, slipped time schedule for writers and others I'm working with...]. I definitely thought the album would have appeal anywhere that Warner Brothers cartoons are known and loved, though.)

UKEB - Do you think the fact of playing ukulele in this albun can positively affect their performance in sales?

I don't think the album's sales will be negatively affected because it has ukulele on it. If anything, it's a positive. We do have a ukulele tradition in the US but it has never been a lead instrument of US music the way piano and guitar have been. It was a huge fad in the US in the '20s, brought in at a time when anything Hawaiian was very chic. It became so indelibly associated with the '20s that by the time flappers became mothers with grown children, their children viewed it as a corny instrument because they associated it with their parents. Your parents stuff is never cool! :) I think it had a brief renaissance in the late '50s because there was a little '20s revival (Some Like It Hot and the [Warner Brothers-produced] TV show called "The Roaring Twenties" were part of this). Then it came back a teensy bit when Tiny Tim because famous. And then it was uncool again until punks started picking it up. Even then, that was a very slow-growing renaissance. It took about 10 years for it to really saturate and now it's been around so long that I think there's a good chance the ukulele will not become uncool again. It's become just another choice of instrument. A lot of people like it for its portability, its light weight, and the relative ease with which you can learn it.

If I had had ukulele on all the tracks the problem I would have seen with that is that ukulele is so prevalent in the alternative scene right now that you really have to do something different to stand out. There are so many good players out there. I don't want to be just another person using the ukulele as a vintage prop, as a signifier of jazz/alt/cabaret cool. 20 years ago you could do that and stand out because there just weren't many people out there playing uke. Now uke players are a dime a dozen so simply playing uke isn't enough. You either have to be virtuosically good on the uke or you have to be using ukulele as an instrument just like guitar is an instrument. You can't use it as a gimmick.

UKEB – In the end of 2009 you released your albun for free download, you want to do this again.

I might do it again. I can't do it on a permanent basis because I haven't even begun to pay off my debt in making the album. Even doing it on a shoestring budget with the help of friends was very difficult. And because I'm performing songs Warner Brothers owns the rights to instead of songs I wrote myself, I also have to pay them a part of every album I sell, even if I give the album away. It cost me about 1/4 of what it cost to do the album just to license the songs from Warner Brothers. So, because of this, I can't really afford to give it away all the time. However, I did offer a "pay what you want - even nothing" promotion in December of 2009 because I really want people to hear the album. I'm doing this all on my own. I don't have a manager or an agent or a public relations person. This makes it a bit more difficult to advertise the album and let people know it's out there. Not only because I'm doing all the work myself but because I haven't done it before. It's a big learning experience. Word of mouth is very important. When people hear the album and like it and tell their friends how much they like it, that helps the album grow. So it's worth it to take the risk of a limited-time promotion like that. During that promotion, I think about 1/3 of the people downloaded the album for free. Some paid for it but less than what the regular price would be, some paid exactly what the album would cost and some paid much more than the album cost. It was interesting to see how people responded to the promotion. I hope they like the album and tell their friends about it.

UKEB - What is playing in your cd player at this moment?

A Bear Family boxed set called "West Indian Rhythm:Trinidad Calypsos 1938 - 1940".


UKEB - How you define your musical style?

This sounds like such a cliché answer but that's a really hard thing for me to pin down. I'm the same way in music that I am in the rest of my life - I'm a generalist. I have a LOT of interests and don't like to specialize. I will perform any kind of music I think is good. My original songs range from rock to ragtime to polyrhythmic worldbeat. When I performed solo with my guitar,uke and banjo, I'd do pop, rock, Kurt Weill, film themes, classic country, calypso…whatever. The only limiting factor, really, is the musicians I find to work with. Some only work in one or two styles and when that happens I perform the styles they perform.

If I had to come up with a description, I'd say that it's definitely vocal, definitely with an emphasis on acoustic instruments. I have a lot of what used to be called "torch songs" in my repertoire ("torch songs" from the American slang phrase "to hold a torch for (someone)", meaning that you are in love with someone, usually unrequited love). I like things that other people consider novelties. I like unusual material, lesser-known but good stuff. I like material that has a sense of humor.

I've never taken vocal lessons but I've tried to teach myself several different ways of using the instrument that is my voice. I taught myself to yodel, for instance. So I aspire to using my voice like an instrument and sing using different techniques when the song calls for it. I'm haven't achieved all the vocal skills I aspire to, but that's what I aim for.


UKEB – Congratulations for your great work, was a great surprise to me. Thanks for your time and let a message to brazilian uke players.

Thank you so much for blogging about my album and embedding it at your site for people to listen to. I'm honored you have enjoyed it. Thanks to Brazilian uke players for being interested in this instrument, keeping it alive worldwide, and adding a particular Brazilian twist to things


*Note: Carl Stalling was Leon Schlesinger's/Warner Brothers' music director for years. It was he who composed and orchestrated the soundtracks for Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies using songs Warner Brothers owned the rights to, or songs in the public domain.