Ukulele Hero

Ukulele Hero

According to Queen Lili'uokalani, the last Hawaiian monarch, ukulele means 'the gift that came from here', although others say that it means 'jumping flea'. It's an interesting instrument in many ways, not least because it uses what's often called reentrant tuning - the strings are not ordered from low to high. I'll show you what I mean... the commonest ukulele tuning is g-c-e-a where the 'g' is an octave higher than you might expect it to be. For this reason it's often described as following the mnemonic 'my-dog-has-fleas'. Well, we think that's interesting... actually that's not a mnemonic is it? I think it's an onomatopoeia... or is that just one word, not a phrase? Anyway, it might seem like a funny thing to say but it sounds like 'my-dog-has-fleas' when you play across the open strings. No really it does, honest.

Here's a cool retro t-shirt for the ukulele hero in your life, or for yourself if that's what you think you are. Now please take your dog down to the vet.

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