Interviews
Wes Covey | Heather Lev | Bob Buzas | Nick Castro | Fred Baue | Megan Moncrief / Lazurite
Ukelin Tale | Ukelin Report
Here's a new section I call The Ukelin Five Interviews. These are five simple questions put to a variety of professional musicians (and me) who use the ukelin. I'm hoping these interviews will give us an better picture of contemporary ukelin use.
Duane Pitre duanepitre.com
www.myspace.com/duanepitre1. How did you meet the ukelin?
2. How do you play it, what do you do with it? I play it with two plectrums, one in each hand. The instrument sits on my lap in a horizontal fashion, so where the bass strings are to my left and “treble” strings are to my right. So it is sorta set up like a piano, in the sense that my left hand handles bass duties and right hand treble duties. But just like playing a piano both hands, together, end up in the bass and treble sections quite often.
As far as tuning goes, well this is why I bought the instrument in the first place. At the time I found my Ukelin I was somewhat at the beginning of my explorations of the Just Intonation tuning system and was ultra limited in what I could do with the instruments I possessed at the time (created for Equal Temperament). So the fact that the Ukelin had 32 open, and playable, strings that I could tune to just intervals (along with unisons) without having to deal with an multi-stringed instrument fretted for 12-Tone Equal Temperament…well it was a no-brainer that I need to buy this unusual instrument.
3. What does the ukelin evoke, and how do you use this sound? 4. Any advice on playing the ukelin? 5. Any good ukelin stories for us? Well two short ones; guess they are not really even stories. Firstly, getting this thing to initially hold the Just tuning, well I had to re-tune it over and over (matching the strings to sine tones) for about a week. The wood and strings were so old that they would shift daily while trying to adjust to this new tuning. I thought of it like a very old dog learning to lay a new way, haha. But finally it took to the tuning, well sorta…I spend more time tuning it then playing it as it takes about 15 minutes to tune and I get probably 8-10 minutes out of it before it goes out of tune.
Second one is regarding how I found Bob Buzas. I went home and googled “ukelin” and his ukelin site was the first result. The site said to “register” your ukelin with him so he could keep a database of sorts. I did this and a few months later I recorded my “Comprovisation for Justly Tuned Ukelin No. 1” piece, he dug it and here we are. This track will be available on a compilation that I am curating which will be comprised of works in Just Intonation.
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Pat Gubler
P.G. Sixwellofmemory.com
myspace.com/pgsixband1. How did you meet the ukelin?
2. How do you play it, what do you do with it? 3. What does the ukelin evoke, and how do you use this sound? 4. Any advice on playing the ukelin? 5. Any good ukelin stories for us?
I get alot of people asking what the heck the thing is. Even in the case, I've had a couple of people ask if it's a lapsteel while walking down the street. And then that has sparked a conversation when you describe what it actually is.
I suppose you've seen the photos of Lilli St Cyr (burlesque performer) posing with the ukelin. That's a pretty awesome moment in its rich history...
[In case you missed that reference, here's a photo from that session.]
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Alan Davidson
The Kitchen CynicsKitchn Cynics
myspace.com/kitchencynics1. How did you meet the ukelin?
2. How do you play it, what do you do with it? 3. What does the ukelin evoke, and how do you use this sound? 4. Any advice on playing the ukelin? 5. Any good ukelin stories for us? Top
Wes Covey
The Ten Thousand Thingssacredmusick.org
myspace.com/things10thousand1. How did you meet the ukelin? 2. How do you play it, what do you do with it? 3. What does the ukelin evoke, and how do you use this sound? 4. Any advice on playing the ukelin? 5. Any good ukelin stories for us? i played a piece i wrote at my grandfather's funeral.
i also had never owned a bowed instrument before, and buying the ukelin led to me bowing my electric bass, which led to my forming The Ten Thousand Things. the ukelin is therefore directly responsible for my starting this project.
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Heather Lev heatherlev.com
myspace.com/heatherlev1. How did you meet the ukelin?
I finally got one at an antique musical instrument store, the Music Inn in NYC.2. How do you play it, what do you do with it? 3. What does the ukelin evoke, and how do you use this sound? 4. Any advice on playing the ukelin? 5. Any good ukelin stories for us? Top
Bob Buzas
Bob's Ukelin Home1. How did you meet the ukelin? I was first introduced to the ukelin by my parents, who gave me a ukelin when I was but 10 years old. They acquired it in an antique store in Nyack, New York for $35, the same price printed on the ornate decal in the soundhole. I referred to it as my 'egg slicer'.
The ukelin hung on my wall for twenty years. I would take it down now and then and pluck at the strings by putting a finger through the hoops and strumming at the chords. A sometimes conversation piece, the conversation regarding it usually was: where did it come from and how do you play it?
The questions remained unanswered until years later when I began recording with a friend. I brought the ukelin by to see what we could make of it. He took it to a music specialty shop and found out what I should have realized years earlier: that it was bowed! The feeling I had of finally actually knowing how to play the thing was like suddenly realizing the true intent of Stonehenge! I was exhilarated. Thus began my ukelin odyssey.
2. How do you play it, what do you do with it? 3. What does the ukelin evoke, and how do you use this sound? I used the ukelin's sound in a soundtrack to try to convey surrealism and a sort of spirituality and longing. That's what was needed for the film.
I find it ancient, huge, mysterious. An organ may be the instrument of a cathedral, but as Wes Covey says, the ukelin is the instrument to play in that cathedral's ruins.
4. Any advice on playing the ukelin? A few odd tips:
Tuning is the hardest part, and the secret is to have patience. It was much harder before electronic tuners.
Make sure the bow has plenty of rosin. Learning proper hand posture from fiddle lessons has helped my bowing. Don't be afraid to lay into the strings, most stringed instruments like it when you play a little rough.
I like to rest the ukelin against a table or podium, because the table becomes part of the soundboard and it makes the sound larger and richer.
Have fun!
5. Any good ukelin stories for us? In about 1979, I was tuning it up (a constant task) and I couldn't figure out why even though I was turning the post the string didn't sound any higher. Well, my tuning key was on the wrong post (common mistake) and the tension snapped the string. I yanked off the old rusty string curled around the post, and wouldn't you know it, it went right into my finger and curled up under the skin like a fish-hook. Ouch! Had to go to the emergency room to remove it, and got a tetnis shot. O the pain we go through for those we love.
In about 1996, I was playing ukelin outside (which I don't do very often) when a woman came rushing over to me. She breathlessly informed me I needed study this instrument at Juliard School of Music, where she claimed one of her relatives was studying the very same thing. She then said Stradivarious made these instruments, and I should check if mine was one of these priceless pieces. Very sweet but very misguided.
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Nick Castro
Nick Castro and the Young Eldersnickcastro.com
myspace.com/nickcastroandthepoisontree1. How did you meet the ukelin?
2. How do you play it, what do you do with it? 3. What does the ukelin evoke, and how do you use this sound? 4. Any advice on playing the ukelin? 5. Any good ukelin stories for us? Top
Fred W. Baue 1. How did you meet the ukelin?
2. How do you play it, what do you do with it? I tuned the "D" chord to "D modal" (in fifths) so as to be able to play Irish and Appalachian tunes that use a Dmodal-C-Dmodal progression, such as "The Unfortunate Rake" and "East Virginia". I played with a plectrum in the left hand, and a bow in the right hand. Not too hard once you get the hang of it.
3. What does the ukelin evoke, and how do you use this sound? 4. Any advice on playing the ukelin? 5. Any good ukelin stories for us? My ukelin got me an invitation to the Mariposa Folk Festival in Toronto 1970 and 71. I was in the unusual instruments workshop. To prepare, I went to the Marx-O-Chime Colony and bought a stack of their oddball instruments, learned to play them, and presented them at Mariposa.
After the 1971 festival I sold my ukelin and other instruments to Eric Nagler at the Toronto Folklore Center and moved down to Tallahassee Florida where I studied classical guitar, taking a Bach. of Music degree in guitar performance in 1976.
Sorry to say I have not picked up the ukelin in lo these many years, but I look back on it fondly as an icon of my youth. But I did make a minor splash with it long ago.
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Megan Moncrief
Lazurite
http://lazurite.bandcamp.com/ 1. How did you meet the ukelin?
2. How do you play it, what do you do with it? I sit cross-legged on the floor with the ukelin across on my lap. My setup uses two contact mics, one under each sound hole - after that, I run it through an EQ, an octave/chorus effect, an analog delay, and a looper.
3. What does the ukelin evoke, and how do you use this sound? 4. Any advice on playing the ukelin? It's fun playing an instrument with no canon - there's no such thing as standard technique. I've learned a lot of tricks through experimentation.
Try using the handle of a tuning wrench as a hammer - striking the bass strings gets a nice dulcimer sound. Bowing the bass strings is a little harder to pull off, but the effect can be really lovely - I get to them by pressing the strings around them down with my left hand. I've also never found a vocal filter I like more than the sound I get by singing into the bass sound hole. Really huge and eerie.
I keep finding all sorts of weird percussive sounds by striking and scraping different parts of the instrument - this has left my ukelin in pretty gnarly shape, actually. I'd ultimately love to build one that can stand a little more abuse.
5. Any good ukelin stories for us? Whenever I perform, someone asks where such an exotic instrument comes from. Complicated history aside, I like saying "Jersey."
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Marjorie Rommel penned a funny, touching and true story about her ukelin experiences entitled My Mother's Ukelin. It is reprinted here with kind permission from the author.
John Katona selected the ukelin as the subject of a college english report. It's fittingly titled: Irremovable Stain: The Ukelin's Forgotten History and Why It Will Never Completely Disappear.