KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Shawnee Mission Northwest Ukulele club had a plan.
The day before an all school assembly last month, a few members wanted to pay homage to one of the greatest moments in the brief history of the 30-member club. They hoped to recreate the time, a couple of years ago, when an enthusiastic member raised his instrument high above his head and then - in front of the entire school - smashed it into a thousand pieces like a rock star.
Alas, club members couldn’t find a toy ukulele in time to repeat the feat. But that didn’t keep them from delivering a smashing performance of “Hey Ya” by Outkast in the school’s gymnasium on their ukuleles. The crowd sang along, some even standing and playing the air ukulele, before honoring the performance with a screaming ovation.
With the crowd still charged up, club president and homecoming queen candidate Isabel Zacharias quickly gathered the group in a circle in the hallway.
“That was awesome!” she shouted above the din, flashing a huge smile while wearing a flowing green dress. “Oh my gosh, this is the proudest moment of my entire life, and I’m just so happy that all of you did this!”
Nearly a half century after Don Ho played “Tiny Bubbles” and Tiny Tim tiptoed through the tulips, the ukulele is hot again.
Leading the way in the unlikely renaissance is an even more unlikely demographic: young people.
At music stores across the country, they’re ordering them so fast they’re causing delivery backlogs. They’re starting ukulele clubs at high schools and strumming them while strolling about college campuses. You even can find ukulele performances in hit songs and TV shows, in commercials and movies, and all over the Internet.
While no reliable national ukulele sales figures are available, anecdotal evidence for a renaissance is strong.
Not long ago rock stars wouldn’t have played the ukulele on a bet. But in May, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam released a solo ukulele album that climbed into the top five on the album charts. The band Train featured the ukulele on its smash “Hey Soul Sister,” and Jason Mraz played it on songs including “I’m Yours” and “The Remedy.”
RENEWED POPULARITY
A ukulele performance of “(Somewhere) Over the Rainbow” featuring the late Israel Kamakawiwo’ole has gotten more than 50 million hits on YouTube. While the singer, known as “IZ,” died in 1997, his songs live on in movies, TV shows and commercials.
His former band mates, who all play ukuleles, performed at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kan., in October.
Emily Behrmann, general manager of the performing arts series at the college, is seeing a lot of interest in ukuleles.
“I met with our student senate [last month] and they wanted me to give them an overview of what’s coming up,” she said. “I asked for suggestions. After they mentioned Adele and Lady Gaga, which we obviously can’t afford, one of them said, ‘How about Jake Shimabukuro? He plays the ukulele.’ And I said, ‘I’m glad you mentioned him, because he’s already coming.’ A few of them then broke into applause.”
Lynn Martin, an administrative assistant in the Liberty School District in Liberty, Mo., has a 26-year-old son who asked for a ukulele for Christmas.
“It was out of nowhere,” she said. “I wondered why a ukulele instead of a guitar? He just thought it would be a good place to start. He said, ‘They’re selling out quick, Mom. Here’s the website and here’s the one I want.’ I got it the same day. There were only like three left.”
There are at least three ukulele clubs in the KansasCity, Mo., area - the Kansas City Ukesters, the Northland Ukesters and the Ukulele Fight Club of Kansas City. The clubs, largely comprised of older players, also include several children.
The ukulele has been around for a while. Invented in the 1880s, its name is Hawaiian for jumping flea, referring to how fast the fingers move on the strings. Another story says it was named after British army officer Edward Purvis, who popularized the instrument at the court of Hawaiian King Kalakaua.
BOOMING ENTERPRISE
Nearly 130 years later renewed interest in the instrument has caused music stores to hire ukulele teachers and universities to offer classes.
In other words, this ain’t your grandpa’s ukulele. And to prove it, the University of Missouri-Kansas City recently offered a ukulele class through its Communiversity program. Vicki Walker, a former Missouri state representative, taught the class with her husband, Mike.
“The ukulele is the marijuana of instruments,” Walker says. “It’s the gateway instrument. If you can play this, you can play anything.”
There have actually been three ukulele fads, Walker says. The first was in the roaring ’20s, when students in full-length raccoon coats would strum ukuleles at college football games. The second, sparked by folksy radio and television personality Arthur Godfrey in the 1950s, caused ukuleles to be made by the millions.
“And now this is the third big wave,” Walker says. “And it’s happened because the young people started it. They’ve embraced this little instrument like nothing I have seen before.”
At Shawnee Mission Northwest, 16 students prepared for their big moment at the assembly in one final practice. After school, in Room 127, they stood, walked around and sat on desks as they held their instruments close to their ears and plucked the strings to tune them. The club’s sponsor, social studies teacher Drew Magwire, helped run the meeting with senior Emelie Rogers and sophomore Emma Perlmutter.
Why had students joined?
Why not, they said. It was fun, quirky, daring and original.
“It’s a happy instrument,” Perlmutter says. “And everything is more fun when it’s mini. That’s my theory.”
The group features guys and girls from every grade with “ukes” - as some called them - colored brown, blue, red and lavender. Others were checked or purple paisley. One read “Aloha” and had a picture of a girl dancing the hula on the side.
After several jaunty performances of “Hey Ya,” the group began talking about the time two years ago at an assembly when a student famously smashed his ukulele on the ground, causing the audience to go nuts.
Magwire recalled the moment.
“I was holding the microphones and he does it and I’m like, ‘We are total dorks!’” Magwire says. “You know, just the goofiest bunch of kids. Then I see a couple of administrators looking at me like [he made a frowny face] and I’m like, ‘OK. Sorry?’”
Magwire genuinely loves the kids in his group. He also loves to tease them, often kidding them about their “dorky” status, or referring to them as “goofy.”
“When you look at this group you think, ‘Awww ... some of these guys are never going to kiss a girl,’” he says. “Did I say that out loud? And the girls,” he says in mock exasperation.
Magwire, a card-carrying goofball himself, smiled and winked at several members to show he was joking.
But later, Zacharias - who says Magwire is a perfect fit for the club - says there’s a grain of truth in what Magwire had said.
INSTRUMENT OF THE OFFBEAT
“I do think the ukulele attracts socially offbeat or awkward people,” she says. “This gives them a little bit of a spark. ‘Yeah, I can perform in front of the whole school. Yeah, I can be confident, not awkward,’ because there’s something empowering about playing an instrument.”
But why this instrument? And why now?
Dan Miller, who has seen a “huge jump” in ukulele sales in the last two years at his Guitar Dock store in Lenexa, Kan., has a theory.
“I think a lot of it started with YouTube,” he says. “There’s a couple young artists who are playing ukuleles and they are unbelievably proficient. And, of course, there’s Eddie Vedder.
“I think that just sparked an interest.”
The ukulele is positioned perfectly to take advantage of that interest. It’s easy to learn, relatively inexpensive - you can get a basic one for well under $100 - and easily portable.
For Jake Shimabukuro, a 34-year-old who some have called “The Jimi Hendrix of the Ukulele,” the answer iseven simpler.
The Hawaiian virtuoso told CNN the ukulele is the perfect antidote for a stressed-out world.
“Especially in this day and age, with all this digital technology and all this chaos going on,” he says. “In the near future I think people are going to want to come back to this and just slow down and enjoy the moment.”
By all accounts, that future is now. When Funky Munky Music in Shawnee, Kan., opened seven years ago, it carried one or two ukuleles, says co-owner Patrick Redd.
“Now we try to keep anywhere between 10 and 30 in the store,” including fancier models approaching $500 with abalone inlays, or some made from Hawaiian Koa wood.
Redd also just hired a ukulele teacher. Other local music stores offer ukulele lessons as well.
On the East Coast the trend is even stronger.
“Nobody has ukuleles around here,” says Phyllis Webb, co-owner of the Magic Fluke Co. in Sheffield, Mass., the largest manufacturer of ukuleles on the mainland. “And there’s such a demand that many ukulele makers worldwide have a backlog. We have teenagers from high schools calling us, and students ordering them from colleges. We have watched this resurgence grow with younger people, and it is truly remarkable.”
A WAY TO BE HAPPY
Others say the ukulele renaissance may be nothing more than a desire to be happy in the middle of a historic economic recession. The sound of a ukulele is happy and bright, fans say. Like a child’s laugh, it can’thelp but make you smile.
“You really can’t play anything on the ukulele without it sounding happy,” says Patrick Hess, a senior at Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo., who grew up in Lenexa and graduated from Shawnee Mission Northwest.
“Whenever I tell people why I like the ukulele I start playing something like [Ozzy Osbourne’s] ‘Crazy Train’ and people just grin. Sometimes I’ll bring it to class or play it in the downstairs lobby of my dorm. It always makes people smile. And that’s one reason I’ve stuck with this instrument.”
Isabel Zacharias, an intelligent student who performs at poetry slams around the country and who felt awkward plenty of times while growing up, asked for a ukulele for her 12th birthday after hearing one played onNational Public Radio.
“As soon as you hear a song with a ukulele in it it’s hard not to want to play one,” she says. “It’s just so charming.”
It also was encouraging. Unlike other instruments she played, including the oboe and guitar, it sounded good the first time she tried it. It also helped her express herself and connect with people.
“It’s such a social instrument,” she says. “When you hear it, you just want to interact with that kind of energy.”
At the Northwest assembly, the crowd did just that, screaming and cheering for the ragtag band with theconfident look and quirky sound.
After they finished playing, several members raised their instruments in celebration, and one began to spin around with glee. In the hallway, with the cheers still ringing in her ears, Zacharias fairly exploded with pride.
“Ukuleles bring joy to all!” she says. “We practiced so hard, and it feels so good!”
THE GUITAR’S LITTLE COUSIN
Ever wonder how the ukulele is related to the guitar?
On a four-string tenor ukulele, the tuning is actually the same as putting a capo across the fifth fret of a guitar, while playing only the top four strings of the guitar. The open notes on the ukulele strings are, G, C, E and A. This is the most common tuning for a ukulele.
The main differences between a ukulele and a guitar, besides the size, are in how you hold and strum them. The ukulele won’t sound like a ukulele if it’s played hanging from a guitar strap and won’t have the same tone if it’s picked or strummed like a guitar. But, according to experts, the transition isn’t hard to make.
Ukuleles come in four sizes: soprano, concert, tenor and baritone. The soprano is the standard size.
High Profile, Pages 52 on 11/27/2011