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Ukulele Loop Dreams was looping on npr
On 7/22/64 11:59 AM, RP Collier wrote:
> Tuneyards on Sunday All Things Considered 4/16:
>
>
>http://www.npr.org/2011/04/17/135443035/tune-yards-expanding-and-grabbing-attention
I also think it's very cool that she's recontextualizing the Ukulele.
It resonates a lot with what I"ve been trying to do.
I've been writing for the last 6 months on several four string
instruments, including playing a lot of
baritone Ukulele. Our own Daniel Thomas (a very accomplished
guitarist/multi-instrumentalist)
once told me that he thinks he learned more about harmony from playing a
ukulele than by all of
his guitar playing because of the fact that you have the ability to fret
all four strings simultaneously.
Interestingly enough, Joni Mitchell started her whole career by
writing songs on a Baritone Ukulele that she bought
for $36 because she didn't have enough money for a guitar.
It's interesting that when you play one and really thing about modern
songwriting,
that the natural progression is to begin to retune it. I'm on this
kick lately of tuning to a random open tuning
and playing it as I go to eat my daily bagel before teaching. I give
myself 10 minutes to learn how to play
the new tuning (or at least find something interesting in it) and then
another 10 minutes to write at least the
bare bones of a song on the way home. In this way, I'm attempting
to try to free myself of specific tuning
concepts and be able to find whatever the instrument gives me to play
simply.
With it's range, you can get a couple of different sounding octaves
from the instrument as a looping source
and, of course, with 1/2 speed and 1/4 speed manipulations you can eek
even more out of it.
To add to all of that, I recently purchased a four string Ukulele bass
instrument which has the body of a Baritone Uke, but
has black silicon strings on it that make it sound somewhat close to an
upright. A fantastic instrument. I'm saving to
buy one that is fretless now.
rick walker