The Michi-lele Saga

This my latest Michi-lele, number 25, all of them sold. 

It's my most popular ukulele, representing almost a quarter of my output over the past 6 years plus.  I guess I know why--because it is something truly unique and special in a marketplace where you need to offer something something like that when you are an individual craftsman competing against factory producers.  It has to be something unique and special because you have to charge at least a few hundred dollars for it to justify your labor on it, while a decent, playable mass-produced instrument can be had for fifty bucks or less.  

With this uke, there is also the Michigan angle:  A lot of us Michiganders love our state, and we are oddly proud of its distinctive shape (the "mitten"), which happens to be very suitable for a ukulele body--and whattya know, this clever uke very cleverly includes our Upper Peninsula as well, as the head stock.

To be honest, I'm not sure if the idea of making a Michigan-shaped ukulele is totally original with me or not.  I have seen a picture of at least one electric guitar with a Michigan mitten body, and I'm not sure if I saw that before or after I made the first Michi-lele.  I do know that after I started them, I happened upon a picture of a small collection of ukes that looked pretty much like my Michi-lele, made by someone in northern Michigan.  But I did not steal this person's idea--for all I know, he stole it from me.  I don't think it matters all that much, because ideas and themes in the wider world of design get stolen and swapped and adapted, etc., all the time. 

NOTE:  Since I wrote this, some months ago now, there have been more Michi-leles.  I love making them, if only because every Michi-lele proves the thesis of my alternative ukulele philosophy:  Body shape does not matter, and any wood can be a "tone wood." That is, if one is open is variety in sound and appearance of the musical instrument we call the ukulele.

History has shown--over more than a century now--that the uke player has embraced this attitude--and this is why I love designing and making ukuleles.

Mighty Uke Day 2023

 It was a new venue for MUD 2023, but the same event in terms of opportunities for uke enthusiasts to meet and bask in the joy of uke-mania with fellow enthusiasts.  

Thanks to Ben Hassenger and the volunteers who made this great Mid-Michigan ukulele event possible.  I look forward to it every year.

Mighty Uke Day 2022, Lansing MI

Had a great time at the annual uke fest in Lansing, Mighty Uke Day, last held at a physical site in 2019.  That was my first M.U.D. as a vendor, and I've been waiting since then to get back.

They put the vendors indoors this year due to the heat.  I was there with presenters from Mainland Ukuleles and Mya-Moe Ukuleles.  Both companies make conventional ukuleles, but I won't hold that against them.  They both make fine products, and the fact that they are dedicated to building ukes in the first place means to me that they are "doing God's work." 

But there was quite a contrast between my display of ukes, every one of them an "alternative" uke (unconventional, unusual, abnormal, weird, a "novelty" uke--or whatever) and the ukuleles of the other two companies, every one of them a figure-eight instrument, whether relatively plain or very fancy, looking like a miniature guitar.

None of the vendors sold much that day.  I think the Mainland people sold a couple of accessories.  Fact is, most people (even enthusiastic festival goers) don't tend to make unplanned impulse buys of products ranging from about $250 on up.  But that's not the point of being a uke maker at a festival like M.U.D., or I don't see that as the point for me anyhow.  The point is to be out there among the ukulele people, talking ukuleles and uke music, and me publicizing the name of Dave's Extravagant Ukuleles a bit.

I'm already looking forward to next year--hope to see you there!

Michi-lele Demo

 I stumbled on this video on YouTube--a guy playing a song by the Accidentals on one of my Michi-leles. I often meet the people who buy my ukes, but not this guy--he may be the one who made a special order thru Great Lakes Music Studio in Lapeer. Anyhow, that's a great song by the Accidentals, and I think the Michi-lele goes well with it.

Tercet Concert Ukulele

This is my latest version of my Tercet ukulele, which I used to call the Fat Triangle, which pretty much sums up the shape of the thing.  It seems to me to be one of the basic shapes for a stringed instrument with a neck.  A balalaika, for example, is a trinagle shape--but without the bulging curves.

I make ukuleles of many different shapes, working from the idea that almost any body shape can produce a good sound, and yet I have found that this particular shape always seems to yield real good volume and sustain, and a sweet tone.  So sweet that I felt I should give it a sweet name, like the "Tercet."

The top and bottom of this one are made of Elm, a heritage wood in my part of the world, plentiful in times past before the Dutch Elm Disease blight came through the USA in the mid-twentieth century.  The wood I used came from timbers in a decrepit old barn probably about 150 years old when it was taken down recently--built in a time when farmers made barns out of wood readily available from local forests.

The top and back have been stained dark to highlight 

 

the prominent grain pattern in the wood.  The other parts of the uke are made from Black Walnut, giving the instrument an overall dark color scheme.

Like all my ukuleles (with rare exceptions), this one is made entirely of reclaimed wood from the local area--Mid-Michigan, USA.

I have ukuleles for sale at the showroom of 2nd Chance Wood Co., in Durand, MI (see their Facebook page); at Owosso Guitar, Owosso, MI; and on Etsy at "Dave's Extravagant Ukuleles."  Other models, custom made or in stock, are available from me directly.  Email raberdavid@yahoo.com or call/text (989) 292-5155.
 

Classic Bell Ukulele

 The Bell Ukulele was introduced by the Lyon and Healy Co. in the mid-1920s during the "first wave" of the uke's popularity in the US, a time when different companies were vying for sales with some new and different body styles.

I had no idea the bell shape, new and innovative for the ukulele at the time, was based on a shape of another small stringed instrument from "back in the day" in Old Europe--way back in the day, like four centuries back.  Looking thru a book on old stringed instruments, I found almost this exact same shape used for a five-string "cittern" from about 1600.

So it appears Lyon and Healy stole this shape from the history books--which is fine, because what would the world of design be like if it wasn't for borrowing (or stealing) from those who came before us?  And it would sure be shame if this lovely shape had been lost in history and never brought back to be used again.

I call this ukulele the "Classic" Bell both because it has become a classic design of the 20th Century, and because I went directly back to older classic as well to delineate the shape of my version of the Bell Uke (but it's not that much different from the Lyon and Healy version either).

This one has an almost monochrome light-light color scheme, with a Birdseye Maple top/back, a Maple fretboard, and the other parts of Maple as well.  The fretboard, by the way, is made from a strip of old Maple tongue-and-groove flooring, I believe from an old commercial building, or maybe it was a gymnasium.

The Asymmetrical Ukulele--Why Not?

 Here's a couple of ukuleles I'm working on now, after a hiatus of several months caused first by my place of work (2nd Chance Wood Co.) moving over the holiday season last year, and then by the Lockdown, when the place was closed.

Both these are concert size ukes.  The Michi-lele I have made over a dozen times before, but the other one is new.  I call it the Aetherea, and it's a departure for me because it's asymmetrical.  Of course the Michi-lele is asymmetrical too, but that's because the whole idea is it's shaped like Michigan, which is itself asymmetrical.

The Aetherea isn't meant to look like anything else--it's an abstract shape. I designed the Aetherea to be asymmetrical just because.

I have touted my ukuleles as "alternative," meaning they are not shaped like standard, normal ukuleles, i.e., miniature guitars.  But all my ukes to this point (except the Michi-lele and Texalele) have been symmetrical along their length--an important aspect of conventionality they share with normal ukes, in spite of them being "alternative" otherwise.

So I guess I thought it was time to make an instrument even more alternative ( or out of whack--?) compared to the normal.

There's no musical reason, as far as I know, to make a ukulele or a guitar or any stringed instrument symmetrical--or at least no reason not to give it a shot, and see for myself what happens musically.

Going asymmetrical to me is just another move in the direction of pursuing creative freedom in the designing and making of ukuleles.

Creative expression in uke building usually--more than nine times out of ten--takes the form of making the conventional guitar-shaped item fancier and fancier with flashy details and rich materials (inlays, intricate bindings and rosettes, exotic woods, and so on).  Decoration is fine, it can be really wonderful, but it is limited because it doesn't touch the basic shape of the thing, which is treated pretty much as a given, a canvas to be painted on. 

I like fooling around with shape--it's the kind of "alternative" I like to explore.  And symmetry/asymmetry is pretty basic to shape, so I think I'll be exploring that some more in the immediate future.

For anyone interested, I have another blog that goes into some of these issues having to do with traditional and non-traditional ukuleles, normal ones and alternative ones: https://altuke.blogspot.com/

Cat's Eye Ukulele

 This is the first ukulele I ever made--the type, not this particular one, and it is still one of my personal favorites.

I like it because it is kind of goofy, the body shaped liked a cat's eye, the headstock like a cat's head.  It's goofy, it's whimsical, it's "fun," whatever you want to call it, but at the same time has a simplicity to it that you could also call graceful or elegant.  I could call that, anyhow.  Am I flattering myself?  You be the judge.

Goofy or graceful or both, this ukulele probably has a limited audience:  Ukulele players who also like cats--cat lovers who also play the ukulele.  Or maybe a grandma like that who wants to give her grand daughter a whimsical gift made by someone with a childish sense of humor.

The top and back are made of Birdseye Maple, a fancy wood that I chose the Cat's Eye uke because I fancy it looks like the texture you see in a cat's eye.  Perhaps sometime I'll take the next step and stain the wood transparent green.  I really think I should do that.
I can make you one like that, if you want.  Just ask.

The Fabulous Texalele

"Here's looking at you, kid."

I guess I was was first attracted to making ukuleles because: 1) I enjoy the process of design--thinking up creative ways of  making things, and then making them:  getting an idea, developing it, bringing it into reality; 2) I like music, and I enjoy playing the ukulele (although I am a rank amateur), and I noticed that ukuleles over time had been made in a quite a variety of alternative shapes beyond the conventional guitar-like form--so designing ukuleles offered the potential of a wide scope for creative design; 3) I decided to jump into that tradition with a vengeance.

But a person can be creative making a variety of things, from pottery to furniture to any sort of art object.  The thing about a musical instrument is:  after you make it, there is music!  There is a special magic to that which is almost as magical as composing music itself.  that's how I feel about it, anyhow.

The Texalele is one of the first ukulele types I made.  Why Texas is a story I won't get into right now.  Just like the Michi-lele, which came a little later, the Texalele was an exercise is pushing the creative possibilities of ukulele design to a limit--you could say, to the point of absurdity, or at least to the point of whimsy.  (I'm not the first person to do this sort of thing:  Google "Aero Uke," for example.)

Anyhow, this is the Texalele.  I made four and have this one left.  It is the special "eyes of Texas" version.  I cut the top from a chunk of cedar, and it just so happened that two knots, looking like a pair of eyes, were there on the piece.  "Eyes of Texas"--it was like fate.

This one still has the original cheap black nylon strings I first put on it.  And it sounds pretty good for a weirdly shaped uke that was among my first efforts.

This is the kind of thing I would sort of like to keep for myself, but I will sell it if a buyer comes along and just has to have an "Eyes of Texas" ukulele, because I do make them to go out into the world.

Chunky Pineapple Ukulele

I make all my ukuleles from reclaimed woods, but this one probably looks like it more than the others because the top and back are made from barn wood pine that has some small bug holes in it (filled with epoxy before finishing).  It's made on the pattern of the famous Pineapple Ukulele introduced by the Kamaka company in the 1920s.  I call this one "chunky" because the body is somewhat larger than usual.

When I found this "buggy" pine, I wanted to use it for a top because of its funky look, plus I wanted to see how the very old and well-seasoned wood would perform as a "tonewood."  I found it works just fine--the uke has good volume and tone.