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.