Ukelele musicians
And once I can hum the melody, then I transcribe it, and that kind of serves as my starting point. JS: That’s what I really do, I try to really learn the melody by humming the melody myself, over and over and over.
#Ukelele musicians how to#
And, this sounds kind of funny, but what I do - well the first thing I try to do before I arrange a song on the ukulele - is I learn how to hum the song first. There’s so much great music out there, and so many different genres and unfortunately, there’s just not enough time to learn it all, but I love it, you know, I do what I can and it’s my passion and I’m always trying to find more music to listen to and just more ways to play the instrument and constantly learn more music.ĪG: So, what is your process of taking music and making it a song you can play on the ukulele? And, unfortunately, there’s just not enough time in the day to be able to figure out all the songs I want to learn. JS: A lot of times I just play songs that, you know, I grew up listening to, or songs that I love. But I think people outside of Hawaii don’t realize the versatility and the diversity of the instrument.ĪG: Well that’s so neat! Now, you do all this versatile music, how do you decide which songs you are going to cover? How do you decide to do “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” or something like that? JS: That’s kind of been one of the things I love about traveling, it’s great that you can kind of change people’s perspective of the instrument, because people in Hawaii, we’re so familiar with the instrument, we know that it’s capable of doing various styles and all that. You can do a little bit jazz, a little bit classical, a little bit of everything.ĪG: Yeah, I had no idea that four strings could reinvent a Journey song. And, you know, I started off playing traditional Hawaiian music, but what I loved doing was showing people the ukulele was capable of playing other stuff, not just mellow, easy listening music, but, you know, very high energy, you know, almost like rock-and-roll music. All the kids learn it in school and my mom played it and I’ve always just loved the instrument. And in Hawaii, it’s a very common instrument.
JS: Well, I mean, I’ve always been a fan of the instrument because I was born and raised in Hawaii. The Record’s Annaliza Guard was able to talk with him about his unique talent that has gained him a large following on YouTube and his gig with the BPO this November.ĪG: First off, you’ve chosen as a project to redefine the instrument… why the ukulele? Jake Shimabukuro, a ukulele player that has covered famous and contemporary songs, is showing his talent with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra Nov.