FAQs on Ukelele Ukes & Banjo Ukes

Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 01:09:10 -0400
Subject: Re: Fwd: Paul McCartney's Ukelele's

Hi Mickey:

Been a long time since I've heard from you. I will send a message to the
gentleman regarding his querry about Paul McCartney and his ukes. Paul
played a Gibson uke that George bought used at a meeting of the George
Formby Society to which he held membership. He actually gave it to Paul
over three decades ago. Paul played that uke in the concerts for George
Harrison's favorite charity.

The Martin is not known to me. I have never seen Paul play a Martin uke and
have seen no picture of him with one. George, however, may have owned
one since he kept several ukes around the house. The one close friend of
mine that knew George well enough to know fell down his basement stairs
and has sustained brain damage. He can still play guitar off and on, but, he
does not initiate conversation and may never recover from the accident.
His name is Mike Maiberger (played with Rare Earth and was produced by
George with a group named Fantasy at one time). Mike could play drums,
keyboard, bass, lead and rhythm guitar, uke, and several other instruments.
He was an incredible talent. He produced my first serious band's early
recordings and managed us for five years.

I will check into the ukes that Paul owns and see if I can dig up some
information.

Mickey Maguire

Subject: Banjo Ukulele
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 15:47:54 +0000

To whom it may concern,
Hello, my name is Josh and I am very interested in purchasing a banjo-ukulele. I have had a hard time finding a place to buy one. I have been referred to your site and found your 4-string banjos. Do those constitute as banjo ukuleles? I am uneducated in the ways of banjos and I am trying to find out as much as I can to aquire a banjo-uke. Could you please help? Sincerely, Josh Park

Greetings Josh,

Glad to assist if I can:

Yes, the banjo uke is quite rare...even thought they've been around for many years...

None of the 4-string tenors or plectrums listed would fill the bill as a banjo uke...

Here's our current banjo uke available from Gold Tone:

http://www.folkofthewood.com/page3435.htm

This is a solid intermediate level banjo uke...it should do you fine for many years...we also have plenty of Uke books to go along with it...

Hope this helps, Mickey

Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2003 13:30:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Banjo Ukulele

Mickey,

Greetings Erin,

Glad to assist if I can:

I sure wish I had seen your site before I bought my first banjo uke. You
have some great advice on purchasing banjos in general. I have(and play)a
Charango (10 string cousin to the ukulele)and a concert sized ukulele, so
I am somewhat familiar with those kinds of instruments.

I recently bought a used Claraphone, a closed back banjo uke with a skin
head that was listed as Very Good Condition, and I have some questions. I
read the advice that you gave about tightening the head and the mesurement
of the 12th fret and the bridge etc. Does all that advice go for the banjo
uke as well?

Yes...there's still a halfway point, between the bridge and the nut that should be intonated properly. Usually, this halfway point can be found by a clear harmonic in combination with fretting the note at the same spot...the notes should be exactly the same. Now, depending on the scale length of your neck, this harmonic should occur at the 12th fret.

Is there anything else I should know about this instrument? I
am having a problem tuning it. First I found that the pegs were slipping
(they are tension pegs) then I found that there are small screws in the
pegs that once tightened keep the pegs from sliding back. But it still
sounds out of tune.The strings are not rusted (they are metal)and seem to
be in good shape.

You might check to see if the neck is straight...if it does have waves in it, or is bowed, this could affect the tuning accuracy...if you have an electronic tuner, you should also be able to determine if the notes are true on each fret as you go up the neck. Of course, you'll only want to do this after you've adjusted the intonation described above.

I also had a question about playing the banjo uke. Is it normally played
like a banjo or a uke?

It's tuned and played like a uke...the banjo body only gives it a banjo character.

Should I consider getting finger picks?

Nope...wouldn't be necessary...most all uke players use a flatpick or strum with their fingers...however, if you want to experiment, you may find a new approach to playing the uke...

Is there a video or book that you can recommend that deals with banjo ukes?

I do not know of one off hand...Roy Smeck I believe may have written one once before. Check on Ebay periodically to see what comes up...and keep in mind, most any uke book would be applicable to your banjo uke.

Hope this helps...Mickey

I am excited about this new instrument and I want to get started right.

Thank you very much for your time.
Erin Wishek

Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 22:05:51 -0700

Hi Mickey:

I will keep watching for your addition of the ukeleles to your website. I'd like
to see them for future consideration. For the immediate future, I settled for
an "Oscar Schmidt OU-2" with mahogany body. The list price is $69.95, but, I
grabbed one for $49.95, without a gig bag or case. I have some projects
where I want to use that mellow tone of a nice baritone uke.

I'd like a couple different models. So, I will have to keep looking at Folk of
the Wood and see what you have available after the site is updated.

By the way, George Harrison gave Paul McCartney a ukelele that Paul used
to play "Something" on stage during a commemorative concert in SF, Calif.
It seems that George was an active member of the George Formby
Society, a group of British ukelele enthusiasts.

When people are looking at a ukelele and think they are primarily for kids,
that is when knowing to famed "Beatles" played them on stage. George
even taught a Gerhardt Berger, the famous European driver for BMW's
racing team, how to play one.

I'll keep my eyes on your website.

Thanks again for your response.

Mickey Maguire

Greetings Mickey,

That's interesting trivia...I just purchased a "Best of George Harrison" CD which has "Something" listed as one of his songs...I had no idea...I do remember Paul's first solo album which had some beautiful Uke playing...

I will include this info on our FAQ database under a Uke category...

Pretty cool stuff...Mickey

Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 23:35:44 -0700
Subject: Re: by the way... re: ukelele

Hi Mickey:

Mickey Maguire again. I was looking for a ukelele online and I came across
your website, Folk of the Wood. I did not see any ukeleles in the site,
though, and I did not find any search facility. Do you have any in stock?

Mickey Maguire

Greetings Mickey,

Yes, we do have Ukes...most of the time, we sell them out of the store...we haven't posted them on our site. However, I believe it's about time that we do.

Our ukes come from two main distributors: Saga and Johnson...they're decent medium grade quality...they're not the most expensive you can find...be aware, we also carry the Gold Tone banjo ukes which carries quite a bit of volume and punch.

We should have some at the shop now...You're most welcome to call our 800 number to determine what's in stock: ....

Thanks so much for the Psaltery connection...I will look into it directly.

Hope all else is well with you these days.

Mickey