One of the earliest appearances of the word ukulele in print (in the sense of a stringed instrument) is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Catalogue of the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments of All Nations published in 1907. Legend attributes it to the nickname of Englishman Edward William Purvis, one of King Kalākaua's officers, because of his small size, fidgety manner, and playing expertise. In the Hawaiian language the word ukulele roughly translates as "jumping flea", perhaps because of the movement of the player's fingers. A patron of the arts, he incorporated it into performances at royal gatherings. One of the most important factors in establishing the ukulele in Hawaiian music and culture was the ardent support and promotion of the instrument by King Kalākaua. Two weeks after they disembarked from the SS Ravenscrag in late August 1879, the Hawaiian Gazette reported that "Madeira Islanders recently arrived here, have been delighting the people with nightly street concerts." Three immigrants in particular, Madeiran cabinet makers Manuel Nunes, José do Espírito Santo, and Augusto Dias, are generally credited as the first ukulele makers. Ukuleles commonly come in four sizes: soprano, concert, tenor, and baritone.ĭeveloped in the 1880s, the ukulele is based on several small, guitar-like instruments of Portuguese origin, the machete, cavaquinho, timple, and rajão, introduced to the Hawaiian Islands by Portuguese immigrants from Madeira, the Azores and Cape Verde. The tone and volume of the instrument vary with size and construction. When I switched from a needle tuner to a strobe display many years ago, I immediately noticed the difference.The ukulele ( / ˌ juː k ə ˈ l eɪ l i/ YOO-kə- LAY-lee from Hawaiian: ʻukulele, approximately OO-koo- LEH-leh), also called a uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. I personally highly prefer the Peterson line of strobe-display tuners, but any tuner with a strobe display gives you the advantage of having much more precise visual feedback from the tuner on where you are compared with the target note. The only other thing I can think of is that the quality of the tuner does matter for getting as close as possible to the desired pitch. With mandolin and 12 string guitar, there is the choice of tuning the courses as perfectly together as possible, which creates a more subtle sound, or deliberately detuning them very slightly to get a slight chorus sound. Also pulling on strings a bit to try to flatten them is popular, and only a problem if you get carried away and break a string. I never tune open notes flat to compensate for fretting, but instead I will tune fretted notes instead of open ones, and I'll choose which notes I'm tuning to be in the range I prefer to play in.įor example, on guitar I'll often tune strings at the 7th or 9th frets, because I play up there a lot and want all the strings to be well intonated with each other in that range.ĭefinitely always tune up to notes on string instruments, for the reason you guessed. Incidentally, I use a tuning tool to rotate the pegs for new strings - so much easier than doing it by hand! When putting new strings on, I usually have to do multiple tunings because tightening one string has the effect of loosening all the others a bit (why I think that in theory tuning is impossible :) I also stretch the strings by pulling them sideways as noted above, but more aggressively than for minor adjustments. I have discovered that stretching a string that is slightly sharp, by pulling it sideways with the plectrum, is a convenient way to lower the pitch a small amount without using the tuning peg. So the G string(s) might best be tuned to, say, -4 cents. Online videos about guitar tuning suggest tuning slightly under the desired pitch by a few cents to balance the added tension of fretting, especially heavier strings. Presumably this accommodates the string's sticking at the nut and bridge. One person says to "catch and release," which means to slacken the string below the desired tuning, then always bring the tuning up to the desired note. But, while in theory I believe it is impossible to tune a mandolin or other stringed instrument perfectly while maintaining intonation, I think there are some tricks and techniques that help.Īssuming that the instrument has been properly set up (string height, scale length, etc), what can one do to get the best tuning for a particular session? I know that the instrument goes out of tune due to changes in temperature and humidity - usually sharp for mandolins. I've been playing mandolin for years, and I tune it with no particular problem (insert mandolin tuning joke here).
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