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On 7/22/64 11:59 AM, RP Collier wrote: > Tuneyards on Sunday All Things Considered 4/16: > > >http://www.npr.org/2011/04/17/135443035/tune-yards-expanding-and-grabbing-attention I also think it's very cool that she's recontextualizing the Ukulele. It resonates a lot with what I"ve been trying to do. I've been writing for the last 6 months on several four string instruments, including playing a lot of baritone Ukulele. Our own Daniel Thomas (a very accomplished guitarist/multi-instrumentalist) once told me that he thinks he learned more about harmony from playing a ukulele than by all of his guitar playing because of the fact that you have the ability to fret all four strings simultaneously. Interestingly enough, Joni Mitchell started her whole career by writing songs on a Baritone Ukulele that she bought for $36 because she didn't have enough money for a guitar. It's interesting that when you play one and really thing about modern songwriting, that the natural progression is to begin to retune it. I'm on this kick lately of tuning to a random open tuning and playing it as I go to eat my daily bagel before teaching. I give myself 10 minutes to learn how to play the new tuning (or at least find something interesting in it) and then another 10 minutes to write at least the bare bones of a song on the way home. In this way, I'm attempting to try to free myself of specific tuning concepts and be able to find whatever the instrument gives me to play simply. With it's range, you can get a couple of different sounding octaves from the instrument as a looping source and, of course, with 1/2 speed and 1/4 speed manipulations you can eek even more out of it. To add to all of that, I recently purchased a four string Ukulele bass instrument which has the body of a Baritone Uke, but has black silicon strings on it that make it sound somewhat close to an upright. A fantastic instrument. I'm saving to buy one that is fretless now. rick walker