Not a Ukulele!

[MarkusSpiel]

Love the shirt!!

[JeffD]

Maybe Gibson didn't do as great a job as they thought they did when they introduced Lloyd's new "bowl back killing" design back in nineteen-oh-something that was supposed to make a "clean sweep" of the old variety. I think people still think of a mandolin as the old fashioned Italian bowl back variety, preferably played while standing in a gondola in a canal in Venice (Italy, not L.A.)

Or... they could be associating it with the modern bowlbacks, being played all over the world today. I would bet that of all the mandolins in players hands today world wide, likely a little over half are bowlbacks.

F5s are a clique within a minority. It just doesn't look that way from inside.

[mandroid]

Cuke ~ say it's a Cucumber . ..

[Jeff Mando]

Several thought comes to mind....

A few years ago I got a good deal on a used Taylor padded gig bag--you know the one--tan and well-padded. It happened to fit my Gibson 330, so I was happy. After a couple trips, I put the gig bag on eBay. Loved the bag, but didn't love talking "Taylor" at the airport with a bunch of yuppies......."what model do you play?", etc. When I explained I play a Gibson ELECTRIC guitar and I carry it in a bag that happens to say Taylor, they really couldn't comprehend the concept, but still wanted to talk "Taylor' anyway. Just a guess on my part, but I'm thinking Taylor guitars have almost as strong a fanbase as Taylor Swift. Anyway, if you want to travel quietly through airports, just get a plain ol' black gig bag. However, if you are lonely, buy a tan Taylor brand gig bag--even if you don't have the right guitar.....

Second thought: I imagine there must be similar confusion with the fine points between, Euphonium, Baritone Horn, Tuba, French Horn, English horn, Contrabassoon, and Bass Clarinet--at least to the layman.

Like others, I have employed tennis racket bags to house both ukes and mandolins--used ones are available at every Goodwill store for a coupla bucks. I also keep a couple guitar gig bags in the trunk of my car in case I happen upon a guitar at a yard sale or church sale without a case. Good protection until I can get it home.

[k0k0peli]

I'll fool them! When my new instruments arrive next week, I'll restring them -- an 'uke set-up as a 4-string mandolin, and a mando morphed into an 8-string 'uke. Or maybe I'll just play a Cümbüş o'ud in public more often. Nope, it sure ain't a ukulele!

[Bertram Henze]

Last sunday, I heard the most misplaced guess so far (to me): "that's a shawm, right?"
Better yet, the incredulous face when I told him that a shawm is a wind instrument; I blame this on those pseudo-medieval musicians who often use an OM in lieu of a truly medieval lute, that's the way the association is made with any medieval-sounding instrument name.

[Samuel David Britton]

My mandolin has been called a ukulele, banjo, guitar, and a Bass.

[k0k0peli]

Last sunday, I heard the most misplaced guess so far (to me): "that's a shawm, right?"

My mandolin has been called a ukulele, banjo, guitar, and a Bass.

It's not that the rest of humanity are idiots. Rather, folks who don't focus at least a little on the details that interest *US* may seem like unschooled dolts.

Most of the folks I've encountered while hauling cameras around haven't the foggiest notion of distinctions between SLRs, TLRs, RFs, P&S's, folders etc. I'll setup my 9x12cm Conley folder on a tripod and passersby will stop and stare. "Is that a theodolite or something?" No, it ain't.

Just so, many non-musicians (and some musical folks wearing mental blinders) have fuzzy mental images of 'instruments'. I'm there myself when it comes to Latino axes -- I hear 'tres', 'cuatro', 'baja sexto', etc, and my mind's eye only sees a blur of bodies and necks. Or I could put my cuatro-menor in with a batch of mandolas, citterns, bozoukis, etc and not be able to say which was which. Someone with less musical experience might just think that anything big is a guitar and anything small is a 'uke.

It takes cultural immersion. Story is told of a late-19th-century Japanese diplomat newly-arrived in Europe, being taken to an orchestral concert. Symphonies and concerti -- Beethoven, Berlioz, Brahms. Afterwards, the diplomat politely thanked his hosts and asked why they played the same piece of music over and over. Unless you're acculturated, it all sounds the same. And unless you're informed by experience, all those soundboxes with necks look the same.

[journeybear]

Last sunday, I heard the most misplaced guess so far (to me): "that's a shawm, right?"

You missed the chance to say, "Oh no, it's much larger than a shawm. It's a sackbut." Or perhaps a rebec. At least that's a string instrument (albeit bowed).

[Bertram Henze]

...Afterwards, the diplomat politely thanked his hosts and asked why they played the same piece of music over and over.

I have heard people ask the same question at our ITM sessions.

You missed the chance to say, "Oh no, it's much larger than a shawm. It's a sackbut." Or perhaps a rebec. At least that's a string instrument (albeit bowed).

Yes, but leading people into deeper darkness is reserved for my day job as a consultant. Never on sessions.

It's a long time since I have seen the rebec played - in my elementary school days, I played in a small orchestra (one of the teachers was into Rennaissance instruments), and some of the boys played rebecs; I played a Schmalzither (an early yet chromatic relative of the mountain dulcimer, four-square, three-stringed).

[journeybear]

My introduction to Renaissance instruments goes back to high school. A group of five guys in the next class up were serious Tolkein geeks, to the extent of learning the elven language and dressing up in their versions of hobbit garb. (It was the freewheeling late 1960s, and the books were current and very popular, as was letting your freak flag fly.) One of them had a connection to the Yale music collection, and they would occasionally show up with the odd shawm, sackbut, and crumhorn. Crazy stuff. They were really nerdy, but they had this cool if pretty nutty thing going for them. Years later one of them answered my ad for mandolin lessons, and he was my best student - not surprisingly.

[Petrus]

One day perhaps, mankind will crash a mandolin into Mercury ... and people will say, "Hey, did you hear they crashed a ukulele into Mercury?"

[Bertram Henze]

One day perhaps, mankind will crash a mandolin into Mercury ... and people will say, "Hey, did you hear they crashed a ukulele into Mercury?"

No, they'll say it was a hoax staged by Gibson.

[DataNick]

OK,

Had to post this one. I just got back from Pahrump, Nevada where my band, High Mountain Road, played the Acoustic Grass festival.

Yesterday after our first set, our guitar player's girlfriend tells me that people really were excited about us and that the lady behind her was telling her friend on the phone about this "fantastic band who had a black guy playing the electric ukulele!"

She said that the lady was so excited she didn't have the nerve to correct her. Electric Ukulele, are you kidding me? And I was playing "miked", no pickup! Brother!

[Petrus]

She said that the lady was so excited she didn't have the nerve to correct her. Electric Ukulele, are you kidding me? And I was playing "miked", no pickup! Brother!

To be fair, was she standing really far back in the audience? (Or was it not that big of a room ... )

[DataNick]

To be fair, was she standing really far back in the audience? (Or was it not that big of a room ... )

The stage/audience area was "small" by most festival standards. The "riser" type bleacher seats were situated maybe 40-50 ft from the stage conservatively speaking (could have been even closer). It was close enough where you had to be careful about eyeballing the good looking women.

[journeybear]

The thing is, F-style mandolins look sort of futuristic, it's easy for those unfamiliar with them to assume they're electric, maybe even nuclear-powered.

[Bertram Henze]

F-style mandolins and Gibson Les Paul guitars are stylistically close - maybe close enough to make people think that any stringed instrument with that look is electric (Les Paul shape => electric, little guitar shape => uke, the combined conclusion is kind of logical).

[biosplonk]

(Les Paul shape => electric, little guitar shape => uke, the combined conclusion is kind of logical).

Um... maybe. I think this might be a bit of a stretch. But then again, I lack any other more plausible explanation. People see what they want to see I suppose. But what are they hearing?

After having read through the thread again a a bit I feel like those folks who get mistaken as having "little guitars" makes the most sense, because to me that just says that the person's only real exposure to stringed instruments is with arguably the most common type and they just assume they're all like that. I am more surprised by the folks that identify it as a maybe more obscure stringed instrument. Is it that Ukes are just a lot more common than I realized? I had just sort of assumed that mandolins were at least as common in the wild as ukes are but I may have a bit of a bias.

[Bertram Henze]

...But what are they hearing?

I guess most hear some rhythmic sound, some might even hear music, but those who can actually distinguish single instruments are few and far between. The human brain is wired to associate what it hears with what it sees at the same time (and within the same timing) and to assume that what it sees must be producing the sound.

A somewhat pathetic example is this video from german TV during the 1970s - note that you see a drum set and a resonator guitar, but you hear mainly a synthesizer carrying the melody, with some drums and guitar in the background, the whole charade called Dan the Banjo Man, with no banjo in sight. I dimly remember it was in the charts for months...

[mmukav]

I play a Godin A8 in my Celtic band. Since it looks like a small guitar I get all kinds of questions!

[biosplonk]

Yes! I've looked at the Godin before as my band plays plugged in. I would have to make a whole new shirt for that :-)

[Purdy Bear]

As a relative novice to both the Ukulele and the Mandolin, I would have said is it a guitar. Until recently the only Ukulele I knew about was actually a banjo. I've educated myself some what about the Ukulele, as I now play one (1 month 1 week in), and begun to do the same with the Mandolin (3 days).

I never knew there were different styles of Mandolin, like the A and F shapes, nor the Folk/bluegrass types. I thought all bowl backs were lutes, but from the research I've done so far, I think they are in the same family, coming from the Oud.

I'm still trying to sort out where the whole Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele fit into a family tree.

The thing that still confuses me is how something that is a 4 string, tuned like a Ukulele can still be a bass guitar. Please just be patient with us public, its probably the first time someone has seen the instrument let alone know what it is!

[k0k0peli]

As a relative novice to both the Ukulele and the Mandolin, I would have said is it a guitar. Until recently the only Ukulele I knew about was actually a banjo. I've educated myself some what about the Ukulele, as I now play one (1 month 1 week in), and begun to do the same with the Mandolin (3 days).

I never knew there were different styles of Mandolin, like the A and F shapes, nor the Folk/bluegrass types. I thought all bowl backs were lutes, but from the research I've done so far, I think they are in the same family, coming from the Oud.

I'm still trying to sort out where the whole Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele fit into a family tree.

The thing that still confuses me is how something that is a 4 string, tuned like a Ukulele can still be a bass guitar. Please just be patient with us public, its probably the first time someone has seen the instrument let alone know what it is!

Yeah, the whole thing about the evolution of o'uds/lutes into guitar-like-objects and more is pretty baroque. 'Ukes are younger members of the family and haven't had time to evolve as many different configurations as vihuelas, cuatros, charangos, dobros, etc. (Mandos are sort of like fretted viols and have their own distinct history and more consistent structures.) 'Guitars' may range from 1 to 24 or more strings, be hollow or solid or resonating, be long-necked or neckless (like lap steels) or multi-necked, play in any range from sub- to super-sonic, and may even be imaginary ('air guitar'). Lute taxonomy evades me. That makes it hard to collect the entire set.

[David L]

My introduction to Renaissance instruments goes back to high school. A group of five guys in the next class up were serious Tolkein geeks, to the extent of learning the elven language and dressing up in their versions of hobbit garb. (It was the freewheeling late 1960s, and the books were current and very popular, as was letting your freak flag fly.) One of them had a connection to the Yale music collection, and they would occasionally show up with the odd shawm, sackbut, and crumhorn. Crazy stuff. They were really nerdy, but they had this cool if pretty nutty thing going for them. Years later one of them answered my ad for mandolin lessons, and he was my best student - not surprisingly.

(Nerd alert) The books were written in the 1940's, so weren't really "current" in the 1960's.