Your First Ukulele

If you play ukulele (and I'm assuming if you're reading this, you do), you had a first instrument. Maybe it was a good ukulele, more likely it wasn't. Perhaps you sold it off, or maybe you still enjoy playing it.

Here's the latest installment of our round-robin blog project; this time, we're focused on our first ukuleles, what kind they were, and what we've learned and how we might approach the uke differently since we first started playing.

And while we're on the subject, here's a photo of what my first ukulele looked like, a K. Yasuma ukulele from Japan. It was a great sounding instrument, and I've read in a few places that Yasuma was sued by Martin for copying their designs and brand pretty much exactly. I don't know if this is true or not, but I'd also read that Yasuma lost the suit and was ordered to stop making and selling these instruments (guitars and tiples as well as ukes), and that many of the instruments were destroyed. Either way, you can't find Yasumas nowadays, which is too bad. It was a great ukulele~!