Sunday, September 20, 2009

Craig's Don't Touch!

I started taking ukulele lessons. Just because. Unfortunately, I have wide fingertips, which means I'm having the same issue on the uke as I was with the guitar -- dead strings. So I kludged up a solution!

I bought a baritone uke (it's *biiig*), and strung it up with tenor strings (since baritones have a different tuning). Now my fingers aren't covering more strings than they're supposed to be!

New instruments are a bear to keep in tune. I imagine my kludge-y stringing is even more so. So it's nice and satisfying when I can light up my tuner all green with perfectly tuned strings. But it's super-sensitive. Once you get it in tune, you don't want to touch those pegs. Example demonstrated here.

2 comments:

Michael said...

Cool! I thought about shooting a picture of my 65 Fender Jaguar, but the truth is, I let people touch it.

Hands that big, you should consider the Bass! My step-son has the opposite problem. He is about 150lbs wet, and plays an upright bass. He does have long fingers.

Where can I get one of those tuners?

Stace said...

I've thought about playing bass, but I'd like something I can play unaccompanied.

As for where you can get it, I've no idea. I bought it at the music shop (Different Strummer) at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. :) It's very nice - has chromatic tuner, presets for guitar, bass, violin, ukulele (C and D). Also uses a mic or clip (which uses the vibration of the instrument).