Japanese like the ukulele

On Tue, 23 Sep 2003, Dan Birchall wrote:

>
> aet@lava.net (Alvin E. Toda) wrote:
> > On Mon, 22 Sep 2003, Keith Marzullo wrote:
> > > kawika hurd makes beautiful ukes. so does dennis
> > > lake of south point (po mahina) and john kitakis
> > > of kaneoe (ko`olau). of the three, i think that
> > > dennis has the best uke per dollar.
>
> *chuckle* Kawika and Dennis have both offered advice
> to me recently as I'm going to be attempting to
> repair/restore a stringed instrument (non-uke). In
> addition to making great instruments, they're very
> nice people with a lot of aloha spirit.
>
> (Another guy I haven't met YET over here is the
> fellow in Kurtistown who makes Pegasus Guitars. I
> think he might do some ukes too, but I'm not
> certain.) -Dan

Looks like the craft of ukulele making is being
somewhat revived. There's been some news articles about
Kamaka, and the guys in Harry's music shop in Kaimuki.
Sort of thought of it as a dying art.

Certainly, it seemed kind of expensive when a couple of
years ago, I had a Kamaka reglued at the factory
downtown. I didn't think there were many left who could
do the repair. The repair cost just as much as about
the original cost of the old instrument. I like the new
strings and the knobs they also put in. Now the
instrument can keep it's tuning for a long time.

--alvin

"Alvin E. Toda" <aet@lava.net> wrote in message news:<1064464516-sch@news.lava.net>...
> Looks like the craft of ukulele making is being
> somewhat revived. There's been some news articles about
> Kamaka, and the guys in Harry's music shop in Kaimuki.
> Sort of thought of it as a dying art.

it's been growing for some time now, perhaps as part of the growth in
general in acoustic guitars. they aren't cheap. there are some good
inexpensive ukes too, like mele, lehua and lanikai.

>
> Certainly, it seemed kind of expensive when a couple of
> years ago, I had a Kamaka reglued at the factory
> downtown. I didn't think there were many left who could
> do the repair. The repair cost just as much as about
> the original cost of the old instrument. I like the new
> strings and the knobs they also put in. Now the
> instrument can keep it's tuning for a long time.

yeah. of course, it wasn't that long ago that you could get ice cream
cone for a quarter. what kind of kamaka do you have?

keith