Ukulele

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The ʻukulele (often ukulele outside Hawaiian English—pronounced /ʔukulele/, or the Anglicised /ˌjukəˈleɪli/), or uke, is a fretted string instrument which is, in its construction, essentially a smaller, four-stringed version of the guitar. In the early 20th century, the instrument's name was often rendered as "ukelele", a spelling still used in Great Britain.

History

It is commonly associated with music from Hawaiʻi where the name roughly translates as "jumping flea" and was developed there in the 1880s as a combination of the Madeiran Portuguese braguinha and rajão. A braguinha is a cavaquinho-like instrument built in the city of Braga and named after it; the Brazilian cavaquinho is usually tuned in D-G-B-D, a G-major chord. The Madeiran rajão is tuned D-G-C-E-A, in other words. the D and G strings are both re-entrant, i.e., tuned an octave higher than expected in the normal low-to high course of strings. The GCEA strings of the rajão are the source of the re-entrant tuning of the modern ʻukulele.

In 1879 the three men generally credited as the first ʻukulele makers arrived from Portugal in Hawaiʻi, sailing into Honolulu on the ship Ravenscrag. These were Manuel Nunes, José do Espírito Santo, and Augusto Dias. One of these, Manuel Nunes, was the neighbor of famous ʻukulele player Bill Tapia. He sold Bill his first instrument for $0.75 many years later in 1915.

The ʻukulele comes in four sizes, (from smallest to largest): soprano (the original size), concert, tenor (created in the 1920s), and baritone (created in the late 1940s). On a tenor instrument, the strings may be doubled : six strings (where first and third strings are doubled) or eight strings (where all fourth strings are doubled with second and fourth course). In traditional Hawaiian tuning, first and third courses are tuned in an octave.

In the United States, soprano and concert ukes are usually tuned in the chord of C6: G-C-E-A from low to high, with the G-string traditionally tuned an octave up (re-entrant), so it is pitched between the E- and A-strings. In the past, it was not uncommon for the soprano to be tuned a whole step higher in the chord of D6: A-D-F#-B, with the lowest note being D (the A is a whole step below the B). This tuning was very popular in vaudeville in the days before amplification. The tension and tone are a little brighter and louder. This tuning is still used today by some known personalities in ʻukulele circles.

Read more at Wikipedia.org