A, D, F#, B.
I woke up the other night at 3:33 a. m. tuning a ukulele!
What a thing to dream about! And, I realize, too, I will have to explain to some younger readers, in particular, exactly what a ukulele was and continues to be. It is musical instrument mentioned often in crossword
puzzles as a three-letter word - something akin to a guitar.
That we know, but it was not electrically amplified. It was strictly acoustic, as we now say, and the usual effect was to provide a soft, strumming accompaniment of chords to back up a singing voice. It is most
often associated with music in the Hawaiian tradition and Island groups are about the only places you can see and hear them anymore.
There were two generally accepted ways of tuning up the four-stringed instrument and the one I preferred from about age six or seven was one which was tuned by paraphrasing sing-song words: “My dog has
fleas!” You could start with any note you thought to be approximate as an “A” on the scale and sing: “My(A) /Dog(D)/ Has(F#)/ Fleas(G)!” You twisted the pegs at the top of the neck and did your best to match those heavenly
sounding tones you were uttering so well and to duplicate the sound on the gut strings - top to bottom - and you were prepared to take on all comers. The other method of tuning was “G,C,A,E” and both tunings depended on how
accurately you sounded the first note. If you had a piano to which the first tone could be likened, you were fortunate, indeed, but if you had a good piano available, who would be playing a uke anyway?
Those turnings fit time eras, it appears. The A,D,F#,B version was higher and the other one tuning just one step lower. The change can be seen in the configurations ofchord symbols printed on sheet music. They
seem to equate with our national change to lower register in popular music... from the likes of the Rudy Valee, Ted Lewis tenor types to the Russ Columbo, Bing Crosby baritone bunch.
Time and place were critical to uke playing. It was, and still is, difficult to take a piano along on a hike or camping trip, and here it was that the ukulele helped out great deal. It was compact in size and very easy to play.
Guitars came along later, oddly enough. Somewhat larger Tenor Guitars took over for a time among the pros. “Tenor Guitars” were ukes with thyroid problems. The strumming ukulele could be heard over the waters of the moonlit,
always s placid waters of the lake from some distant canoe, or from the porch of a cabin in the fringe of trees along the shore. It was a very romantic instrument and, with a good singing voice, it was a good means of expressing
romantic emotions. At time, you didn’t realize it was there. Some singers were said to sing “over” the uke - the robust-toned, lusty-lyric ones - while other sang “under” the strumming accompaniment. One might sing ”On the Road
the Mandalay” while the other chose “Pagan Love Song”.
You might find a stray ukulele (also spelled “ukelele”, by the way) in your attic
or the catch-all “Plunder Room” such as my grandmother used to keep upstairs in a back bedroom. Today, now that I think of it, you might try that large room with overhead doors... the big doors leading to the driveway where you
keep your car! It’s
called a “garage.”
Everyone should know how to tune a ukulele. Then, there’s a good chance you would understand what is going through the alleged mind of us oldsters should you overhear us singing out softly in our sleep:
“My...dog...has...fleas!”
A.L.M. August 10, 2002 [c632wds]
