Makers, by definition, love leaving the beaten path. When the ukulele craze took off 20 years ago, I wanted to be a part of it -- but I also wanted to blaze my own trail. Two years ago, when I spotted a YouTube video showing an “octave ukulele,” my pulse quickened. In a moment, I realized, “This is the instrument for me.”
What is an octave uke? It’s a baritone uke, with octave strings. You cannot buy an octave uke in stores yet. To create an octave uke, you buy octave strings from these nice people in Oregon, and then put these strings on any baritone uke. I’m particularly fond of the $99 Makala MK-B baritone uke, but I also adore my Caramel electro-acoustic baritone uke, which sells for $149 new.
The result you get is an instrument with the low, resonating tones of a viola. I adore playing my octave uke. Every morning, I jump out of bed to grab it. Just holding it in my hands makes me automatically happy.
What is the big appeal, you might wonder? The appeal is that four strings give you so much room to explore within a fixed space. I’m a longtime guitar player (50 years), but I long ago stopped exploring my guitar - even though I have an explorer’s temperament.
On my octave uke, I explore playing in different tunings - standard uke tuning of GCEA and a bass guitar tuning of EADG. I invent my own tunings too. You can see some of my octave uke explorations on these two web sites.
(The Cool Tools web site is an online continuation of the Whole Earth Catalog, from the 1960’s and 1970’s.)
While music making is my hobby, not my profession, earlier this year I was hired to play music at the Crossroads Farmer’s Market, in Takoma Park, Maryland. I trot out both my guitar and my octave uke at these performances. I sometimes show passersby, both kids and adults, how they can play the octave uke, too.
For me, my octave uke is so much a cherished creative tool that I brought it along with me to my liver transplant last year. When I woke up from anesthesia, I asked one of the nurses, “Hand me my ukulele, please.” Cradling my uke in my hands, I was in my happy place. Having a working, replacement liver was a nice bonus.
I have a bumper sticker on my car that says, "I Love Weird Instruments." As a maker, I love picking up an instrument and taking it to a musical place that nobody on this planet has ever visited. To be a maker is to be a restless explorer and to relish each and every discovery you make. If you're an existing guitar player, you're going to love the octave uke. And if you're fishing for a relatively easy new instrument to learn, I can think of no better instrument than the octave uke.
Phil Shapiro, Public Geek
Takoma Park Maryland Library
Incidentally, I trace the beginnings of my ukulele journey to this YouTube playalong video I made in July, 2022. When I made this video, it occurred to me that I might be using the uke in a way that nobody else was using it. On that day, I started wondering, "What other wonderful things can this instrument do?"
Although I'm not fond of bragging, I am rather proud that instrumental music I composed is played on WAMU, the NPR station for the Washington DC-area.