The humble ukulele is the Rubik's Cube of instruments. Using only four strings, four fingers, and the first four frets, it can provide a dizzying variety of chords, melodies and accompaniment patterns.

Already one of the world's most popular instruments, its popularity is growing once again in a resurgence of personal music making. It is essentially a small guitar, but with its own distinct historical and social aura.

Educationalists in many countries¹ are beginning to favour the ukulele as a primary-school classroom instrument. Advantages include:

• Its small size: good for carrying, for storing, for sturdiness, and for ease of playing
• Its supreme sympathy as an accompaniment to singing
• The grasp of harmony that it fosters
• The fact that cheap ukuleles can function perfectly, play and stay in tune, and sound lovely²

Origins

The name 'ukulele' covers a group of small guitar-shaped instruments, among a huge variety of other small guitar-type instruments in use around the world. The history of the ukulele goes back to the earliest necked string instruments, in the mists of antiquity, but the history of the name is rather more easy to pin down.

Like the present ukulele, the European 16th-century guitar had four courses (pairs of strings in the old instrument, single strings now) and re-entrant tuning, that is, the strings not tuned in order from bass to treble³. Explorers brought such instruments around the world, and they took root in various colonies and cultures. Most famously, and quite late, the invasion reached Hawaii.

The Ravenscrag

On August 23, 1879, a ship called the Ravenscrag arrived in Hawaii from Madeira. On board were three cabinet makers, José do Espirito Santo, Manuel Nunes and Augusto Dias. They eventually set themselves up in Honolulu as makers of guitars and of a small Madeiran guitar called the machete⁴. The machete was also known by the names braguinha and cavaquinho; there is however room for confusion, as some writers distinguish these instruments from one another, and others allow more latitude in their definitions. Some sources describe the ukulele as taking the size and form of the braguinha, with its tuning derived from the five-course rajão. Others say the cavaquinho is the grandfather of the ukulele, and that it went from Portugal to Madeira in 1854 to become the braguinha, and thence to Hawaii to become the ukulele⁵.

The Hawaiians took quickly to the machete, as first played by another Ravenscrag immigrant, João Fernandes. By 1886 it had been given the name 'taro patch fiddle', though that name is now applied to a double-strung instrument⁶. By the 1890s the name ukulele⁷ was in common use, though its original meaning is not unambiguously clear: Queen Lili'uokalani translated it as 'gift from afar', the word 'uku' meaning 'gift or reward' and 'lele' meaning 'to come' as well as 'to jump'; 'uku' also means 'small', while 'uke' means 'to strike'. There is also an unclear connection with the fidgety personality of Edward Purvis, an English player who became assistant chamberlain to King Kalakaua, the guitar- and ukulele-playing king of Hawaii; it would appear that Purvis was given the nickname 'ukulele' with the meaning of 'jumping flea'⁸.

The conquest of the United States

The ukulele very soon began appearing in the United States, first documented in the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Over the following decades it was heard in world's fairs in San Francisco, Omaha, Buffalo, Portland, and Seattle. Fine instruments were already being made in the USA by 1910, but it was the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco that really confirmed the US's addiction to the ukulele, which continued to rage through the twenties, thirties and forties.

At that time the commonest tuning was A-D-F#-B, with the alternative Bb-Eb-G-C. The first tuning is suitable for songs in sharp keys (G, D, A, E and so on) and the second (obtained by tuning each string one step higher) for flat keys (F, Bb, Eb, Ab and so on)⁹. Many songs of the twenties, thirties and forties were published with ukulele chord symbols above the piano/vocal score.

Current sizes and tunings

The usual tuning now is G-C-E-A, for most sizes of ukulele¹⁰. There are pocket ukes and even folding ukes, but the smallest in general use is the soprano, with a scale length¹¹ of thirteen inches; this is nearest to the original Hawaiian ukes. Slightly larger (fifteen inches) is the concert uke, then the tenor (seventeen inches), and biggest is the baritone (nineteen inches). Surprisingly, the tenor, concert and soprano are often tuned exactly the same, though with a wound fourth string the tenor sometimes has a low G (non-re-entrant tuning). The baritone is tuned to the same notes as the top four strings of a guitar: D-G-B-E¹².

Ukulele strings, originally gut or wire, are now made from nylon, nylgut, or fluorocarbon¹³. Some players like black strings, others say that the dye does nothing for the sound.

Also found in today's ukulele bands¹⁴ is an instrument which is not really a ukulele at all, but a bass guitar built on a baritone uke body: the u-bass¹⁵. This is made possible by the development of fat strings made of polyurethane or similar material; it requires amplification.

The shape of the ukulele admits variety, with cutaways and ovals (called 'pineapples') turning up, as well as home-made cigar-box ukes. More radical is the use of a banjo body (essentially a drum head), giving the ukulele-banjo, banjo ukulele, or banjulele. There are also metal resonator and solid-body electric ukes in use.

Don't knock the plastic uke

The ingenious instrument maker Mario Maccaferri developed a plastic guitar in the 1950s which, though acoustically successful, never caught on; he recouped his large investment however by selling plastic ukuleles. Originally very cheap, plastic Maccaferris now command good prices—although greatly exceeded by the holy grail of ukulele collectors, 1916-1940 Martin ukuleles made from mahogany or koa¹⁶.