anyone play the ukulele?

[paul1966]

my eldest daughter (aged 7 ) has started playing the ukulele at school, we bought her one for Christmas last year but she does not play it much, to give her some encouragement i am thinking of getting one too so we can learn together, looking on amazon there are loads of different ones with varying prices between £15 and £40. Are the martin smith ones any good? seem to have good reviews. any recommendations? or would it be better for her to learn the guitar?

[washerboy]

A guy on radio 2 last year said buy a good old second hand one instead of a new model.

Better sound

[CaptainBeaky]

Mahalo are quite good for the price - there are forums dedicated to the ukulele, so you may find a more informed opinion on there.

That said, you generally get what you pay for. The proper uke tuning pegs are a PITA - modern geared tuners are much easier to use and keep in tune.

Expect to have to tune it every day!

[paul1966]

looking at a Makala mk-s on amazon, seems to have good reviews on amazon and only £40. will buy a decent set of strings too should i buy it

it does have geared tuners too.

Edited September 23, 2017 by paul1966

[Stonepark]

Donner Soprano ones get a decent rep for beginners, I have a mandolin but class after me was on ukes but with same teacher and that's what he recommended to start with as if it was bashed or you gave up, not a lot tied up in it.

[smokinggun]

I play a little and also work at a school that uses them in music lessons and would say the octopus ukulele they use here are a good beginner ukulele for sound and playability and price as they bought 30 in brown and all were set up correctly and came fitted with aquila strings as standard and after tuning with a cheap clip on tuner produced a great sound but they may have payed for the set up im not sure so don't count on getting one set up. They also had a couple of dolphin ukuleles and they were set up horribly sounded and looked terrible and had cheap strings the same as the tanglewood ukulele I first bought.

I use a lanikai lu21 I bought locally second-hand as the previous owner had it set up correctly at the music shop they bought it from.

My best advice would be to go to a music shop that sells a lot of ukuleles and get them to set it up for your daughter to make sure the strings are set at the correct height and decent quality and it sounds good. Otherwise if you have to buy online but from a uke shop that will set it up at extra cost before sending. It is worth it as otherwise it'll just put your daughter off as it'll never sound nice and will be hard to play.

[KFC]

I play in a Ukulele band, Rocking Ukuleles of St Ives, and I have several ukes. My go to uke is an Ohana TK 20CE.

 

I recommend the Makala Dolphin for beginners because they play well out of the box but can be easily set up to improve tone and playability. They cost about £30 and there's plenty of vids on Youtube to show how to set one up if you want to but they play ok any way.

 

Some of the £15 ones can be impossible to tune.

 

Be aware that all Uke strings take time to stretch in, sometimes 6 to 8 weeks so may need a lot of retuning but, after that, they hold tune and the tone improves. Because of this it is wise to buy a clip-on tuner.

 

I can recommend Southern Ukulele Store or Red Cow Music.

 

Also, check the web for a Ukulele club there's hundreds of them about these days and most towns have one.

Edited September 24, 2017 by KFC

[paul1966]

thanks for all the replies, i have ordered a Makala mk-s off amazon along with a set of aquila strings and a clip on tuner, i think depending on how keen my daughter is on playing i may need to buy her a better uke as hers is only a cheap version. i plan on looking on utube for some basic lessons and see how we get on.