Banjolele

When Surly came down on Saturday he brought a ukulele that he had purchased. It's a fairly large one. Since I know next to nothing about stringed instruments in general and ukuleles in particular, I didn't realize that there were soprano, tenor, concert, bass and who knows what else ukes, including banjo ukuleles or banjoleles as they are also called. He mentioned the name Roy Smeck who I had never heard of. That's him in the video. Wizard of the Strings they called him. Boy Howdy! That boy could play.

Surly is going to be farting around with his new uke and maybe attempting a cigar box transplant on the one the boys made in the wood shop. Since hearing about the banjo ukulele, I'm thinking that's what I should try for my next musical instrument build. Looks like it would be pretty easy to build one and the cost would be reasonable. Seems to be plenty of information on websites and YouTube about building and playing them.

Here's a store bought one, and a rather expensive one at that, but a small hand drum, a neck, tuners, bridge, tailpiece, and strings could easily be put together for less than a "C" note. I checked out the prices online for 8" hand drums and there are some cheap tune-able head ones available. Looks like it doesn't take much to stick the neck on it. It'll be just the thing when I decide to lay down the tools and sit on the porch in a few years.