What a lot of noise – literal and figurative – from such a tiny instrument! Within the pages of MMR and elsewhere throughout the MI industry, one of the hot topics for the past decade-plus has been the humble ukulele. Affordably priced and tiny, with a manageable learning curve for beginning players, ukes have been singled out by many retailers as a golden ticket, especially in unstable economic times.
According to NAMM, ukulele sales nationwide went from a very respectable 581,000 in 2010 to over one million in 2012. That’s some crazy market expansion right there. And there’s no proof (yet) that the growth is slowing. As Gary Traversy of Portsmouth, N.H.’s Gary’s Guitars says in this month’s dealer survey on the state of the ukulele market (pg. 32), “I thought the uke craze had peaked about a year ago, but my sales are up 50 percent since then!”
In a recent CNN feature on the ukulele (“The Booming Business of Ukuleles”, January 17, 2014) Musical Innovations’ Tracy Leenman (occasional MMR and SBO contributor) is quoted as saying of the uke, “In terms of getting people in the door and getting involved in music [who] haven’t been involved in music before, I’d say it’s the most effective tool we have.”
I reached out to Leenman while writing this editorial and she added, “We have elementary schools getting grants for whole classroom sets! And seniors love the ukulele as an accessible (key word) way to learn to play music.”
A relatively inexpensive instrument that is helping sustain MI retailers and which connects with young and old? The “most effective tool we have”? Pretty heady stuff.
So what’s the downside? Is there downside?
Well, if you believe that all good things must come to an end (just talk to any of the accordion dealers who could do no wrong in the ‘50s for more on that maxim), then this “ukulele craze,” and all good that’s come with it, has to end at some point.
But how will “the little four-string that could” be taken down?
I rarely venture to prognosticate, but I’ve stared into the face of she who will be the uke’s demise and her name is… Zooey Deschanel.
Let me clarify. First off, It’s not just Deschanel or only her. I just see the association of our diminutive fretted friend with perhaps the principal contemporary personification of all that is overly twee, cutesy, self-consciously ironic, and hipster – Zooey, who plays the uke a lot, in case you didn’t know (in addition to being an actress, she’s also a musician) – to be an ominous sign for the future.
Secondly, I’m not being entirely serious about any of the above.
But as for the first (mostly joking) point, why is it a bad thing to be associated with the Brooklynite, bearded (not Deschanel. So far as I know), skinny-jeaned, bespectacled set? It has nothing to do with any qualitative judgments of that scene or its practitioners – the “problem” is: those scenes fade. How many 14 year-old boys do you see nowadays dressing like malnourished loggers, in the grunge-era uniform of baggy flannel and ripped jeans?
Exactly.
So, part of me predicts – not hopes for, mind you – a relatively abrupt end to the seemingly still-going-strong uke phenomenon at some point. Quite frankly, I’m surprised Eddie Vedder’s Ukulele Songs album didn’t kill it, outright, a few years ago. The next sub-generation of young adults will eventually come along, decide that growing beards and wearing non-prescription glasses is silly, and that painfully skinny jeans on dudes are, well… painful, and they’ll move on, leaving the ukulele to await the next cultural upheaval to make it relevant to a large swath of the populace once again.
And when that day of reckoning for the ukulele comes, let’s hope another “most effective tool” will already be in the wings to help prop up our industry’s dealers. Ride this wave while it lasts, folks, but start preparing!
Or, maybe I’m just being a jerk.
Elementary school kids and seniors are not, after all, typically classified as “hipsters.” Plus, I have it on good authority that plenty of “regular people” of all stripes buy, play, and enjoy ukuleles without a trace of overt cuteness or irony.
As Leenman says, “I know no one who thinks the uke is too cute!”
Fair enough. Time will tell.
