Read more in Music at Boing Boing

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

MORE: music

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

Splendor

KATIEMOO beat me to it.
TroofSeeker

Ukeleles are, in general, kind of a cheap crap toy instrument.
That said, that was the best sounding uke I’ve ever heard, and the best playing I’ve ever heard. Hands down.
Brittni, I hope you make a fine living doing that.
SpittleBug

Regarding male uke players:

My favorite uke player is Oliver Brown (originally from Santa Cruz, CA, now out of NY). He does fantastic original pop songs. One of the coolest is “Kangaroo”, which uses a typewriter for percussion.

If you haven’t heard him:
http://www.myspace.com/oliverbrown
SamSam

Rs Cgtns: Wll pt. Ths ws n lvl rthr bv mst f th thr k psts. Th mscn hs sm ctl sklls, s ppsd t th skll f lkng lk sknny 20-smthng hpstr cln gzng sdctvly nt Mrk’s ys nd rmblng bt nthng.
jmzrbnsn

sorry — long past the point where ukulele cover versions are clever — we have a whole ‘orchestra’ doing them here in NZ — yawn!
lysdexia

You might as well quit posting them, Mark. My wife has pretty much made it clear she’ll never play “Over The Rainbow” for me wearing nothing but a thin coating of poi. I appreciate the effort. I’ll keep posting the faked-up nude renders of Clara Rockmore doing “The Swan” on my site. Hope you have better luck.
Mark Frauenfelder

Hi Jmzrbnsn! As I’ve pointed out before, every time someone complains about my ukulele posts, I will runs four additional weekly posts. Thanks for the encouragement!
TroofSeeker

Something I’ve wanted for years now is a musical saw. They have such a haunting, eerie sound. I’ve never seen one for sale. Maybe I gotta go to Arkansas to get one.
Bloo

Mark, hope you run one from the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain soon. “Theme from Shaft” would be my pick, but they have many awesome (and humorous) covers.
yri

Yay! Four more weekly ukulele posts!

IMO, it’s not about whether it’s clever or not, it’s just about it being delightful. And a well-played ukulele is =always= delightful. :-)

What I want to know is, is the uke actually tuned in some slack-key fashion?
gin0

I’ve never seen a uke rocked like that before…

Hm…my eyes have been opened.
kiddr01

i swear it’s like an episode of doctor who – they’re planning world domination!

… just so we’re clear. I don’t actually want mark to stop posting these. Seeing things i don’t like on boing boing is as much fun as seeing the things i do!
technogeek

Hey, uke is as good a theme for musical posts as any other. If it were me it’d be squeezeboxes. (I’ve played both PA and Anglo Concertina, but I’m much too far out of practice to even aspisre to this level of musicianship.)

And that’s the point, isn’t it. Musicianship trumps instrument. Someone who can play a uke well will run circles around the typical chords-only folk guitarist (never mind the typical volume-only rock guitarist). Sure, you can do that kind of picking on guitar, or banjo … and there’s probably someone out there who can maintain that kind of speed on harp… but it’s nice to see and hear no matter what instrument it’s done on.

A good uke is a good instrument. A good uke player is a good instrumentalist. You can substitute “uke” with most of the other instruments people affect to look down upon and it remains true, which again is sorta the point of the illustration.

Uke’s problem, like piano accordion’s, is that there was a brief period where it was too popular for its own good — it was overmarketed, crashed, and the folks who remember that period still tell middling-rude jokes about it. Unfortunately there are a lot of folks who picked up the jokes and the affected attitude without any understanding of what was behind them… and as a result we had a period where certain instruments were almost taboo. Now they’re being rediscovered, without the hype and with a fairer understanding of both their strengths and weaknesses… and our aural palette is becoming that much richer as a result. This is a Good Thing.
David Newland

Technogeek, bless your heart.
jmzrbnsn

Pow, Thwack – jmzrbnsn goes down…
Anonymous

That was brilliant!
Res Cogitans

I must admit that I clicked with trepidation. Though I wouldn’t be as harsh as Jmzrbnsn, I’ve pretty much had my fill of cute but airheady teenagers rambling incoherently into a webcam for 5 minutes before strumming a $10 uke and singing some off-key rendition of some forgettable song. The name “Brittni” does little to head off such fears.
This lass rocks though. Decent instrument, great musicianship. A tad repetitive, but other than that, awesome!
katiemoo

I like your ukulele posts, Mark, but aren’t there any men who play ukuleles, or is it just adorable young ladies you’re into?
edgeways

Ukuleles can be very expensive and well made, some people think of them as toys because they are small and for some occupy a kitsch market, once you get beyond that… well Ukes can be as pricey as full blown guitars.
aleska

Mark – big fan (both BB and Make)…just received my print sub of Make, vol 17. Whoo hoo!

Please don’t post any more ukulele videos, UNLESS the artist is playing a Steampunk’d ukulele.

Best regards!
SamSam

Hmmm… I guess my comment got disemvoweled because it included the line “gazing seductively into Mark’s eyes.” Besides that, it seemed almost identical to the comment I was quoting. Some thin skin there…
zuludaddy

Am I mistaken in thinking the tune might be mislabeled?

I seen to recognize “Turkey in the Straw”…