ukulele

Smile please Stirling High pupils in selfie with the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

Acclaimed artists from Cardiff such as Super Furry Animals collaborator Pete Fowler and graffiti artist Lloyd Roberts have created unique ukuleles to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Community Music Wales and raise funds as part of the Pimp My Uke challenge.

"While I agree as to its Hawaiian roots," I tell him, "I've heard that the last Hawaiian monarch, Queen Lili'uokalani, claim that 'ukulele' means 'the gift that came here', 'uku' being 'gift' and 'lele' meaning 'to come'.

The venue, on Station Road, has picturesque views out over the Dee Estuary towards Wales and holds weekly acoustic sessions, often featuring ukulele performances.

Mr Croft, who lives in Llanyblodwel, Shropshire, is a ukulele expert and owns two George Formby banjos himself.

The ukulele is a little four-string guitar with Portuguese roots, made popular years ago by Hawaiian Island tunes and Elvis Presley.

There will be a host of stalls and ukulele workshops.

An active Facebook page contains posts with additional how-to videos, and while they are not extremely polished--instead being similar to what you might find on YouTube--you get to watch a ukulele pro teaching a beginner, which is a unique angle that helps address questions that naturally occur during the learning process.

"She said, 'What are you going to do for New Year - you should do a song every day on your ukulele and put it online.' "I thought to myself - "Yeah that sounds like a lot of hassle" - but I thought I'd give it a go.

The Ukulele Club is free, but donations are accepted and go to support local school arts and music programs.

And now Hawaii is considering a bill that would make the humble ukulele the official state musical instrument.

THE MARTIN UKULELE: THE LITTLE INSTRUMENT THAT HELPED CREATE A GUITAR GIANT provides an in-depth history of the Martin guitars built by the C.F.

John King (author), Jim Tranquada (author); THE 'UKULELE; University of Hawaii Press (Nonfiction: Music) 20.99 ISBN: 9780824835446

Travel Business Review-March 12, 2012--Four Seasons Resorts Lanai Announces Second Annual Lanai Ukulele Festival(C)2012] ENPublishing - http://www.enpublishing.co.uk

It went on to claim the MP would release a number showing off his skills on the ukulele. But some journalists failed to spot that it was a spoof despite the inclusion of a quote from "Kris Kringle, of Ukulele Maestro Magazine".