Jumping right in with my first post! LOL It's a doosey! So ...
I went to a picking party yesterday evening and brought along a piece of Aloha aquired on vacation, a Kanile'a K-1CSF. I've been playing guitar and other string-family stuff most of my life, but the uke is a brand new instrument to me, and I'm finding it a joy in every way.
I personally come from the Left-Coast Hardly-Strictly-Strawberry-School-of-Bluegrass. But this is Asheville, NC so even an open-minded jam will have traditional Bluegrass leanings. Last night was full of excellent musicians from a wide range of styles; various guitars, good singers all around, accordion, harmonica, percussion, carinet, onto which I added ukulele (with some trepidation). Bluegrass Rules framed our jam, but this was a social porch event, very inclusive.
It's always best to jam with better players than yourself; last night was an opportunity to hone my barely-existent uke skills, things like playing outside the key of C! Someone here at UU gave general-newbie-advice to the effect of: use your pointer-finger for barres and not much else; without that tip I would have faltered. Applying it, I was able to move into most any key I needed and even explore simple melodies and double stops.
Retuning to Topic of Bluegrass-Uke: Bluegrass wants certain instruments to do certain things at certain times. The important part of those rules is how everyone supports each other to create a common, driving rhythm. Whenever the mandolin player took a break, I emphasised my chunk/chop with short, tight chording. When the guitarsit took a break, I used more open voicings and let the strumming ring. Fingerpicked chords sounded nice in the mix, as we had no banjo player. Certain uke-like things also worked well, sliding into chords from a half-step below, swing syncopations, hammer-ons.
Nothing quite like getting drop-kicked into the swimming pool! I sang songs-not-in-C last night, and woke up an uke player this morning.
Conclusion: The uke can be a nice chameleon in a jam setting! It ain't Bluegrass, so I would not bring one to a public jam and expect to get very far into the circle. OTOH: It can be done.
Final Word: Use the right tool for the job. The ukulele is no serious match for resonator banjos, fiddles and a heavy-handed mandolin. I was on a porch with our audience nearby on the lawn ... an un-amplified barn dance would have kept my uke in its case for good reason.
Hello UU! Your happy new member,
- Mike