My sister plays ukelele. She tells me that any time you show up with a ukelele, someone will insist that you play "Tiny Bubbles" by Don Ho. So you'd better bring your best red velour jacket and lounge lizard crooner voice. You have been warned.

Does she play "Somewhere Over the Rainbow?"

Jeanette Isabelle

I'm pretty sure the chord structure would work, for both the original and the Garland/Armstrong Hawaiian mashup.

I will hassle her about it the next time we get together.

But to move the conversation forward: what uke classics should you learn to make you a 4-string hero around the fire? Thoughts? Help me out here.

It's curious, but since covid took hold there have been something like 7,000 new views on this thread but almost no posts except mine.

So to whoever is stopping by, welcome! I hope you found value here. And please consider pulling up a stump around the fire and telling us your story. We always have more to learn. Maybe you know the words to a song that we've been wrestling with.

So, three years ago the electric guitar was declared dead. (Comment: pfft!)

This pandemic-stir-crazy year, Fender is slated to sell more electric guitars than it has in its entire history.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/lifestyle/the-slow-secret-death-of-the-electric-guitar/

Guess I should dig out my old electrics out of the archives. It's been a long while since I went back to acoustics, taking all those electric chops with me. But rock and roll never forgets!

That declaration may indeed be premature. The electric guitar found it´s way into different music categories. Sites like Youtube will also help to keep it alive. People are bound to hear Carlos Santana or Jimmy Hendrix and some will think "Wow, I want to do that too".
A retailer just beyond my backyard carries 335 T models, 187 made by Fender. Overall it would be around 2000 different models. They would not do that with a dead instrument.
I own one too. It can be played in several neighborhood friendly modes. Starting with quiet just for myself, using head phones all the way up to sharing with the entire neighborhood using a powerfull amplifier cranked up to the max.

Good point -- electrics can fill the neigbourhood or be a silent practice buddy in a shared room.

In terms of technique, playing electric, amplified, might as well be a light year away from playing acoustic. But I have noticed that guitar players who move back and forth from electric to acoustic are considerably more versatile. An electric is exacting, with every note clearly defined; but with an acoustic, you create your own harmonics as a player, manipulating that magnificent living thing made of wood, and you cannot hide behind volume and signal processing.

Way back when air travel was a thing (remember that?), I discovered that a lot of people at any given destination have older acoustic guitars kicking around. Or if they don't, they know two neighbours who do.

I travelled without baggage (at least the physical type) to save money. So, I found it useful to take a minimalist "guitar first aid kit" with me, with the goal of making a "found" guitar playable (-ish) with a little work and a lotta luck.

Keep in mind that this stuff is for carry-on, so it has to clear security. I you are pretty sure you can scrounge some of these tools at your destination, you can travel a bit lighter.

Guitar First Aid Kit:

1. Mini needle-nose pliers with sturdy wire cutters -- for changing strings and other minor maintenance.

2. Allen key, L-shaped with a long reach, 1/4" for old guitars -- for adjusting the truss rod in the neck, which offsets the pull of the strings, straighening the neck and moving the string height to a playable level. (Unfortunately, newer guitars use a smaller size, varying by manufacturer.)

3. Small tuning fork, A440 -- mine is decades old and hasn't needed a battery change yet. Some prefer E but I like to use A as my reference for tuning. Tap and hold the base against the bridge and you will instantly realize how effectively acoustic guitars amplify sound.

4. Peg winder -- a little plastic crank that winds the tuning pegs quickly when changing strings.

5. Fresh strings. It's hard to play well on rusty old barbed wire. What size for steel string instruments? Extra light gauge "10s" (10-46ish) are a pretty safe bet for old guitars, although better instruments (and players) will be happier with "11s" (11-52ish).

I confess that I have never taken strings as carry-on; I have always been able to source them locally. I can't think of a reason security would object, but then again they look pretty closely at my bag of interesting stuff ...

Almost all my air travel has been within the USA. So, I’d expect guitar strings to never be an issue, and needle nose pliers to most likely be confiscated by the TSA if noticed.

Metal tools are, in my opinion, the single most likely thing for TSA to object to.

That's interesting. I haven't travelled through the USA in a looong time, but I believe our specs are harmonized with yours (with the exception of tiny blades, now allowed on Cdn. domestic flights, reluctantly).

My needle nose pliers are super-mini, sort of a crafts plier with a stout wire cutter, so they meet the specs for overall length and distance from the pivot. Never had a problem. But I never travel with anything I'm not willing to lose.