A Fool’s Errand

“You idiot!” a friend exclaimed in 2015 after hearing of my visit to Molokai and the beautiful, solid koa ukulele I had found there, but had not purchased. It had been very reasonably priced, was hand made by the Hawaiian holding it in the right photo above, and it played beautifully. The coveted koa wood is renown for its beauty and mellow, melodic tone, and seems to change color depending on the lighting. Yet I hadn’t purchased it since I already had a couple other ukuleles and didn’t really “need” another.

My friend’s comment was all it took; feeling like a fool, I contacted Todd, the luthier who had made this musical artwork. YES! It was still available. I immediately sent payment and about 10 days later had the ukulele in my own hands here in the mainland as shown on the photo on the left. It fills a special niche; I adjusted its strings to “C taro patch tuning” (G, C, E, G as opposed to the G,C, E, A tuning usually used in ukuleles) and use it strictly for Hawaiian-style slack key playing. This is my favorite style, and even eight years later, I couldn’t be a happier fool.

#hawaiian #hawaiianstyle #slackkey #molokai