November 9, 2009

• birthday celebrating: installment #1

  Today Sarah pulled me out of the doldrums of the depressing-house-o’sickness for the first installment of Birthday Fun. Those of you who have known me for many years, my whole life, even, will be shocked to hear that Birthday Fun Day One involved jumping out of bed, getting into gym clothes and heading out for some excercise with my workout buddy, Sarah. (It’s a more realistic story when you take into account that this happened at like, 10:30am.)

  After our thorough workout we headed to the fancy upscale acoustic music shop in Fremont, Dusty Strings. I had done my research and I knew they had at least two of the fancy 6-string and 8-string tenor ukuleles that I thought would make a lovely birthday present from my doting and romantic husband. (He had quizzed me about this choice: “Is this something you will think back on when you’re sixty and say What ever happened to that old thing? or will you be looking down at your trusty ol’weathered pal, with it’s road and tobacco-stains, and feel sure you’d made the right choice.”) Off to Fremont we went…

  First stop, Homegrown, a sustainable sandwich shop. Who knew there was such a thing? That’s the kind of awesomeness that make Seattle a great place to live. Balances out the bleak darkness at 4:30 in the afternoon. After delicious and sustainable soup and sandwiches, we went to Dusty Strings.

  The very non-pushy sales folks showed us a little quiet room with acoustic panels and had us bring our Ukuleles Under Consideration in there for some testing. (That would be OOk-oo-leles, by the way.) Right away, Sarah and I loved the sound and size of the two 6-string tenors. One was a “G-String” brand which gave us a giggle. It was there on consignment, second-hand. The second was a beautiful Kamaka that I had played at our last adventure to Dusty Strings. I did a bunch of research about Kamaka, and found their romantic story very compelling. Little movie from youtube:  

  I also watched a PBS documentary about the company called Heart Strings. It tells how Kamaka has been run by this same family back to the days when Portugese sailors (I think sailors?) brought the instruments to Hawaii. They trace their lineage from this guy Nunes who is said to have originated the ukulele in Hawaii and taught the craft to the Kamaka patriarch. It’s a great story of how the family held onto their values and high quality workmanship, maintained their business, passing it through the generations. I was really excited when watching the documentary to learn that Deaf People play an important role in the Kamaka company! (You know how I feel about Deaf People, right?) They specifically featured a couple of Deaf, signing guys — one who has worked in the factory for fifty years – who play an integral role in the manufacturing process. It was so moving how the Deaf guys talk about being important members of the Kamaka family. One of the Kamaka family guys takes time to explain the valuable role they play, with clear respect and admiration.

  So this romantic story about this historic company, and how everything is manufactured by them in their shop in Hawaii, plus of course Deaf People led me to buy the super-fancy 6-string Kamaka over the more reasonably priced second-hand G-String. Despite the fact I could get a lot of humor mileage out of hilarous comments like, “Hey I bought a second-hand G-String today,” or “Hey, someone pass me my G-String, I feel a song coming on!”

  The whole negotiation and decision-making process was of course loads of fun because I was with my buddy Sarah, who always makes everything fun and wonderful. We made friends with David, an instrument-repair gentleman who walked us through all of the considerations and made it look shiny and new for me, despite having been on the wall where it was well-loved and frequently played by Dusty Strings customers. He called us “quirky” but was quick to note he didn’t want to offend customers. What, us? Quirky? Really? Nah!

  Here I am with my new, super-beautiful-sounding Koa wood 6-string Kamaka ukulele. I am very happy with it. My boys are also very impressed, though Eli did say, “Hey, how can that be a ukulele if it has six strings!!” He was pleased with my explanation. (The c and a strings are doubled – each pair is tuned an octave apart. Neat, eh?)

   

  I felt that it was the right choice, because even though I cut my husband out of the purchasing loop, I knew he would also value the story behind the instrument and having that story be a part of our history: the story of his gift to me for my fortieth birthday. He’s really romantic like that. Plus, the g-string jokes would have gotten old after a while, right?

  • 12:40 am
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