I generally recommend that a teacher have an acoustic-electric ukulele to teach with. It makes it easier for the students to follow you when you are playing as a class.
Many of us didn't purchase an electric as their first instrument, however. Truly, this is probably a good thing for most of us, since you'll probably get a better instrument at the same price point if it doesn't have a pickup installed already.
In a pinch, you can put a pickup in your ukulele with a little (and I mean a LITTLE) craftiness and less than $5. All you need is a $1 door alarm from the dollar store of your choice (plus you get 3 of those little batteries your kids' hex bugs eat for breakfast!), a little soldering know-how (or have a friend, colleague, or music parent you can con...er...persuade to assist), a bit of wire, and an input jack. There's some a sundry items most can find laying around the house, too, but I'll give a more detailed tutorial later. (A bit of searching online can find the basics, especially at cigarboxnation.com, but you have to do some wading around to find the information you want...)
Here's a basic video more to show that it CAN be done, rather than HOW to do it. I'll put up a blog post of how to do it as soon as I find an instrument to do it to! (If for no other reason than there's a misspelled word in this video, and it makes me twitch every time I see it!)
Many of us didn't purchase an electric as their first instrument, however. Truly, this is probably a good thing for most of us, since you'll probably get a better instrument at the same price point if it doesn't have a pickup installed already.
In a pinch, you can put a pickup in your ukulele with a little (and I mean a LITTLE) craftiness and less than $5. All you need is a $1 door alarm from the dollar store of your choice (plus you get 3 of those little batteries your kids' hex bugs eat for breakfast!), a little soldering know-how (or have a friend, colleague, or music parent you can con...er...persuade to assist), a bit of wire, and an input jack. There's some a sundry items most can find laying around the house, too, but I'll give a more detailed tutorial later. (A bit of searching online can find the basics, especially at cigarboxnation.com, but you have to do some wading around to find the information you want...)
Here's a basic video more to show that it CAN be done, rather than HOW to do it. I'll put up a blog post of how to do it as soon as I find an instrument to do it to! (If for no other reason than there's a misspelled word in this video, and it makes me twitch every time I see it!)
RSS Feed
