Born To Run - Springsteen meets George Formby

Think I am losing my marbles, can't believe I just recorded this - Born To Run in music hall style (a homage to both Springsteen and George Formby!

Uke Leash Competition - the result

A big thank you to all those ukulele players who chose to enter my competition to win the Uke Leash.

The responses were fantastic and really show a love for the ukulele (see the comments on the post HERE )


Some of my favourites included Richm2778 who said


"Simply put, I love the ukulele because when it is in my hands, I hear only beautiful music, even If it is only noise to others. Those 4 strings make right everything that makes me feel the world might have done me wrong. It makes me feel joy."


and Mikes simple


"I love the ukulele because you just can't cop an attitude with 2 feet of guitar in your hands."




Grist provided us with poetry


"Whilst I play my ukulele,
I consider myself blessed.
But I cannot describe my love,
of this instrument from above,
in fifty words or less.

Mere words do not explain,
my feelings deep inside.
But my ukulele conveys,
my emotion when I play,
and my love for her cannot hide."


And a message of love from Bert


"I asked out my first girlfriend by playing her a song on the uke. That was the beginning of a great love between me and this great little piece of wood known as the ukulele. I get so much joy from playing and it reminds me of her every time."


But there has to be one winner and I have decided to go for the simple.  JT Gigcast wrote


It's pure Joy: Four Strings. Three chords, Two minutes to learn, One lifetime to master. :)


Couldnt have put it better myself!  Well done to you JT Gigcast, can you message me through google friend connect, and we can sort out postage.

Cheers everybody!

Ukulele Strap competition closed!

Very short post folks - the ukulele leash competition is closed.  Thanks for all entries.  I should have chosen winner tonight, but, frankly, am watching England finally destroy Australia in the Ashes.  I appreciate my readers from across the Atlantic may think I am talking gibberish, but it is a momentous sporting event, and a win we havent achieved for 24 years.

Please, therefore, bear with me whilst I enjoy this moment - results tomorrow!!

iPhone app review - tun-d Free

As I have previously reported there are an increasing number of ukulele apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch available on the app store, and thankfully many of them are free.

In this blog post I give you my short review of the tun-d app, which is a simple but stylish stringed instrument tuner.

It works on iPhone and iPod touch (and presumably, the iPad) though subject to reservations (see below).  Its also free.

Its a super simple app that uses the iPhone speaker to listen to the individual strings and it gives a tuning representation on the screen

Standard tuner display set up for standard guitar

 A pluck of the string gives a representation on the grey bars above where the tuning is red on the far left shows a very flat string, and red far right a very sharp string.  As you tune and get closer the representation gets closer to the middle segment and eventually turns yellow, and then green when bang on tune.  Simple.

The app is clearly made for a whole range of stringed instruments, not just ukulele, and hitting the little gearbox symbol top right  gives you a large set of choices for what you want to tune, including open chords on guitar (in a variety of flavours), modals, chromatics, plus tunings for Dobro, Ukulele, Banjo, Mandolin, Cello, Violin and Viola.

My complaint here is that it only provides for GCEA tuning on the ukulele, and presume there is a similar lack of alternate tunings for other non guitar instruments.  There is a non-free Tun-D which costs £2.39, but that says nothing about whether it allows alternate tunings for uke, so no idea why you would pay for it!

Accuracy with the iPhone is however good, with a wide range on the tuning scale  to play with.  I compared a tuning to an expensive Korg tuner I sometimes use and it was pretty much spot on.

Accuracy with the iPod Touch however was less good - down to the fact that you need to use the microphone in the headphones to pick up the sound.  This is not only clumsy, but I found I really had to pluck hard to even get a response.  The lack of microphone on my ipod (v3) is not the apps fault, and of course the new touch has a microphone, but the lack of sensitivity is the apps fault, and makes it tough to use.

In summary - these things are free, and they do what they say on the tin.  Its hard to knock them for that reason.  

Personally, I would always carry an actual tuner, but in the case of loss or battery failure, these are a good backup I suppose.  This is however clearly aimed more squarely at guitar, so I would avoid if you want an alternate tuning on ukulele than standard GCEA.  Thats not to say ukulele apps are no good - I still regularly use my Ukuchords app which I reviewed on this site HERE, (its brilliant) but for tuners, they are really only a backup.  Hey ho, its free...

The iPhone version works well, but lack of tunings gives it a 7/10 for me.  I remain concerned with the microphone sensitivity on the iPod Touch so its a 5/10.

Besides, there are a ton of free tuners on the app store, so work your way through them!

The app is available for download HERE