My Ukulele Collection

My big passion right now is playing the ukulele. I started playing about a year and a half ago when I was on a cruise to Hawaii, and they held introductory ukulele lessons onboard. My mom bought me my first ukulele (a Hawaiian Ukulele Company soprano) when we got into Oahu. After that, I haven't looked back.

I really wanted to buy a Hawaiian made ukulele of solid koa wood, not because I was any good at playing, but because it would be my little piece of Hawaii that I could keep here at home in California. I looked around at all of the ukulele manufacturers and chose one made by Kanile'a Ukulele. Kanile'a is owned and operated by Joe Souza, a firefighter in Honolulu. Since I'm married to a police lieutenant, that was the tie-breaking factor for me to keep it in the "911 family." I purchased a Kanile'a K2 tenor at Island Bazaar in Huntington Beach, CA in December of 2008. Here is a shot I took of it in Poipu, Kauai near my mom's timeshare (the Point at Poipu). I named it "Waimea," after my first pet, a Ragdoll cat that passed away when she was less than two years old.

After a while, I officially came down with Ukulele Acquisition Syndrome (henceforth known as UAS), and I decided I wanted to buy another ukulele. Kamaka Ukulele is a Hawaiian company that has been making ukuleles since 1916, and they are generally accepted to be the grandaddy of the uke companies, the standard by which many others are judged. Since my passion is for all things Hawaiian, I figured I simply had to have a Kamaka.

By this time, I had been well versed enough in ukulele manufacturing to know that koa wood is traditionally used in Hawaiian ukuleles, and that curly koa appears in nature on occasion, but is extremely rare. Curly koa is when the grain of the wood appears to take on a 3d appearance, and an almost tiger striped pattern. I decided that for my Kamaka, I would wait until I could find one made of curly koa, as opposed to the straight grain koa on my Kanile'a.

I finally found the right Kamaka for me online, and I drove all the way to Fresno to purchase it in July of 2009. I ended up naming it "Pele," after the Hawaiian volcano goddess. I did this for two reasons, first, I wanted a traditional Hawaiian name for my most traditional Hawaiian ukulele, and second, for the way that the curls in the koa reminded me of flowing lava.

In December of 2009, I decided that my collection was sorely lacking without a pineapple shaped ukulele. And for me, there was only one pineapple that called out to me: the Pineapple Sunday, by KoAloha Ukulele. The Pineapple Sunday is part of Papa KoAloha (Alvin Okami's) Masterpiece Collection. They are hard to find, and unfortunately, very expensive. I began my search and managed to find a factory second Pineapple Sunday, which I quickly purchased.

This ukulele was a gorgeous honey color, and had a sweet voice. It was a fairly recently produced instrument, as it had the straight bridge and laser etched top that Papa KoAloha had begun to use in his luthier process. Previous Pineapple Sunday ukuleles had a debossed top (which had a less uniform, more unique appearance) and a spiky bridge instead of the straight style. I got it into my head that I simply had to have one of the old style Pineapple Sundays. So a few ukulele purchases, and trades, later, I ended up with my newest ukulele, "Po'okela." Her name means "best of the best" and I gave it to her for two reasons: 1) she was the best of the Pineapple Sundays I looked at, and 2) she is by far the best sounding of my four ukuleles.

I believe that every Pineapple Sunday is like a snowflake, similar in design but unique in its own way. The etching on the top, the bridge design, the color and grain of the koa wood, all make them unique unto themselves. Although all four of the Pineapple Sundays I owned were wonderful in their own ways, this one was the best for me of the lot.

So I'm done buying ukes for now. I lust after a KoAloha tenor Sceptre, or a Moore Bettah custom ukulele, but I probably will never be able to convince my family that I should get one of those. It was hard enough to get the Pineapple Sunday without having them lock me up in the loony bin. But a girl can dream...