I’d like to start by saying thank you to all the visitors to ukulele4kids.com, there were several thousand. This large number of visitors is great, considering the website only went live in October. The large number of visitors is also very motivating to continue developing the site. I’ve many new ideas to add to the site in 2012 to help it keep growing, and continue to encourage kids of all ages to start or continue playing the ukulele. You may have missed some of the posts, but there are several ways you can keep up to date with the posts of ukulele4kids.com. You could look through the archives, subscribe via email on our home page, follow us through Facebook, or keep up to date via Twitter. Below are the five most viewed posts of ukulele4kids.com during 2011, with Rudolph taking out the number one spot.
Makala Dolphin Ukulele
All posts tagged Makala Dolphin Ukulele
Haere Mai (welcome) to 2012 from Ukulele 4 Kids from New Zealand. Find the chords & lyrics for ‘Haere Mai’ here. There are a five chords, but it is easy to play. The chords are A, C, D, D7, G.
To get an idea of how the song sounds take a look at the video in this post.
To view our other videos visit our YouTube channel ukulele 4 kids.
View our other song chords page.
I hope you enjoy playing it and have a successful 2012 for strumming your ukulele!
We feature a fellow kid ukulele player across the ditch (the gap between New Zealand and Australia) in Tasmania (part of Australia). Her name is Jemimah and she is 12 years old. She is playing ‘When you wore a tulip’, by Jack Mahoney and Percy Weinrich written in 1914. I’m sure you’ll agree that she does a great job, and dad’s not too bad at singing either 😉
Jemimah’s dad hosts a website dedicated to ukulele playing, take the time to visit by clicking here. He is a very good player and featured on Uke Hunt’s post for this week.
View Jemimah and her dad playing ‘When You Wore a Tulip’ in the video below.
Do you need to replace your strings on your ukulele? If so the easy to follow video (a kid’s words, not mine) below demonstrates how to do it.
So you’ve been playing your cheaper Makala Dolphin ukulele for a while now and you’re wondering what type of ukulele to buy next. The Kala KA-15s ukulele is a great next purchase. Kody made the step up to this ukulele and it cost him a reasonable $99 NZ.
Kody shares the differences between his new ukulele and his old ukulele: “My new ukulele which is a Kala, model KA-15s is a lot lighter then my Makala Dolphin. It feels like it is made of a different wood and has a lot more room inside of it. The wood is also thinner compared to my other one. It has very different strings (quality Aquila strings, article to come soon), which along with the fact that inside it there is much more room, it makes my ukulele a lot louder as well as sounding nicer in general. I also find that it goes out of tune a lot less then my old ukulele. Overall I think that anyone who is an avid ukulele player and is willing to get a new ukulele should get this one because it is amazingly lighter, sounds better, and is much easier to tune.”
What size ukulele should I buy? Ukuleles come in four different sizes:
- Soprano – this is the smallest size ukulele and is a great starting ukulele size for kids. The Makala Dolphin ukulele I recommend for kids are this size.
- Concert – this is the next biggest sized ukulele, and the size I prefer to play myself because it offers a bit more space on the fretboard for bigger fingers.
- Tenor – this is a great size for finger picking, and usually has a deeper sound than the soprano and concert ukuleles.
- Baritone – the biggest of the lot, and not one I’d buy until your competent playing either of the above sized ukuleles.
A point to note is, the soprano, concert and tenor sized ukuleles are all tuned the same way, i.e. GCEA. This is an important consideration when buying a ukulele, as most ukulele sheet music is written with the tuning GCEA in mind. While baritone ukuleles are tuned the same as the top four strings of a guitar.
The Makala Dolphin is a soprano sized ukulele and a great place to start for kids and adults alike.
Which ukulele do you buy your kid when they want to to learn to play a ukulele? Well, there are a huge number you can buy, ranging from very cheap to very expensive. Start at the cheap end first, but not too cheap though! The Makala Dolphin ukulele, named so because of the dolphin bridge is an excellent ukulele to 
begin with for all ages. It comes in a range of colours that will appeal to kids and mums and dads too. The ukulele holds the notes well, but as with any new ukulele, it will go out of tune fairly quickly as the strings break themselves in. The more often you play and tune the ukulele the more quickly it will hold its tune, this is usually about two weeks. Where can you buy the Makala Dolphin ukulele? Just about all good music shops will be selling them. They usually sell for about $48 NZ. My first ukulele was a green Makala Dolphin and I’ve still got it. My young son ‘plays’ with it now, but I still strum on it just about everyday when I walk past it wherever he has left it.
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