Ukulele · Chapter 2 of 24

Where the Ukulele Comes From

The ukulele was born in Hawaiʻi, from a small guitar brought by Portuguese immigrants in 1879. A short history before you play.

The ukulele is a Hawaiian instrument with Portuguese roots. Knowing a little of its story, and the people who made it, is part of learning to play it well.

A ship from Madeira, 1879

In the late 1800s, many families from the Portuguese islands of Madeira and the Azores came to Hawaiʻi to work on the sugar plantations. In late August 1879 the ship Ravenscrag arrived in Honolulu from Madeira. Among its passengers were three cabinet makers, Manuel Nunes, Augusto Dias and José do Espírito Santo, who are generally credited as the first ukulele makers.

The Madeirans brought small four-string instruments with them, chiefly the machete (also called the braguinha or cavaquinho), and a slightly larger cousin, the rajão. A Honolulu newspaper reported, two weeks after the ship arrived, that the newcomers had been delighting people with nightly street concerts.

A Hawaiian instrument

In Hawaiʻi the little machete changed. Makers built it from koa, a Hawaiian hardwood that is still the traditional choice, and players gave it its own tuning, its own strums and its own songs. It took a Hawaiian name, ʻukulele, which is often translated as “jumping flea,” perhaps for the way a player’s fingers jump across the strings.

King David Kalākaua, who reigned from 1874 to 1891, championed Hawaiian music and hula. A patron of the arts, he made the ʻukulele part of the performances at royal gatherings. His sister and successor, Queen Liliʻuokalani, was one of Hawaiʻi’s great songwriters; you’ll meet her songs later in this course.

To the world

In 1915 Hawaiian musicians, among them George E. K. Awai’s Royal Hawaiian Quartet and the maker and player Jonah Kumalae, played at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, and the mainland United States fell for the ukulele. In the 1920s it was everywhere: popular sheet music printed small ukulele chord diagrams above the songs, and large guitar makers began building ukuleles too. You’ll try some of that style in the chapter on ragtime-era ukulele.

Spelling and saying it. In Hawaiian the word is written ʻukulele, with an ʻokina (ʻ), a mark for a short catch in the voice, like the break in “uh-oh.” Hawaiian also uses the kahakō, a line over a vowel that makes it longer, as in Kalākaua. The Hawaiian way to say the word is “oo-koo-LEH-leh.” In this course we write “ukulele” for the instrument in English, and we spell Hawaiian names and song titles the Hawaiian way, with their ʻokina and kahakō.

Listen. Find a recording of Hawaiian musicians playing the ʻukulele, from the early 1900s or today, and listen for how lightly and evenly they strum. That easy, rolling sound is what you’ll be working toward.

Remember

The ukulele grew from the Madeiran machete, brought to Hawaiʻi in 1879.
Manuel Nunes, Augusto Dias and José do Espírito Santo were among the first makers.
King Kalākaua championed it; the world met it in 1915 and loved it in the 1920s.

History from Wikipedia’s articles “Ukulele,” “Kalākaua” and “Liliʻuokalani.”