Ukulele community in Edmonton strumming right along
'We're hummers and we're strummers'
A growing subculture in our city has captured the imaginations of hundreds of enthusiast, but it comes with strings attached.
Four strings.
Ukulele strings.
In Edmonton and surrounding communities, including Camrose, St. Albert, and Sherwood Park, there are more than a dozen ukulele circles — groups of musicians who get together, sometimes several times a month, to hold jam sessions.
This Christmas, the ukulele was a runaway hit at local music stores. Long & McQuade outlets couldn't keep them in stock. And any stock that did show up was snatched up within hours.
For reasons no one can adequately explain, Edmonton has become enamoured with a diminutive stringed instrument famously associated with the Hawaiian Islands.
Ukulele enthusiast Brian Dunsmore has been on the ukulele bandwagon for years. Every Wednesday at noon, he meets up with other musicians for a weekly jam session. They've been doing it for four years now.
'It's hard to stop'
"We're hummers and we're strummers," he said. "You know, after a couple of three songs it's like having a couple of drinks. Everybody just kind of loses the inhibitions and after 45 minutes, out comes the real people. It's wonderful to see and it's hard to stop at the end of an hour."
The group started their ukulele circle in 2012 in the CKUA Radio building on Jasper Avenue. Initially, the group was made up of CKUA employees, but as the word got out the group grew.
"We've got more people now from outside CKUA than within the original staff," said Dunsmore, who spent years as the radio station's executive producer. "It's really just a campfire kind of experience around here. We play the songs that we like to."
The ckUkulele Circle, as it's known, has grown to include friends and spouses of CKUA staff.
Corinna Story, a dental hygienist and figure skating coach, found out about the group and has been hooked ever since.
"There was actually a ukulele camp that I participated in for a weekend in the fall through the blue grass society," said Story, who enjoys being able to play her ukulele and sing along to all kinds of songs from Royals by Lorde, to classics by the Beatles and Dire Straits.
Cafe Blackbird ukulele jam session
Edmonton and the surrounding area is home to as many as 14 different ukulele circles.
That's how Cafe Blackbird owner Michelle Hayduk got interested.
She doesn't play, but was approached by a group of ukulele players looking for a place to gather and play music.
Now Cafe Blackbird hosts the Edmonton ukulele circle on the second and fourth Monday of every month. On those nights, you might walk into the cafe and see as many as 30 people strumming along together.
"I definitely didn't realize just how vibrant the ukulele players were until they had approached us," said Hayduk, who appreciates the boost in coffee and dessert sales on those Mondays. "I mean, we do come across a few of them with the live music that we host, but not quite to that degree. So it's interesting to see."
The popularity of the ukulele hit a feverish pitch over the Christmas holidays in Edmonton.
Lealand Grauwiler, guitar manager at the Long & McQuade music store in south Edmonton, says he hasn't seen anything like it.
'More or less selling them off a pallet'
"There was a point before Christmas where there was a four-hour window where you could have got one of our inexpensive ukuleles, and then they were gone again," Grauwiler said with laugh.
"We were more or less selling them off a pallet. We just pulled them off a truck, and as the $40 ones disappeared the $100 ones started to disappear, and we were more or less cleaned out by the time Christmas rolled around.
"We saw it coming. We did order a bunch of extra ones, but even still we just couldn't keep up with the demand, which is pretty awesome."
There seems no doubt that the big attraction is the instrument's affordability. But the fact the ukelele is relatively easy to learn may be just as appealing.
"From what I've noticed, we get a ton of non-musicians looking at those as the first thing to buy," said Grauwiler. "Again, because there seems to be a lower barrier of entry.
"There's less strings on them," he said. "But really I wouldn't argue they're much easier to play than any different instrument. They're less expensive, they're cute, lots of fun people just seem to gravitate towards them as something to start with, for their kids especially."