Guest Blog: Cabaret singer Tricity Vogue on the appeal of four strings

“Toy
guitar? TOY GUITAR??” It was in a charity shop in Sheffield that I
saw a plastic ukulele labeled up in this offensive manner. The
assistant thought my outrage was hilarious. But even when it’s made
out of plastic, a ukulele is not a toy guitar: it’s an instrument
in its own right. Whether it’s a ‘serious’ instrument or not is
another question entirely.

The
ukulele craze has been sweeping the nation – the whole world, in
fact – for a good five or six years now. If you haven’t got one
yourself, you probably know someone who has. I first picked one up
five years ago, then stumbled upon the now legendary Wednesday night
jam sessions at the Royal George pub on Charing Cross Road that
quickly had me hooked. There were plenty of other girls there to stop
me feeling intimidated; expert players to show me how to hold and
strum my instrument properly; and, most compellingly of all, a vast
songbook of tunes covering everything from twenties swing numbers to
rock anthems.

The
ukulele is the perfect instrument for the age of the short attention
span. You can be strumming your first chord within a few minutes of
picking it up, and with so many ukulele resources on the net it won’t
take you much longer to find your favourite song and start learning
it. That could be one reason for its sudden upsurge in popularity.
Another might be that it provides the antidote to a media age where
music has become increasingly packaged and commercialised. Making
your own music on an instrument you bought for under £20 is one way
to stick it to the man.

This
is the second coming for the ukulele. The first worldwide craze
started a century ago, when early Hollywood movies fell in love with
all things Hawaiian, including their instruments. The ukulele quickly
spread across America and Europe as an iconic instrument of the jazz
age: cheeky, disobedient, and suggestive. The 2011 documentary The
Mighty Uke charts the history of the rise, fall,
and rise again, of the instrument they call “a musical underdog”.

How
much longer can an instrument so ubiquitous get away with being
called an underdog? Indefinitely, I suspect. Despite – or because
of – the uke’s popularity, it’s still perceived as a joke
instrument. I work on the cabaret circuit and want all the laughs I
can get, so that shouldn’t bother me – but it does. I use my
ukulele to accompany funny or bawdy songs, as do many hilarious
uke-playing performers I work with. But at the same time I make sure
that my Ukulele Cabarets ( showcase great musicians
who know how to make their instruments sound like so much more than a
toy guitar.