Learning Ukulele with Curt

Ukulele Manufactures, Builders and Luthiers Around the World

New Ukulele Builders Luthiers, & Manufactures

New listings recently added.

All Ukulele Builders & Manufactures [ A..Z ]

All builders and manufactures listed alphabetically.

Production Ukulele Manufactures

Manufactures building a lot of ukuleles and are available in a wider range of retail outlets than custom builders.

A lot of major guitar manufactures like Fender, Ibanez and Epiphone are getting in to the ukulele business.

The question now is “Who isn’t building ukuleles?”

Curt's Personal `Ukulele Recommendations

These are many entry level ukuleles great for beginners exploring the ukulele for the first time to seasoned pros wanting the best ukulele possible.

For a higher-end ukulele start and end with Ko’olau. I personally have two Ko'olau CS Contemporary Tenors - Nombro Unu and its backup / in-training. Both are strung with a low G. Checkout My Personal Gear Page for all my current gigging equipment.

My Personal Recommendations

For Beginners get a ukulele with geared tuners and strap buttons. If getting a Fluke or Flea from The Magic Fluke Company go with the hardwood fingerboard upgrade, PegHead tuners and the grip strips.

RECOMMENDATION for Builder and Manufactures Listings: You might want to – at a minimum list what country and town you operate out of on your web site. I am totally surprised at the number of people on the web that are selling something that do not list where they are doing business from. At least the COunrty, State, Province, etc.

Ukulele Variations

Ukuleles come in all shapes and sizes and even banjo, bass, electric and resonator styles. You can even make your own out of a Tupperware bowl or tin can.

  • Banjo Ukulele — The banjo uke was made popular by British entertainer George Formby - A little 4-string banjo tuned like a ukulele or a ukulele transformed into a banjo.
  • Bass Ukulele — Both acoustic and solid body variations are available.
  • Resonator Ukulele — These are the ukulele with the little hub cap in the sound hole.
  • Electric Ukulele • Any ukulele can be “electrified” with a pickup. This page has builders and manufactures with solid-body ukulele offerings.

Additional Manufactures List

A great resource for past and present ukulele manufactures is the Tiki King's Big Ukulele List . Over 680 brand names listed, with whatever information Tiki King can collect.

Tiki King also has great ukulele shop in 6235 Highway 9, Suite A, Felton, CA. 9501 — naturally called Ukuleles of Felton .

Ukulele Like Instruments

The Cavaquinho (pron. /kɐ.vɐ.'ki.ɲu/ in European Portuguese and /ka.va.'ki.ɲu/ in Brazilian Portuguese) is a small string instrument of the European guitar family with four wires or gut strings. It is also called machimbo, machim, machete (in the Portuguese Atlantic islands and Brazil), manchete or marchete, braguinha or braguinho, and cavaco. Its standard tuning is D-G-B-D

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Just browsing over both books, they look fantastic! I'm a guitarist and uke player for over 25 years and was thinking about writing a ukulele book but you've already written what I think are the best, most comprehensive and thorough books I've ever seen for the instrument. I just might end up buying every book you've written and I'll be giving my highest recommendation for your books to my friends and students. Thank you so much for taking the time to write such great books!Peter Rhee

Aloha, Curt, All I can say is WOW! What you have accomplished is simply incredible! All the bestGlen Hirabayashi, The Aloha Boys

Folks, if you haven't stopped by Curt's site, do so right now! ..And get his books, they are fantastic. This guy knows his stuff and is able to pass it along too.Alan Johnson Proprietor, The 4th Peg

I can highly recommend Curt's Uke books — I have four of them and they are excellent.fatveg — Portland

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Original Curtie Animation from 1987 for my first web site on a Macintosh II, 37 years ago. Man, does time fly.

“Built for myself (Curt), and sharing with the `Ukulele community!”

LearningUkulele.com has one of the largest collections of lessons, songs, and TABS, Luthiers, ukulele builders, ukulele festival and club information, and, ukulele links on the web. Curt has been on the ®Internet since the early 1990's and This site just never stops growing!!!

Content is added and updated daily — so check back often. I really do need to get out more ;-)

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