A Visit to the N.C. Ukulele Academy

The weather here at the beach had been fantastic up until now, but some thunderstorms have blown in as of last night.  With beach-going out of the picture at least temporarily, I figured this’d be a great time for a road trip to Wilmington, N.C.’s North Carolina Ukulele Academy, so I hit the road this morning and was there a little after they opened at 11:00 this morning.

The Academy is in the upstairs portion of what seems to be an arts-focused commercial space on Racine Drive in Wilmington, not too far off Highway 17.  It’s easy to spot, though, because there’s a big sandwich board outside the parking lot advertising the school.  The space itself is terrific.  One end of it is a ukulele store with tons of new ukes for sale.  One wall is pretty much all kid’s student models–those brightly colored plastic ones that usually sell for thirty or fourty dollars–but the other wall has tons of traditional wooden instruments of varying qualities and price ranges, from entry-level ukes to really really beautiful high-end instruments.

The other side of the place is a huge area for students to sit and play/practice in front of a stage–presumably where the instructor, Kent Knorr, teaches.  I spoke some with Kent, who’s a super-nice guy and he checked out my soprano uke that I’d brought along.  He mentioned that the Academy also puts on occasional concerts, bringing in bands and performers to play on the stage and using the student area for the audience.

Given that this is, I’m pretty sure, about the only place I’m going to find myself any time soon  where I can sit and play lots of different ukes for sale, I figured I’d see if I could find a new ukulele I liked enough to buy.  I played some really gorgeous-sounding insturments, but ultimately I’m not an avid enough player to justify buying a really nice uke.  So, I settled on this concert size uke from Hula Ukes (pictured on the left).  The Hula Ukes line is basically low-end foreign-made versions of the nicer Mele Ukes.  I think my old mid-60s soprano size Harmony actually has a nicer tone, but the Hula is a lot more solidly built and has decent tuners, etc.  It’s probably a better “everyday” uke, and being bigger it has some extra range because of the longer neck.  Maybe I’ll finally try to tackle “Sailor’s Hornpipe,” which I’ve not been able to attempt on my soprano uke with only 12 frets.