Many parents like the idea of their child playing a musical instrument. But which instrument to choose? I remember picking a book up from the library when I was about 11, which attempted to address this complex, potentially loud and almost certainly expensive (unless your child develops both a hankering and a talent for the harmonica) question.
It looked at the child's physical attributes - how long are their fingers, how big are their hands etc. Their abilities. Can they multi-task and so on? And their temperament. Are they a calm, quiet, thoughtful child? Outgoing and gregarious? Are they the sort that is happy to sit and practice, repeatedly, or do they bounce from one thing to another?
Essentially, it took the view that if you narrowed it down, you and your child could then pick something suitable, and then they could look forward to a lifetime of study, practice and (hopefully) enjoyment. There was, however, one exception.
The drums.
The author of this book took the view that if your child was destined to be a drummer, then there was nothing that you - or they - could do about it. No matter how much you try to tempt them with a guitar or a piano, if your offspring is constantly fidgeting and (the dead giveaway) tapping on everything, with anything, then fate has decided that little Harriet or little Tommy is not going to be serenading you with the Moonlight Sonata, and will not be reinterpreting Elgar's Cello Concerto. They will be hitting things with pieces of wood.
Of course, parents will try and avoid this potentially alarming destiny. Mine did. Which is why, at the age of 12 I was given an acoustic guitar and packed off to some lessons that were being offered by the school. Maybe if I'd been taught a handful of chords and shown how to play a bit of rock 'n' roll, things might have turned out slightly differently, but as it was, our tutor was a kindly old man of some vintage, and wanted us all to be the next Segovia. We didn't know - or care - who Segovia (1) was. Lessons didn't last long and a charity shop was the grateful recipient of my guitar some years later.
Then, when I was 20, I went to Pro Percussion in Kentish Town, handed over 500 of my hard-earned pounds and ordered a Pearl Export Drum Kit in Deep Ocean blue. I have never looked back.
I have, over the years, dabbled with both the harmonica and the bass guitar, but nothing spoke to me, nothing felt as instinctively right, as sitting down behind a kit, feeling those sticks in my hand and creating something primal.
But, after 30-odd years of "How do you know when there's a drummer at the door? The knocking speeds up!", or "What do you call a drummer with half a brain? Gifted!", I began to think that maybe it would be nice to be able to play something that you could actually get a tune out of (2).
Then, a few months later, my sister gave me a Ukulele for Christmas. It was a Mahalo Uke, which, I have since learned, is synonymous with "I am going to buy you a musical instrument, but I don't know a) anything about it or b) whether you want it, so I'm not going to spend more than £25." I suspect that many Uke players started out with a Mahalo, and most of them didn't keep it very long.
I didn't.
But a couple of years later, after another charity shop had benefited from my apparent lack of interest in stringed instruments, someone started some Uke classes at the place where I used to work and I figured that I might make better progress if I had a teacher, so I went out and bought myself another Uke. Not expensive, but it was bright yellow and had a smiley face on it, so I thought it was cool.
Two things happened within the space of a couple of weeks. One, I realised that I really quite liked playing the Uke. It was - for a beginner - a relatively simple thing to get something approximating a tune out of. And two. My bright-yellow Uke was way too small for my sausage-fingered hands.
So shortly afterwards, I took a trip to the Duke Of Uke, a shop selling ukuleles (No! Yes, really!) and had a chat with the staff. Turns out that Ukes come in a variety of sizes and the one that most people start on - certainly the one that people picture when they think of a ukulele - is a Soprano, which is Italian for 'Too small for anyone with normal hands." (3) Next up is a Concert, then a Tenor, then a Baritone. When you get to a Baritone, things become a bit odd, as the tuning stops being GCEA and starts being DGBE, which is the same as the top four strings of a guitar.
But go with a Concert or a Tenor, and all those chords that you've already learned are still the same, there's just a bit more space between the strings and a bit more space between the frets. I came home with a Kala, Solid Spruce topped, Tenor, and I've never looked back.
So when, recently, Lego decided to create a Ukulele set, aka Tropical Ukulele, set number 31156 as part of the Creator 3-in-1 range, it was a given that I'd be picking it up. And now I've had a chance to build it, so let's (finally) take a look.
The set costs £24.99, and has 387 pieces, many of which come in Light Aqua. I'd assumed at first glance they were Sand Green, but I am reliably informed that Light Aqua it is. There are three models to build (hardly surprising), but while the main build - the Ukulele itself, which sits on a purpose built stand and is enhanced by some tropical flowers - is very nice indeed, I get the impression that the designers struggled a bit to come up with two other models.
One is a surfboard, sitting on a sandy base with some flowers and a radio. I haven't built this yet, and judging by images that I've seen, I'm unlikely to. It looks like the sort of thing you'd make in a "Five minute, blindfold build challenge". The third is a 2D model of a dolphin alongside a sandy island housing a palm tree and a flower. Again, I am not feeling the urge to take the Uke apart in order to build that one.
The Uke itself, though, is a nice little set. Opening the box (carefully, with a knife - I really hate damaging a box by using the thumb tabs), I find it is my first set that uses the much-heralded paper bags. They are numbered 1,2 and 3, plus we have a clear plastic nag which holds the 'strings' and a couple of other parts. Each build also comes with its own separate manual.
The build takes just over an hour - if you're rushing and / or have more nimble fingers than me, you'll probably finish faster, but for me, Lego building is to be enjoyed, not hurried. The build starts with the body of the uke and uses a mishmash of colours and shapes, all of which are included for use in the other two builds - here they're just buried away inside the body. The neck also uses some coloured parts but are covered with ten 3x1 plates in Medium Nougat which creates the fretboard. While there are no actual frets, the gaps between the plates do a nice job of 'implying' them. The headstock - also in Light Aqua - is created next and attaches attaches with click hinges.
Then the two 'wings' of the Uke body are created and as they are attached, the instrument suddenly appears! The strings, aka Flex Tube 21 Module w/3.2 hole are attached to small shafts at each end and are clicked into place. The headstock is them pushed back one notch on the click hinges and the strings are tensioned nicely.
The final part of the build is the sand coloured base and a couple of brick built tropical flowers, one in Yellow and one in Coral. Together with some foliage, they set the model off nicely and add a bit of colour to something that could have been quite monochromatic.
So what's the verdict? As a 3-in-1 I'm afraid only one model really warrants building, so I think that this set is going to end up be bought either for, or by, Ukulele players. It's a nice model in a pleasant colour and for less than £25 it's pretty good value. Unlike my last build, the UCS Razor Crest, it's small enough and pretty enough to be tolerated by my non-AFOL wife and it doesn't take up a huge amount of room standing, as it does, 25cm tall and with a base footprint of 17cm x 10cm.
If you're a Uke player, this is a must. If you're not then it's a maybe.
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(1) Andrés Segovia Torres, an incredibly talented Spanish classical guitarist.
(2) Somewhere in the distance, Terry Bozzio is shouting. Bozzio is a phenomenal drummer, renowned for his technical ability and his, quite frankly, enormous drum kit. At one point it included 26 tom-toms, 8 bass drums, 53 cymbals and 22 pedals. The drums were tuned and Bozzio would play musical pieces on the kit. You couldn't, however, get it in the back of a Volvo estate.
(3) Interestingly, I recently attended the Ukulele Festival of Great Britain, which had a large vendor hall. Speaking to a custom Uke builder, I mentioned that I found Soprano's impossible to play. He disagreed, and pressed one into my hands. "Try this." he said. It turned out to be surprisingly manageable. "It's because you're used to playing now," he said, "it's not so strange for your fingers." After a bit more experimentation, I found that the perfect combination was a Soprano body with a Concert neck. All of which is a) nothing to do with Lego and b) potentially ruinous for my wallet.
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