James Griffin: The devil's instrument

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Deep in the bowels of the internet there exists a bloke by the name of Simon Sweetman. Simon Sweetman is a music critic. He likes to express his opinions on matters musical in no uncertain terms. If he does not like something he will not only tell you that he does not like it, there is also a high probability that he will tell you that if you do like what he dislikes, that you are an imbecile with no musical taste. Simon Sweetman reviews music as if he were a teenager, shouting his opinions into the void that is the internet and if you don't agree with him then you just suck!

Simon Sweetman recently reviewed the new musical release by the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra, Be Mine Tonight. In Simon's review he deemed the album to be "shit" and that the WIUO are "a pack of arseholes" and "talentless hacks laughing all the way to the bank".

It is fair to say that Simon Sweetman is not the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra's #1 fan.

Ultimately Simon Sweetman's rant means nothing in the grand scheme of things, but it does open the door to an interesting question: why do some people hate the ukulele so much? I know a chap, an esteemed Wellington radio chap, who calls the ukulele "the devil's instrument" and will happily launch into lengthy diatribes about the musical evil that is Hawaii's gift to the lute family of instruments.

I don't play the ukulele and I have no desire to play the ukulele but I do live with someone who does play the ukulele, in a ukulele group, no less. Therefore we have many ukuleles in our house, and it is not an unusual thing for me to start the day to the sound of Blister In The Sun a la ukulele. This is, to me, not a bad way to start any day.

There are those, Simon Sweetman for example, who would clearly deem this to be some kind of living hell. And I simply do not get that. In terms of innocuous, inoffensive musical instruments, surely the ukulele must be way up there. In the wrong hands I can think of many other musical instruments - the saxophone, the violin, the flute and the steel drum, for example - that are way more evil than the humble four strings of the ukulele.

Yet maybe it is this very thing, the innocuous nature of the instrument, which causes such vehemence to be rained down on the ukulele. Maybe seeing a ukulele in the hands of an adult is like seeing Matthew Ridge riding a BMX bike down Ponsonby Rd, in that you just want to shout "oh for God's sake, grow up and get a proper bike/guitar!" Is there a cut-off point where it is okay for a ukulele to be in the hands of a child (where, thankfully, it has replaced the recorder as the musical training instrument du jour) but once you reach a certain age it is time to step away from the uke?

Or is it a cultural thing? A ukulele, in Hawaii, in the hands of an actual Hawaiian, is fine; but put the same instrument in the hands of a middle-aged Grey Lynn woman and suddenly it is somehow wrong. That doesn't seem fair to me on any level, because isn't the wonderful thing about music is that it should be able to be played by anyone, anywhere?

Maybe this is it; that the acrimony the ukulele causes is a musical snobbery thing. Here is an instrument that is much easier to learn than, say, the piano so therefore the people who play it must be "talentless hacks". I can kind of understand this, but it still doesn't make it right. Maybe I am immensely naive but it seems to me that anyone playing a musical instrument and enjoying it has to be a good thing and therefore should not be sneered at.

A couple of weeks ago I went, along with my entire family, to see the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra in concert. I can report to Simon Sweetman that even though the show was sold out, the WIUO would not be "laughing all the way to the bank" because, quite frankly, there were far too many of them on stage to make it economically lucrative. I can also report that everyone in that room, myself and the band included, seemed to be having a great time.

Maybe I am an imbecile with no musical taste but, to me, a room full of people dancing to and singing along with a stage full of people who genuinely seem to love what they're doing is not a wrong thing. I mean music is there to be loved and sometimes to even be fun, isn't it?

Isn't it?