Meet My Ukulele Family: Babette, the Soprano Uke

Babette was my very first ukulele, purchased from the L.L. Bean website as a birthday gift from my in-laws for my 45th birthday. At the time, I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into, but man, I'm really happy I made that purchase.

Babette is a Kala Learn to Play Soprano ukulele. She was the perfect beginner ukulele for me, because she is easy to hold, the action is low enough that chord changes are pretty easy, and the frets are close enough together that I didn't have to do too much work stretching my fingers as I was learning to play. Plus, she sounded beautiful - the Kala ukuleles are known for their excellent tone and their low price. 

When she arrived, the package came with a drawstring bag for storage that I quickly replaced with a colorful padded gig bag. I also bought my first ukulele strap with a hook that attaches to the sound hole and a strap that fits over my head. But I quickly found that I was more comfortable playing Babette without a strap, as she's small enough for me to cradle comfortably in my arm.

Earlier this year, I got hooked on inlay stickers and decided to jazz up her fingerboard a bit. I'm still planning on getting a pretty rosette sticker to put around the soundhole, and a new set of strings is on order as well to give her an upgrade.

Strings are a whole other blog for another time, but safe to say, I'm not a fan of the standard nylagut strings that come on most inexpensive ukuleles. I've found in my experience that swapping out the factory standard strings for something like a set of Living Water or even a set of Martin clear fluorocarbon strings can make your inexpensive uke play like a whole new instrument.

So there she is. The little ukulele that totally changed everything I thought I knew about myself, and started me on this path to making music from the heart, again. I will be forever grateful to everything I've learned from her!