Ukulele Stammtisch

Ukuleles unite! Jeremy and I hit the road a few days ago to join a ukulele stammtisch in a town near Augsburg, about 2 and a half hours from home.

Stammtisch means “standing table” which basically means ongoing reservation.  Once every other month, this Bavarian ukulele group gets together at the same gasthof, in the same room, with the same folks and plays an array of songs for hours on end.

And apparently the ukulele is the new banjo – this place was so “backwoods” our GPS system got lost.

When we arrived, the crowd was super small (we’ll blame that on weather  - it was snowing) and we joined in the German conversation to the best of our knowledge.

However, music is universal and as we all started playing together, it was instant bonding. A few rock, bluegrass, old country, traditional German and knee slappin’, foot stompin’ songs later, we had a bonafide jam session.

Amazing pickers and beautiful voices surrounded us, but we held are own and brought a certain Hawaii-meets-blues-meets-folk flair.

I am surprised and ecstatic how big the current ukulele movement seems to be. (There is an ukulele festival near Munich in the summer … of course the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is playing. The buddymollys are hoping to get on that bill, but it’s unlikely as of now…) The aforementioned Bavarian group has been meeting for over two years. One gentleman started making ukuleles because of it and now is a full time instrumentenbauer (that's luthier in English, although the word literally translates to instrument maker.)

I’m not sure what caused the resurgence of interest in the plucked lute – perhaps folks came across Ukulele Ike or Greg Hawkes’ ukulele tribute to the Beatles in a Google search – whatever the cause, the ukulele is becoming a  pandemic and giving even the most fickle-fingered musician a chance to experience the music.