Chess Instruments

Sometimes I’m playing a game of chess thinking about what the favorite instrument of the Kings and Queens.

In Hawaii, the favorite instrument is the UKULELE.

There’s nothing more Hawaiian than the sound of a ukulele, strummed under palm trees to the accompaniment of grass-skirted hula dancers. Since the 1880s, this instrument has been a symbol of island life, played in the 19th century royal court, printed on postcards, performed at tourist luaus, and brought home as souvenirs by visitors.

But this quintessentially Hawaiian instrument, a symbol of local pride and native culture, actually has roots on an island half a world away. About two centuries ago, a small, four-string, guitar-like instrument called the machete became popular on the Portuguese archipelago of ­Madeira, strummed by local sugar cane farm workers. As the Portuguese economy sank in the 1870s, and Hawaii (formerly  the Sandwich Islands) boomed with sugar plantations and cattle farms, many Madeirans emigrated to meet the demand for labor.

Among the new immigrants to Hawaii were Portuguese woodworkers and musicians who brought their favorite instrument with them. The proto-­ukulele’s first local mention was in 1879, when the Hawaiian Gazette noted “a band of Portuguese musicians, … fine performers on their strange instruments which are a kind of cross between a guitar and banjo but which produce very sweet music.”

Portuguese craftsmen soon discovered that wood from the endemic Hawaiian koa tree proved to be ideal for shaping the instruments and producing fine tones. As local production began, Hawaiians adopted the instrument with enthusiasm, their strumming and singing becoming ubiquitous across the islands by the mid 1880s. Some tourists actually complained that they heard it “27 out of 24 hours in the day” according to the Gazette. One version of the instrument was called the taro patch fiddle, but given the players’ fast-moving fingers hopping all over the strings, the instrument soon earned the name ukulele, Hawaiian for “jumping flea.”

The court of King Kalakaua first used the ukulele in hula performances at his coronation in 1883. His daughter, soon to be Queen Liliuokalani, composed the anthem “Aloha Oe,” still taught to every Hawaiian child.

What language sounds good with the Ukulele?