Ukuleles coming to a workplace near you?

Those of you in the industry who know me, know how passionate I am about the ukulele.

I've endured the laughs, the p*** taking and the bemused expressions, but it could be that I actually will have the last laugh.

I have been playing for about 19 months now and it literally has taken over my life - the ukulele community is fantastic and is growing at a rate of knots with events all over the country. It is a really social little instrument, and great fun.

The thing that annoys me the most is when you mention a ukulele someone always mentions George Formby and cleaning windows - aarrgh! I have to restrain myself sometimes to not punch them in the eye.

I am in a local ukulele band and we have an absolute blast. And there is not a Formby song in sight. We turn up at local guitar open mic nights and by the end of it have converted a few more people to the magic of the uke! Plus the bookings are starting to trickle in so we must be doing something right.

Non-ukulele people would be surprised to hear the songs that can be played on the humble uke - in fact it can pretty much play anything. And above all else it is FUN. And that fun is contagious.

Thanks to Ant and Dec playing the instruments on one of their Saturday night shows recently, the ukulele teacher who taught them a few chords, has popped up with an idea to bring the ukulele to the corporate environment in teambuilding 'workshops' through her company Musivate.

Her theory is that people who make music together will get on - and that is absolutely true. You cannot argue when you are jamming - apart from over the song that you want to play next.

I know another group of ukulele fanatics that go around schools all over the UK teaching the kids to play the ukulele too and it is very popular.

I'm not sure how I would feel though if I were at an IT conference either in the UK or abroad, and saw industry people in suits all strumming away on ukuleles - it would be a bit of a surreal experience with two worlds colliding, and probably not in a good way!

But how can I argue with anything that promotes the ukulele and its general brilliance?

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