*(l)ele

I watch with admiration these inventive and highly skilled people who make instruments for themselves out of all sorts of objects. From shoeboxes and bedpans to tennis rackets, they stretch four strings across almost anything and there you have it: an instrument. Some of them sound surprisingly good, too. They often give their new creations names (and if they do not, I will) by taking the “uku(l)” part off the beginning of “ukulele” and replacing it with the beginning of the word for whatever the instrument was made from. Hence the title of this post: *(l)ele.

And now for the videos:

A tennis racket becomes a tennislele

A cigarette box becomes a miniature cigilele

From a shoebox (shoeboxulele)

Salad-bowl-lele

Cadburylele

Olive-oil-tin-lele DD

Biscuit-tin-lele

The next one is rather morbid — appropriately accompanied by a funeral march: coffinlele

Bedpanlele

And finally, two links in case anyone has been inspired to try some DIY ukulele building (from a cigar box):

A ukulele made from matches — for people with a lot of time on their hands (photo series)