Martin Blanes on the Emerald Synergy Uke (tenor harp ukulele)
 

Dear all,

Our good friend Martin Blanes (aka Paperkitten), who would be well-known to forum members, visited us in Donegal, Ireland this week.

While he was here he recorded a beautiful traditional Chinese piece on our tenor harp ukulele, the Synergy Uke, to mark the Chinese New Year (January 28).

Here is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNW_8xz9Vqo

We hope you enjoy it.

Best Wishes,

Sean

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/291/32...8e6d1fe5_c.jpgMartin Blanes Synergy Uke by Alistair Hay, on Flickr

Very nice !!

Any idea how those sub-bass strings are tuned?

Hi warndt

We're glad you liked it. So we set the Synergy Uke up with the following tuning: G-C-E-A (tenor uke neck); F-G-A-C (sub bass strings). However, Martin, may have changed for this piece, we will double-check with him.

Best Wishes,

Sean

I have one of these and find them a great delight. The added sustain is something else. I take the view that this is a tenor uke with four extra strings that I can tune anyway I want. Until there's a need for a bass note, I leave it alone, (same as for my X7 Synergy Harp Guitar.) However, when you do use it, it so enhances what you can add to your playing. They're not only beautiful, they're beautifully made and, being carbon fibre, don't suffer from the problems of heat, humidity and so on. As always, a personal choice, but I love mine.

Thank you very much for your feedback, Urbanmeister!

We are delighted to hear that you are enjoying your Synergy Uke! if anyone has questions about our harp ukulele, we are here to answer your questions any time!

Kind regards from all the team at Emerald Guitars,

Sean

As usual, an extraordinary performance by Martin. His talent really shines on this beautiful instrument! Well done Emerald!

I am dithering between X20, X7 and I guess after seeing Martin do what Martin does so well a uke Synergy. You have two, so which harp guitar/uke would you recommend of the two you have if you could only have one and why? Also I assume the G on the uke is low. For me I play mostly guitar (X20) and have several ukes around the house with the Pono bari-uke getting the most play. I also play a lot of other (mostly non-string) instruments and am looking for something that will be fun to learn how to play for a long time.

"F-G-A-C (sub bass strings)"

This is how the bass strings are tuned on Martin's very nice linked youtube.

Thank you, Sean, for sharing this link.