Meet the Ukurone: Bigger Than an Upright Bass and Strung with Rope

BY GREG OLWELL

I couldn’t help but notice something odd when violin-maker Andrew Carruthers lead me the backyard his freshly varnished violins and cellos dry in the golden California sun. I saw a large open headstock, like you’d see on an old Martin guitar or a high-end ukulele, but bigger. Much bigger. It was peeking through a dusty window of the shed where he stores wood at his Santa Rosa, California, shop and home.

Turning to Andy, I nodded toward the shed and asked, “So, what’s that?”

Giving me a laugh, the English-born violin maker said, “Oh, that? That’s the ‘ukurone’—the ‘world’s biggest ukulele.'”

Then, he gladly pulled it out to show me the unique ukulele built for him by his friend Serafim Reis as a birthday present.

The string length is about the same as an upright bass, but it’s even taller. Speaking of strings, you won’t find extruded nylon and silver-wound strings on this behemoth. These strings are made of rope—like the rope you might use to tie a mattress to the roof of your car on moving day. Or the rope strap that was tied around the neck and the endpin, which would allow the player to walk around. The rope-core strings are tuned using the massive, functional tuners.

How does it sound? Well, curse my normal, human-sized hands, but I couldn’t strum chords on it. I was, however, able to play a little bass on it though, working through a few walking blues bass lines and even slapping it a little (as you can see from the short clip Andy took of me checking it out).

We don’t need to call the people at the Guinness Book of World Records to confirm if this is the “world’s biggest ukulele” (it’s not), but I do know that not only is this a great birthday present, I would totally take Andy’s ukarone to a gig.

Thanks for digging it out, Andy.