Mainland Ukulele owners, Tookta and Mike Hater. photo by Jeff Tryon
Ukulele Congress
~ by Jeff Tryon
Its happy little sound has charmed generations of Americans and carried it all around the world— the ukulele is coming to Brown County, in numbers.
Somewhere in a farm field surrounded by woods in pristine rural Brown County, hundreds of ukulele from all over the world will gather on a summer weekend to celebrate the little instrument that has entertained royalty and amused rock stars.
It all started more or less by accident for Mike Hater, who accepted a friend’ s challenge
courtesy photo to learn to play the tiny musical powerhouse.
“ It must’ ve been maybe about 15 years ago, I had a friend who said he was going to learn how to play ukulele and told me I should do it too,” Hater said.“ He said,‘ If I’ m not too old, that means you’ re not too old.’ So I said okay, and I started with it.”
The ukulele’ s diminutive size and ease of play makes it a handy instrument to keep around.
“ It’ s the easiest string instrument to play,” Hater said.“ After figuring out how to make a few chords and strum halfway decent, you can do some songs that you actually like; you go
online and print out the tabs.” Hater started playing the ukulele and formed a small band that played weekly.
Then a music company in Indianapolis hired him to do ukulele set ups, adjusting newlybuilt ukes for individual customers tastes. The owner hired Hater’ s wife as secretary and office manager. That company moved to Brown County but went out of business.
Since the couple had learned everything there is to know about the ukulele business they decided to get a small loan and create their own Mainland Ukuleles company.
62 Our Brown County May / June 2016