I agree, Julia! Here is a nice article from Nuvo.net on how Ms. Nunes got started with the ukulele…
Julia Nunes “added the instrument (ukulele) to her arsenal by accident. While waiting on a friend to pick out a guitar at a music store, she spotted a small plastic ukulele, which, in retrospect, Nunes now believes wasn’t even for sale. But she picked it up, and songs were flowing out of her before she even left.”
“The timing was perfect. Nunes discovered the ukulele just before she was to leave for summer camp, where she hesitated to bring her guitar for fear it might get damaged by rowdy campers.”
“Since that summer, it’s just been a really great thing to play when I don’t feel like lugging around a big guitar,” Nunes said. “I can take a ukulele anywhere. Even if I write a song on guitar, I can transpose it. I play them both equally.”
“That’s not the only reason she likes the oft-underestimated instrument.
“It has a certain attitude, especially when I’m playing it,” she said. “I play it sometimes ironically. Then sometimes I embrace the plucky, upbeat, cheerful nature of it. It’s easy to apply it to lots of different moods because in some songs it highlights how so much passion and fervor can come out of a young girl like myself or a small instrument like the ukulele.”
Julia Nunes: anything sounds peppier with a ukulele | Rock | NUVO Newsweekly | Indianapolis, IN