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A LIGHTNING-FAST MASTER OF THE TRADITIONAL FOUR-STRINGED, TWO-OCTAVE UKULELE, JAKE SHIMABUKURO WALKS A FINE LINE BETWEEN CLEAN, ACOUSTIC SOUND AND AN AMPLIFIED BLITZKRIEG BY USING VARIOUS GUITAR EFFECT PEDALS. HE HAS BEEN RECOGNIZED BY THE STATE OF HAWAII AS AN OUTSTANDING MUSICIAN AND ROLE MODEL FOR ITS PEOPLE. OUR VERY OWN SMOKIN\' JOE BLOW CAUGHT UP WITH THIS SOFT-SPOKEN VIRTUOSO DURING A TELEPHONE INTERVIEW.
Smokin\' Joe Blow: I just want to say right away that I\'m blown away just hearing about what you do, and I\'m interested to learn more about it. I also know that you count Eddie Van Halen among your early influences. Who were some others?
Jake Shimabukuro: A lot of my influence came from Bruce Lee, because of his philosophy in the martial arts. For example, he didn\'t believe in just one kind of martial art, or one style. He took a little bit of everything he liked and turned it into this thing that had no boundaries; so basically, I apply that to music. I never really looked at each style or each genre. To me, music is just music, and I always try to pull whatever I like from different artists or places to create one thing. That\'s just an example of how he influenced me.
SJB: Wow, that\'s interesting! It\'s like drawing from the whole of a river as opposed to separate ponds and harnessing the flow of the water.
JS: Yeah, exactly.
SJB: So, what other experimentation with your equipment have you tried, like pedals or compressors?
JS: I used to experiment a lot with effect pedals. In fact, a lot of the tunes that I record use a distortion sound-- a wah guitar sound, and things like that. I just want to get as many diverse sounds as I possibly can through the ukulele. I think that\'s really important. The more ways that you can express yourself through one instrument, I think, makes you more versatile, and allows you to say more.
SJB: Definitely. I suppose at this point you\'re only limited by your imagination, and whatever else you can come up with.
JS: Yeah.
SJB: I don\'t know much about Hawaii\'s music scene; I\'ve never been there. So, with no disrespect meant toward Don Ho or any of the more recognizable names, do you feel as though you\'ve erased old paradigms or stereotypes, or perhaps replaced Don as being the most widely recognized talent, and perhaps given the traditional Hawaiian sound a shot in the arm?
JS: Well, we have a big music scene in Hawaii, and it\'s constantly evolving. It\'s constantly changing and moving in a forward direction. That\'s because of the efforts of the older generation, and the generation before that. I mean, I totally respect Don Ho and what he does, what he did, and what he accomplished for the people of Hawaii. Because not only is he a household name, but he also represented the islands, I think. He represented a lot of the music and the aloha-- the spirit of the people. And I think that is very important. All I\'m trying to do is just carry on the tradition of playing the ukulele, share the music, and maybe spread the music of the instrument to different parts of the world-- to people who have never been to Hawaii, or have never heard the ukulele. One of the things I enjoy, aside from playing traditional music and the music that I grew up playing, is branching out and doing different things. Like playing more avant-garde kinds of music with a traditional instrument; with an instrument that you would never expect to hear being played like that
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