PHOTO: Michael Parmenter (Luthier & Brother Blogger)

Although blogging is a pretty solitary experience you do get the opportunity to come across some kindred spirits along the way. Michael and I have been communicating over the last two years. I had fallen in love with his medieval styled ukuleles, his craftsmanship, his attention to detail, and his classical arrangements. He regularly adds a few arrangements that are both low G and low D compatible. I have fun working thru them as they come along.

I have been trying to make this a baritone ukulele players haven. A place for the baritone ukulele, Old Barry, to get it's due. And one of the things I like to do is ask YOU the reader for a jpg image of you with your bari-uke. Be simple, be creative, let us know about you. (I want to see a photo of the player that frequently visits the blog and lives in Rotterdam, Holland.)

Micheal sent these wonderful pictures of himself in his beautifully snowy Canadian backyard with his recent luthiery bari-uke gem.

Oh yeah, I should also mention Michael's blogs again:
Classical Tabs for the Ukulele and CanUke

Michael Parmenter || New Baritone Ukulele Beauty

Michael Parmenter has another set of photos from his new batch of Baritone Ukuleles. Click the link below and take a gander...

http://canuke.blogspot.com/2010/09/autumn-baritone.html

Another Michael Parmenter Bari

This reminds me of a Parlour Guitar shape.

Another hand crafted beauty!

http://canuke.blogspot.com/2010/08/second-coming-of-baritone.html

Michael Parmenter Custom Baritone

http://canuke.blogspot.com/2010/07/deep-baritone.html

It is a beautiful day in the Bari neighborhood. I see that a good e-friend of mine Michael Parmenter in Canada has completed his luthiery work on some Baritone ukuleles. I don't exactly remember how Michael and I got in touch except for the obvious ukulele connection. I think I have admired his home luthiery and great photo archives for the last two years.

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Each morning I check out the blog stats and see what has caught the most curiousity and what links may have led to either Humble Uker or Humble Baritonics. To my surprise some links lead back to my friend Michael. I have admired his luthiery and especially some of his ukes which I think have a strickingly handsome medieval look. (I sent an e-mail to the Ohana Rep., Ken Middleton, suggesting that he gets Ohana to check out these medieval uke designs, but alas no reply -- yet.)

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Michael also writes the ocassional classical tablature and posts it on his Classical Tabs blog. http://ukeclassicaltabs.blogspot.com/ He uses TABLEDIT which is quite a cool program to write music on. I have also bought the musical-tool-program and have found it quite easy to use but full of many "bells-and-whistles" that allow amazing flexibility and notational abilities. TABLEDIT is set up to work with a plethura of instruments, perhaps 50 or more. Check out some of Michaels arrangements they are also in PDF format for easy use.

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[I was dinking around looking for tabs and found a banjo/violin site that had tabs for several songs. The theme from the Beverly Hillbillies caught my attention. The arrangement was on TABLEDIT for 5 string banjo. But I was able to upload it and change the tablature to Ukulele in about 3 minutes. Note: TABLEDIT is commonly read TAB EDIT.]

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Be sure to check out more of Michael's uke luthier and music stories on his blog here... http://canuke.blogspot.com/
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HU/HB/Jeff

p.s. It's quite a beautiful Bari Michael!