Papa KoAloha here demonstrates the Mini-Uke – the original KoAloha Ukulele:
The first evocation of the ‘Nano’ was the Tiny Tangi (above), built as a desk toy, miniaturising a soprano uke. Some picked it up and learnt to play it, and the rise of the web vlog saw its popularity grow and prices rise as all new supply ended. Here is Will Grove-White on one:
Cosmos’s ProfChris developed several revised versions, looking at practical amendments to make the micro ukulele more playable. Starting with cigar box type instruments, the one presented to former Re-Entrants guru Ian Emmerson was a remarkable instrument in flame koa, actually a tad smaller than the TinyTangi. See this Cosmos thread and the result here:
Andy Miles has recently been making a number of Nanos for the market and this whetted my appetite to try one, after listening to UOGB’s Will Grove-White. The nuts on Andy Miles’s are around 30mm wide with 8 to 8.5mm string spacing, loads more than the Tiny Tangi. They are 85mm to 12th fret; 172mm total scale length. Check out Ben Rouse on one:
My take was that I was not interested in the look of the instrument or its proportion. It had to respect the 170mm scale now forming the ‘nano’ designation. But I decided that the nut width of the Tom Pocket – 33mm – was about as small as I wanted to go. The width of the instrument is not really a limiting factor, so why not make it as playable as you can?
My resulting Nano is another Douglas Fir box, iroko bridge and neck; cut down mando bando tuners (the tuner heads are 11mm diameter) Bridge is 172mm, string span at bridge 40mm, nut width 33mm. 255mm long, width 93mm, weight 155g. (Iroko and those tuners make it quite top heavy)
These images are as assembled but there is no wax or finish at all; I need to remove the glue stains but I will let it wax itself through handling so it feels lived in. It is presently strung with the old (fake) Aquilas from a Tom Pocket. It sounds ok; loud even, but I will not comment further until I have devised a technique to play it! Now in Japan (2023) as it was just sitting in a box of ukulele bits; it needed to be properly loved. I noted the response on the ebay feedback sheet – “Adorable little ʻukulele! Love it so much! Looks even better in person. Definitely something I will treasure. Mahalo nui!! :)”
Ukulele 