Kamaka Pineapple Ukulele

The Kamaka Soprano Pineapple is a small four-string ukulele whose body is an oval, broader at the bottom than the top, rather than the waisted figure-eight of a guitar. Top, back and sides are solid Hawaiian koa in a satin finish. A round soundhole sits high on the top, a rosewood bridge low down, and a mahogany neck carries a rosewood fingerboard of sixteen frets, twelve of them clear of the body, under a koa-faced headstock with the double-K mark in pearl.

The shape was Samuel Kamaka Sr.'s answer to a crowded trade. He had learned under Manuel Nunes, one of the Portuguese cabinetmakers who brought the instrument to Hawaii, and set up on his own in 1916. Around 1927 he tried an oval body in search of a mellower voice. Friends said it looked like a pineapple; an artist among them painted one to match, and the name stuck. The design patent he was granted in January 1928 gave him the shape to himself for fourteen years.

Ukulele magazine notes that the oval was also easier to build than the waisted form. Early examples carried a blue label reading "Kamaka Special Pineapple" with the patent, and a large pineapple decal between soundhole and bridge. Construction has changed in detail since: the neck once ran straight into the body Spanish fashion with frets set in the wood, and from 1954 a separate fingerboard and rosewood bridge were fitted. The outline is the one Sam Sr. drew, and the maker says his body pattern is still in use.

Other makers now build pineapple ukuleles, and the name has become a description of a shape. The Kamaka is the original, made in Honolulu by the family that patented it, now in its fourth generation and selling to players in Hawaii, Japan and beyond. Its voice is fuller and rounder than the figure-eight soprano beside it in the catalogue.