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The ASU Ukulele Club strikes a chord through community

The club provides an inclusive and musical forum to learn and practice

Ukulele Club Express Yourself

ASU Ukulele Club is pictured during their performance at Express Yourself on Nov. 14, 2016.


One unusual instrument is uniting students to the tune of a whimsical island sound.

The ASU Ukulele Club combines musical practice, inclusiveness and community service to create an environment for all types of students. Whether you are a pro when it comes to playing or have no musical bone in your body, the Ukulele Club hopes to expand your musical abilities. 

The Ukulele Club was started just a year ago and since then it has become a forum for all different types of students with various ukulele-playing levels to come together and practice.

Katie DeMassa, who has been playing the ukulele for five years now, is the founder and president of the club and is currently a sophomore majoring in music education. The idea of the club came to her last year as a freshman.

“As soon as I got to college, I knew I wanted to start it so I started the process as soon as I got there,” DeMassa said. “And then about second semester last year, we had an official club, and we had officers and everything.”

The club serves various purposes. Outside of creating an inclusive musical environment, the Ukulele Club also participates in community service by volunteering and preforming at fundraising events.

“The whole purpose is to make music together, to share music with others and it has another purpose,” DeMassa said. “We actually partner with the Jolee-Jaffa Music Foundation. The purpose of their organization is to raise money for people who are underprivileged and don’t really have the chance of music in their lives.”

Aside from serving the community, the Ukulele Club also provides students who do not know how to play the opportunity to learn by attending their meetings on Wednesdays and Fridays.

“It’s kind of like everyone teaches each other because everyone knows different things,” DeMassa said.

Because the Ukulele Club is fairly new, it plans to get the word out about the club through a few upcoming performances.

“We are going to perform at Express Yourself again next semester,” DeMassa said. “And then the only other performance we have planned right now is to perform at the School of Politics and Global Studies at their future students night.”

The secretary of the Ukulele Club, biomedical engineering junior Justin Mieth, began playing the instrument when the club began. He said the students involved with the club range from many different academic and musical backgrounds.

“There seems to be a lot of undergraduate students, but it is also open to graduate students, too,” Mieth said. “A lot of people are non-music majors. It’s really open to anyone. We are even working on getting ukuleles so that people could use (them) during the meeting if they didn't have their own."

The adviser for the club is Associate Professor of Music Education Roger Mantie, who chose to become involved because of his research, which is focused on lifelong participation in music.

“I am a big believer in doing anything and everything possible to encourage and facilitate ways for people to be musically active,” Mantie said. “In short, the ukulele club was a natural fit for me.”

In regards to the future of this up-and-coming club, Mantie said he sees the club growing and becoming successful at ASU.

“The ukulele is perfect for college because it is small and low-cost, yet very satisfying musically,” Mantie said. “I am very excited to witness the growth in the upcoming years — and playing with the group once I get my ukulele chops together.”


Reach the reporter at mmbaiett@asu.edu or follow @marcellabaietto on Twitter.

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