GREENSBORO, N.C. — As John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” echoes throughout room 203 at the Greensboro Cultural Center, 12 ukuleles strum in unison.

 

       What You Need to Know

  • Ukulele sales are up 15% from last year
  • Every region of North Carolina has ukulele clubs or stores, who have seen increases in membership
  • Triad Ukulele saw its mailing list and online jam sessions increase to over 100 people

 

Triad Ukulele, a social club for music enthusiasts, meets every Tuesday night for a jam session, whether virtual or in-person.  

Sara Howard became the president of the club last year. She started playing about three years ago when the City of Greensboro offered a beginner’s class. That class planted the seeds for what eventually became Triad Ukulele.

“I love the community that this has brought together,” Howard said. “I’ve made a lot of friends through this club and then also online.”

COVID-19 decimated most industries throughout the country, but the music industry, and particularly the ukulele industry, flourished.

“Ukulele community online has exploded,” Howard said. “There are so many jams available now, even now, on Zoom, it blew my mind.”

Guitar Center, the national string giant, reported ukulele sales are up 15% compared to this time last year.

The rise of the social media app TikTok, the instrument being relatively easy to learn and social distancing likely all played a role in the ukulele boom. 

But it’s not just ukuleles that have seen an increase in sales. At Moore Music Company in Greensboro, all their instruments saw an increase in sales. The two most popular were guitars and keyboards.

"Music stores like us sold out of our guitars, pretty much sold all of our ukes,” Al Stephens, the owner of Moore Music Company, said. “Our digital pianos and keyboards, we were shipping them from Boston to California to Texas."  

When COVID-19 forced everyone inside, everything from passion projects to simply fighting boredom came out.

"When you’re home all day long and you’re staring at each other and you figure out I’ve washed the car all I can wash the car, I’ve cleaned the house all I can clean the house, I want to do something for me,” Stephens said. “It was a renaissance period if you will.”

The "renaissance" is adding to the already-vibrant music scene in the state of North Carolina.

“It makes me happy because I love music,” Howard said.