The Chetboard

I count 5 strings but there are 8 tuning heads. I thought a ukelele at first and then a baby Taylor but ?

http://www.wimp.com/falllove/

I think it's a variation of a "tiple"

They come in all sorts of variations and usually have some double course (like a mandolin) strings. Sometimes there are double course strings and single strings.

They are primarily a latino instrument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiple

It's an ukulele.

I did a couple of stops on the clip and it looks to me like it has eight tuning pegs.
That makes it a custom made mandolin. Ukes come in, I think, three sizes and are four string instruments

That was a pretty cool video. I had a hard time concentrating on the instrument itself though.

Bill B.

8 tuning pegs. And, I believe there were 5 strings, as thumbslinger mentioned. It looked like the 4th string was doubled, but the other 3 were singles. It was a gut/nylon string instrument. A very talented young lady. Her musicianship was superb, I thought. There were considerable theatrics, as she took advantage of her youth and good looks, and there was a lot of help from electronics in delay, etc., but that still doesn't take away from the fact that her musicianship was exemplary, IMO. To borrow a phrase from one whom I respect greatly, "It's show biz."

Richard's description brings me back around to calling it a tiple, then.

My dad (layed rhythym guitar and sang) used to describe just such an instrument as being the first stringed instrument he ever saw close up as a boy. He said some of the strings were doubled like a mandolin and some were singles and the man who owned it called it a tiple.

It is an ukulele. Many companies make 4, 6, and 8 string versions.

She is Taimane Gardner: http://taimane.com/bio.html

I was going to argue more but I looked into "eight string ukelele" and, Wellah! there is such a thing. So I looked at several of the other links and found a thread discussing this exact instrument along with a fragment of interview with the lady in question about the instrument in question. It would appear that she strings the instrument differently according to the effect she wants.

The site is a mandolin players site.

Two of the posters refer to it as a "Taro Patch" instrument.

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showt ... string-uke


That's good enough for me...

Having said that, I still wouldn't refer to it simply as a ukelele no more than I would refer to a 12 string guitar simply as a guitar. Once you step up from the simple four strings the uke becomes something else even if it has ukulele in its name.

That's how I see it anyway.