After a lifetime of strumming and plucking, Nancy Piver, ’65, has more ukuleles than she’s prepared to tally. The oldest is from her mother’s 1935 visit to Hawaii. “I don’t dare count,” she says. “It’s a fair number.” There are ukuleles in every room of her home in San Luis Obispo, Calif., ready for use as the craving arises. “All of my ukuleles are in plain sight so I can pick up any one of them and play it if I want,” she says.
Piver’s great joy, however, isn’t in solo home performances; it’s in being part of something larger. Not long after Piver started to play piano by ear at age 4, her kindergarten teacher asked her to play Christmas carols as her classmates sang along. It was both her “first gig” and a lasting lesson. She didn’t need to be a star—she thrilled in accompanying others.
As an adult, she indulged that love with a three-person piano bench for six-handed songs. The ukulele has allowed her to embrace ensemble playing at a larger scale. For the past two decades, Piver has served as musical director of the SLO Strummers ukulele club on the Central Coast. She arranges songs—from baroque to ragtime and swing—with a sophistication that belies the group’s punny name. “I like to make the music interesting for every player,” she says. For the past two years, Piver has organized the multiday Ukulele Ensemble Extravaganza, which brings together aficionados from across the country to join in a “ukestra,” a portmanteau of ukulele and orchestra. Nearly 40 people attended last year’s event in Portland, Ore., to play a dozen pieces they’d been practicing on their own for months. At this year’s event, in August, friends and family were invited to listen in on the final night. “There’s nothing like the feeling of an ensemble, everyone playing together with the same mindset, listening to each other,” she says. “It’s magic.”
It’s never too late to start, Piver says. Her own arrangements give roles for master musicians as well as “confident beginners.” Or you can just enjoy listening to the music. There’s something about the ukulele that makes people smile, Piver says. One in every room? Even more so.
Sam Scott is a senior writer at Stanford. Email him at sscott3@stanford.edu.
