{"id":18227,"date":"2017-01-23T15:41:28","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T20:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=18227"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:35:31","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:35:31","slug":"strumming-singing-and-surprising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=18227","title":{"rendered":"Strumming, singing &#8211; and surprising"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"ast-oembed-container \" style=\"height: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Carolina Ukulele Ensemble: strumming, singing - and surprising\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yAenMQDyYUg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Sarah Bonn and John Thorp know all about their chosen instrument\u2019s reputation: It\u2019s small. It can only play a few types of songs. It\u2019s not serious.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">But\u00a0with each pluck of the string, the Carolina students work to prove that the ukulele can do far more than audiences think.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cIt has a rep as kind of a joke because it is kind of dinky and small,\u201d said Bonn, a senior. \u201cSo that\u2019s why it\u2019s fun for us to be able to take it and kind of flip it into something new.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Bonn and Thorp are co-presidents of the Carolina Ukulele Ensemble, a group of 20 students who rehearse weekly and perform on and around campus.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">Now in its fourth year, the <\/span><span class=\"s2\">Ukulele<\/span><span class=\"s1\"> Ensemble has grown large enough to hold auditions, a big change from the days when Thorp and a few friends got together to jam every now and then.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cThe ukulele has gotten a lot more popular in the past few years,\u201d said Thorp, a senior. \u201cIt\u2019s a lighthearted instrument. There\u2019s something completely innocent, but simultaneously complex and interesting about it, I think.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">The Carolina Ukulele Ensemble performs a range of music well beyond traditional ukulele tunes, including covers of songs by Elton John, The Avett Brothers, Vampire Weekend and many more.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cWe try to be all over the place with our music: \u201970s rock, and then out of that we got to \u201990s R&amp;B,\u201d Thorp said. \u201cIt goes across genres and across different musical styles really, really well. It\u2019s something that I think resonates with a lot of people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><em>Bonn is a communication studies major and entrepreneurship minor. Thorp is a music and interdisciplinary studies major and chemistry minor.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>Story and video by Rob Holliday, Office of University Communications<br \/>\nPublished January 20, 2017<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sarah Bonn and John Thorp know all about their chosen instrument\u2019s reputation: It\u2019s small. It can only play a few types of songs. It\u2019s not serious. But with each pluck of the string, the Carolina students work to prove that the ukulele can do far more than audiences think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":18228,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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