Noel Tardy took a ukulele lesson during a Hawaiian vacation eight years ago, and when she returned to Dallas, she had a hard time finding strings, sheet music and other ukulele accoutrements. “There really wasn’t even much available on the internet at the time,” she says. So the Preston Hollow resident became the Ukulele Lady of Dallas, selling instruments and other uke-related stuff online at ukeladymusic.com.
This past summer, she opened a ukulele shop near White Rock Lake, and she’s already finding ways to give back to the community. The store is inside Keep U N Stitches, the custom embroidery shop that fellow ukulele enthusiast Gina Volpe opened at Buckner and Northcliff in 1997. The shop has a selection of 30 or so ukuleles on display in a range of prices from $30 to $4,000 (for serious musicians). Tardy and Volpe host an open mike night at 7 p.m. on the second Tuesday of the month, and on the second Saturday of every month, they give free ukulele lessons starting at 10 a.m. Of all the string instruments, ukulele is one of the easiest to learn, Tardy says. “You can play so many genres of music on a ukulele,” Tardy says. “It’s little, and it’s portable. You can take it anywhere.”
She and Volpe started a nonprofit, Ukes in the Classroom Texas, to help provide music study in North Texas elementary schools. So far, they’ve given 24 ukuleles to two schools, and they provide free instruction for the music teachers. “Ukulele is an ideal instrument to introduce kids to music,” Tardy says. There are some 300 people in the Dallas ukulele meet-up group, and every year they have a big Fourth of July party and ukulele jam session. And in April, volunteers produce the three-day Lone Star Uke Festival. They’re a quirky group of Hawaiian-shirt-wearing strummers, and they don’t take themselves too seriously. Next they’re planning to form a marching band — the Dallas Ukulele Marching Band. That’s right, D.U.M.B.
Noel Tardy gives free ukulele lessons starting at 10 a.m. every second Saturday at Keep U N Stitches, 718 N. Buckner Blvd. Otherwise, her rate is $35 an hour. If you buy five lessons, the sixth is free, and she offers discounts for siblings taking lessons together.
Find more information at ukeladymusic.com, lonestarukefest.com and ukesintheclassroom.com
