en:bio:manitoba_hal

Manitoba Hal

'Manitoba' Hal Brolund

10.11.–

Canadian Hal Brolund, formerly a bus driver, began to perform as a guitarist, calling himself Manitoba Hal after his home in Manitoba, Canada. Later he made the change to the ukulele. His technical specialty is a combination of single-note picking and strumming, often with looping, and his main genre is Blues music, often with Christian content.

He explains his change to the ukulele as follows: Seinen Wechsel zur Ukulele begründet er wie folgt:

I noticed that sonically it occupied this space that was in pitch above my voice. This gave my vocals a lot more room in the song without colliding with the notes of the accompaniment as they did when I played guitar also I noticed that people seemed amazed at the sounds I was producing with the ukulele.
The last thing that clinched my decision to switch to uke full time was that for all the years and concerts I’ve given as a guitarist, people usually didn’t tell me stories of their life when I play guitar. [However], people seemed compelled to communicate about their life when the uke is played. I like that.1)

Videos


St James Infirmary Blues (2016)


Sweet Home Chicago (2017)


Ain't No Sunshine (2008)


Effective Practicing (2018)


Spice Up Your Blues (2017)


How to make your own blues riffs (2017)


5 Things Blues Techniques (2019)


Freight Train Tutorial (2018)
Transcript


Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women (2011)


Way Down in the Hole (2010)

Audio recordings


Parkindal Podcast: Manitoba Hal (2019-03-18)

References