Lili'u

Lili'u
The name "Lili'u" comes from Queen Lili'uokalani, the last of the Hawaiian monarchs, who in her youth helped popularise the Ukulele in the late 19th century. However the history of the instrument itself doesn't date back that far, this string configuration was invented by Sam Kamaka Jr. in 1959, to celebrate Hawaii's Statehood.

The Lili'u Ukulele is a 6 string Ukulele but it differs from a Guitalele because it has 4 courses of strings usually tuned to g~C~E~A. with the C and the A being double string courses, (so g~cC~E~AA). On top of this the G can be high or low and the A pair can be in unison or an octave apart, the C pair however are always an octave apart. A lot of messing about perhaps but it is suppose to work particularly well with the human singing voice?

The Ukuleles themselves are usually Tenor scale, but there are Baritone scale ones, (which can be Baritone tuned so D~gG~B~EE - or variants thereof), and occasionally Concert scale one too. They feature now in most of the big manufacturers and distributors catalogues and most of the Hawaiian makers have had a go too.

Other 6 string 4 course Ukuleles
The Lili'u is not the only 6 string 4 course Ukulele configuration ever used, but none of the others really caught on. There are a number of Ukuleles and Banjoleles, (even Tenor Guitars) that had the highest 2 courses doubled, presumably for volume purposes? There was also the "Mini Tiple Ukulele" that was soprano sized and had the 2 middle courses doubled, though this never really took off. Probably the most famous, or at least well publicised at the time, was Favilla's Wimbrola, but this too didn't really catch the publics imagination.