Pineapple

Pineapple Ukuleles
The "Pineapple" is probably the most common Ukulele body shape after the traditional Figure "8" Waisted Ukulele.

The name itself it is a bit of a misnomer as the actual shape is basically an oval, sometime moving towards and egg with a smaller top than bottom, or sometimes moving toward being squared off, (or even both for a bit more of a trapezium with rounded corners) but an oval is the best description.

Historically this is quite an early Ukulele shape; and the first one to actually come out out from the Hawaiian islands. It came about in the late 1920's and the luthier who invented this shape was Sam Kamaka (Snr), (founder of the Kamaka Ukulele Co.). The reason for the shape coming about has two stories, the more publicised is that it came about in an effort to get more volume from an acoustic Ukulele by increasing the area of the lower bout, and the Pineapple shape does give more volume than an equivalent scale waisted Ukulele. The alternative is that Sam Kamaka couldn't see why the Ukulele, a very small instrument, needed a waist so started making some more simply, with less wood bending, as an oval shape and the volume increase was an unexpected, but welcome benefit.

The reason for the name was one of Sam Kamaka's friends suggested than the new design looked a bit like a pineapple, (a major cash crop in Hawaii), and painted a picture of one on the soundboard. This decoration, along with the shape caught on and Kamaka patented the design and started making Pineapple Ukuleles commercially with pictures of a pineapple on the front and often the back.

The design idea spread to a few of the other makers in Hawaii, especially friends of Sam Kamaka, like Johnny Lai, and Louis Gaspar, but it didn't really catch on on the Mainland, where they were viewed as tourist novelty items, until after WWII. Even then it spread first to Japan and the boom in making Ukuleles there for home consumption as well as export, before coming to the Mainland US and Europe. It is now a widely accepted and regular Ukulele body shape though with most major Ukulele manufacturers including Pineapples in their catalogue and a number of luthiers around the world making them too.

Originally, and by far still the most common scale length for a Pineapple is Soprano but you do often get them as Minis or in the larger scales; the rarity increasing as the size goes up. It is also common for this body shape to be used for the long necked super scale types of Ukulele with a lot of Pineapple Ukuleles having necks that meet the body at well above the 14th fret.

Another modern design feature that is becoming more common, is the idea of a more "leafy" spiked headstock shape to enhance the pineapple look of the Ukulele.