Ukulele The tone and volume of the instrument vary with size and construction. Ukuleles commonly come in four sizes: soprano, concert, tenor, and baritone. The ukulele is commonly associated with music from Hawaii where the name roughly translates as "jumping flea", perhaps because of the movement of the player's fingers. Legend attributes it to the nickname of the Englishman Edward William Purvis, one of King Kalākaua's officers, because of his small size, fidgety manner, and playing expertise. One of the earliest appearances of the word "ukulele" in print (in the sense of a stringed instrument) is in the Metropolitan Museum of
Recorder (musical instrument) "common flute", "common English-flute", or simply "English flute" while the transverse instrument was distinguished as the "German flute" or simply "flute." Until at least 1765, some writers still used "flute" to mean recorder. Until the mid 18th century, musical scores written in Italian refer to the instrument as , whereas the transverse instrument was called . This distinction, like the English switch from "recorder" to "flute," has caused confusion among modern editors, writers and performers. Indeed, in most European languages, the first term for the recorder was the word for flute alone. In the present day, cognates of the word