Few artists move as effortlessly across musical borders as Daniel Ho. Widely associated with the ukulele and Hawaiian music, he's spent decades carving a path far broader than any single genre (or instrument) can contain. His work spans contemporary jazz, world music collaborations, music education, and instrument design. His prolific solo catalog also continues to evolve with every project. Yet no matter where his creativity takes him, his joyful disposition and adventurous spirit remain unmistakable.

 

Ho's independent business approach plays a pivotal role in his artistic freedom. After an early run leading a charting contemporary jazz group in the '90s, he stepped away from the traditional label system and built a home-studio-driven, self-sustaining career long before it became the norm.

 

Musically, Ho's approach blends a schooled precision with an open-hearted respect for culture, craft, and sound. Whether he's engineering his own recordings, shaping a new instrument with master luthier Pepe Romero Jr., or creating video content with tools like the Sennheiser Profile Wireless, Ho brings an intentional clarity to everything he touches.

 

That same clarity shines in conversation as he reflects on creativity, his tools of the trade, and the pursuit of authentic expression.

 

 

Daniel Ho: Studying film scoring at the Grove School of Music gave me the ability to evaluate genre styles. And growing up, I had a mentor who saw some potential in me. He said, "Versatility is super important to continue working in your field." He said the best way to use this generalist approach is to write more knowledgeably about each instrument if you play it. I played drums in the marching band, bass in the jazz band, and piano. That's the foundation of where I come from. 

 

 

 

The only reason was necessity. My first record deal was from 1990 to '95 in contemporary jazz, leading a band called Kilauea, which saw some middle-of-the-road success. It was just five years of writing in that genre. You end up stuck in the confines of what defines the genre.

 

From that period of my life, I had enough Billboard, R&R, and Gavin charts to start my own label. And having your own record company allowed you the freedom to play and work in different genres.

 

So I got two ADATs, I put them together, and I got 16 tracks of digital recording at home. I started making my own stuff and recording it at home. Technology allowed me to save tens of thousands of dollars on each record. And this was in the mid-90s.

 

I also bought danielho.com, so my record company had a direct connection to my audience. I just started learning how to make a lousy website. I got a book with a CD-ROM that taught me Photoshop. And then I got a cheap digital camera, and I started taking album covers. I recorded a solo instrumental album and started touring internationally.

 

Professionally, that allowed me to work on Hawaiian slack-key guitar. Then ukulele became popular, and I started playing it, which ended up being the instrument people associate most with me. It's taken me around the world.

 

 

The prerequisite for doing that is to have enough understanding and ability that the musicians won't need to simplify their music to collaborate with you. The second thing is, in respect of indigenous culture and music, I generally record what they do first, and then I add things to it.

 

I've heard indigenous musicians tell me that people would record them singing or something and then put it on their dance music track. So they'd have this Aboriginal melody sung in the background. That's not the way that I present their culture. I think they appreciate the fact that it can be more accessible to Western audiences, but their music remains untouched.

 

 

My three main instruments are piano, guitar, and ukulele. Whatever the song requires is what I'll play. So, if it's a song, like "Gray Sparrow's Heartache" on the Between the Sky and Prairie album, which is a Mongolian song with long chords, I played piano because I needed the sustain. But if it's a fast, happy drinking song, I'll do it on a ukulele.

 

13 years ago, I started designing instruments with Pepe Romero Jr. That has been an incredible collaboration that led to Romero Creations, the instrument company. He has sold thousands of these instruments.

 

I describe it as writing a song with wood. As a composer, you choose the note, its place in time, the rhythm, and the feel. But now I can say, "This is an up-tempo song, and I need a spruce top and a maple back and sides, and I need this shape and this kind of tone."

 

And Pepe Romero is a traditionally trained classical guitar luthier of the highest level. So everything that happens on the inside — the bracing, the wood thicknesses — all comes from him.

 

 

I've been a Yamaha guitar artist for over 20 years. I consult on the acoustic pickup designs. On my ukulele, I use a Mi-Si because it uses a full-range piezo sensor that gives it an even more acoustic sound. I've been using this system for 20 years, and it works perfectly.

 

Then I run that pickup into a Bose T4S with three bands of fully parametric EQ. I use spectrum analyzers and make every note perfectly even, so I don't have resonant frequencies on the instrument. I actually need five or six bands, but three is enough to grab a couple of specific frequencies.

 

 

I do what is called reverse film scoring, where I'm scoring my song with visuals. So I have the Sennheiser shotguns, the Sennheiser 935 vocal mic, and, of course, I had Sennheiser headphones from way back when. But when I travel, portability is huge, so the Sennheiser Profile Wireless is amazing in so many ways.

 

And I think I've found unique ways to use it. I like to use different camera focal lengths, so I can be really far away. That means I need something that sounds really good and that can be independent of my camera, because of all the room noise. And when I do shows, I can set two units in different parts of the room. I can put one on a table or on a stand. And you can put one in the audience and capture some of the audience.

 

It's good for teaching, too. I do workshops where I just clip it to the strap and can capture my voice and some of the instrument. It's kind of pointing right in between, and I can record and have all of that [audio]. It's pretty perfect.

 

 

I find different inspirations at different periods of my life. When I first started out, it was like, "Well, let's see what I can do." At 57 years old, I will try anything, especially if I've never done it before. 

 

Too many young people I see are stuck on their phones, comparing their lives to each other, and it makes them depressed. It makes you cower away from playing an instrument. They should feel the vibration against their body. Feel that joy, feel the inspiration, play your own song, and write your own song. That's what I want. I want to try to share and inspire others before my time here is done.