What is your favorite scale uke? 2018 edition.

Favorite scale:


  • Total voters
    145
  • Poll closed .

jer

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IF you had to pick just one scale, what would you pick? Choose your favorite. I know this thread/poll has been done before, but I'm just interested in an updated version with all current members who will participate.
 
My first uke about 4 1/2 years ago was a whim purchase, but when I started playing it, I found it difficult to form chords. I discovered it was a soprano and being that I played guitar for almost 50 years, I decided tenor was better for me. I went out and bought a tenor cutaway and that's been it ever since, gone through 23, down to 7 now.
 
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I picked baritone, though tenor is slowly growing on me. Tenor requires finer motor movements which I notice particularly in the right hand, but as it gets more familiar and I play it better, I like it more. Baritone is easiest and is still my go-to.

bratsche
 
I would have to go with soprano. All the scale sizes have their nice attributes, of course, but I like the challenge of standing (or sitting) there with nothing but that little soprano, so "minimalist", and making it "work" with whatever songs I can come up with that fit my ever-declining vocal range (usually songs I grew up loving during the sixties and seventies).
 
I picked tenor, but I do like the baritone too, especially for finger picking. That said, I started playing guitar in 1968, and I began playing classical guitar in 1977, so I'm definitely not coming at this from an ukulele perspective. I might like to try a concert at some point, but for now I'm happy with my tenor and baritone. :)
 
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I find it really hard to pick between tenor and concert. In the end I went tenor for the slight volume boost and marginally more substantial tone.
 
Concert! I never considered a soprano because my fingers were just too squished on the ones I tried in various stores. I loved the concert size immediately and still do. I bought a tenor but I was never able to bond with it. To me it seemed more like a guitar than the ukulele size and sound I was looking for. I ended up selling it because I never really wanted to play it.
 
I'm saving my vote for when my first tenor comes in the mail later this week! Never played one before, but the concert has always seemed cramped for me. But between concert and soprano, definitely concert.
 
I went for soprano, but only because my true favorite wasn't an option in the poll: longneck soprano! It's the best of all worlds for me, so much so that I think this year I'll be re-homing my two concert ukes in order to fund another longneck soprano.
 
Tenor for me. First uke was tenor. Have others in scales from soprano to baritone. Concert is actually way easier for me to play, but I feel that it makes me complacent and going back to tenor is more of an adjustment. Playing tenor actually challenges my fretting hand more, and allows me to keep a good stretch for exotic 9th, 11th and 13th chord shapes, and going back to concert is not a problem.

However, I have some mild arthritis and neuropathy in my hands developed in the past year, and when it flares up, soprano is the easiest for me to play in order to keep my muscle memory and dexterity going. Without practice the arthritis builds up and my hands get atrophied and everything feels tight, so the soprano is more of a therapy session than a regular pay-time indulgence.
 
I am old with very small arthritic hands. Many chords I cannot manually make my fingers bend the correct way. I went with soprano since it is the most comfortable.
 
Tenor scale for me, followed by baritone.
 
I went for soprano, but only because my true favorite wasn't an option in the poll: longneck soprano! It's the best of all worlds for me, so much so that I think this year I'll be re-homing my two concert ukes in order to fund another longneck soprano.

But the poll was "What is your favorite scale uke", so then it would really be a concert scale, wouldn't it??
 
But the poll was "What is your favorite scale uke", so then it would really be a concert scale, wouldn't it??

I knew someone would say that, and I think it's technically correct, but - a concert body feels absolutely enormous to me compared to a longneck soprano, and really clumsy to play. So for me there's more to it than just scale length. Which is why I chose soprano, because if the question was phrased more like "you can only have ONE uke and one uke only, and your choices are limited to soprano, concert, tenor, or bari" I'd far prefer a soprano to a concert just for pure comfort alone.
 
Voting Tenor. The sound and fret spacing just work best for me. I might also be slightly enraptured ATM because I just received a really terrific tenor courtesy of UU member Ed Gilkison.

I was tempted to vote "whatever uke is in my hands" but there was no option for that.
 
Tenor when playing songs that call for the chords in the lower 7 frets. After that, I love my Long Neck Tenor (a 19 inch scale that I play as a tenor and not quite a baritone). I am able to do many more chord inversions at the higher frets when playing the longer scale, which I do whenever I can.
 
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I got a fabulous Pono Pro Classic Bari early on and that sealed the deal for me. I'm a bari man, but I string it re-entrant and play the normal uke instrumental stuff like John King and Rob MacKillop. Campanella rules!
 
I' m surprised to see that concert is leading this scale poll.

For me tenor would be much closer to guitar scale and I found it initially hard for me thee concert's short scale, especially because it is quite hard to solo melody play with different scale lengths.

Still, I have got used to my concert ukulele scale. I am not thinking of going to soprano. And I am able to fit my fingers for the chords too in my concert.

So after this post I go vote for concert.
 
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