new with a baritone ukulele

cjaydb

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Hey guys, I'm absolutely new here, found it through vids on youtube :) I'm a total newb with the ukulele, and found myself getting a baritone uke, finding its sound more appealing to me then the smaller soprano and concert. However, little did I know, finding chords and tabs for my baritone is pretty hard to find on the internet, let alone tutorials. It's been years since I picked up any musical instrument, used to play the Cello and Piano back in orchestra in middle school, but haven't gone back since.

I know the baritone is tuned differently then the other smaller ukes, and it's frustrating trying to find any vids on youtube on how to play the baritone. I had a couple questions, hope you guys can help out:

1) I read around and learned that I can't tune the baritone the way a concert is, because of the stress it will cause. In that case, if I tune it the proper way DGBE, can I still take the chords from a song a concert plays exactly? For example, the song Guardian angel is played F C Dm A# on a concert, can I play those exact same chords on the baritone or do I have to "convert" it?

2) Are there other sites out there or really helpful tutorials on like a walkthrough for the notes? Like what fingers go where for chords, the notes, etc.

and 3) Knowing that it's basically a mini guitar without the 2 lowest strings, how would I take guitar chords that require notes from those 2 strings and play it on the baritone?

I know I should have bought a how to book, and I do plan on doing so in the next few days. I just happened to receive my baritone yesterday and I'm not sure if you could tell but I'm getting excited about playing :p

Well I'd appreciate it if I could get some help, and I'm loving the site, especially those vid lessons for the songs.. grrr if only he did them for the baritone also haha
 
If you're playing alone, you can play straight off of chord sheets and tabs meant for C tuned ukuleles, however, you will not be playing the chords that are named on the sheet. (When they say "C" you'll be playing "G")

If you're playing in a group, you'll have to play in the same key, which means you'll be making different shapes then the smaller ukes.

A little practice and it's not too hard to do, plus there are a lot of folk and rock songs you'll sound great on.
 
Congrats on your new ukulele! I just recently delved into the baritone side of UAS myself. I didn't want to learn the new chord shapes, so I tried some Aquilas in high G tuning(gcea)...but that was a mistake! The uke was so quiet and dull it wasn't even worth playing. Swapped them out for some Aquila's in baritone tuning (dgbe) with wound d&g strings. The uke opened up like a rose...very cool!:cool:
:music:
 
For the nine zillionth time.....you CAN tune your baritone like a soprano (GCEA), you just have to have the correct set of strings.

Third item on the page....
http://www.ukuleleworld.com/baritone/

Now these are high gcea, but Aquilla does make a low Gcea set with a wound G string, lots of sound. I have two sets and I thought I got them at ukuleleworld, but I can't remember.
 
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The chords remain the same. However, the fingerings change to accomodate the five fret difference.

There is a TON of baritone music out there. Since baritone ukes mimic the four high strings of the guitar, you can directly play from just about any guitar sheet music you can get your hands on. It's even easier when you throw out those two low strings and the long chord stretches.

I bought a tenor and restrung it so it could tune down to baritone specifically so I could use it at guitar jams and follow the same chord charts and fingerings the other guys are using.
 
hmm.. @ Salukulady - yea I realized I found that thread about baritone ukuleles and I saw you mentioned about switching out the strings for the gcea set, I tried to look around, and I have no problems finding the high gcea strings, but as for the low I couldn't find it anywhere.. hmm..

The uke I happened to get was Lanikai LU-21B. Ukeffect, what kind of baritone were you using? I wonder if I would get the same "dull" response you got...:confused:

I appreciate the responses, especially the links to several sites with tabs for the bari, awesome!

@ Dave, if I were to play straight off the guitar sheets, (I know it sounds like a silly question) what would I play in place of the 2 low strings that aren't on the uke?
 
95+% of the chords on a Baritone use the same guitar shape minus the top two strings. G on guitar is 320003 0003 on a baritone.

Here is a chord generator you can use http://www.gootar.com/folder/ukulele.html
http://www.sheep-entertainment.nl/ukulele/index.html
http://www.ukulelechords.net/charts.shtml

or if you are really spiffy with music theroy you can print a GCEA chord chart and rename the chords. The GCEA is tuned like the bartione if it were capoed on the 5th fret. so a C on a GCEA is a G. You can start with Chord such as D and count backwards 5 - 1/2 steps or forward 7 - 1/2 steps to get to the bari name, in this case D

You can find a free chort chart here also

http://www.boatpaddleukuleles.com/top50/
 
hmm.. @ Salukulady - yea I realized I found that thread about baritone ukuleles and I saw you mentioned about switching out the strings for the gcea set, I tried to look around, and I have no problems finding the high gcea strings, but as for the low I couldn't find it anywhere.. hmm..

The uke I happened to get was Lanikai LU-21B. Ukeffect, what kind of baritone were you using? I wonder if I would get the same "dull" response you got...:confused:

I appreciate the responses, especially the links to several sites with tabs for the bari, awesome!

@ Dave, if I were to play straight off the guitar sheets, (I know it sounds like a silly question) what would I play in place of the 2 low strings that aren't on the uke?

Sorry, I didn't mean to confuse the issue. You can tune it to GCEA of course, but mine was just...yuckie! I got one of those made in China "heavy metal" baritones on Ebate...I kind of liked the triangular shape and it was only $24.95. I should do a written review on it...anyway, when I got it, I thought " what a nice piece of cabinetry work!" It looks to be some type of pine with laminted sides and back...The strings on it where all one size fishing line, hence the change to new strings. The Aquila baritone strings (see Dr. Cluck on ebay) changed the whole character of the instrument into something surpisingly nice! It was very plain except for the binding, so I blinged it up with some inlay stickers...I'll include pics and/or video when I do the review. I'l bet yours will sound just fine in the higher register. :p
 
Baritone ukes are a lot of fun!

They can be either tuned to DGBE (normally) or GCEA just like the sopranos/concerts/tenors. You just need to find the right strings (Aquila has a GCEA set for Baritone).

The chords of a Baritone uke would also be played the same as the bottom 4 strings of a guitar.
 
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