Advice, please!

I print all my music usually in Mel’s chords (soprano) and I just write what shapes I am supppsed to play (so if we are in g I play c shapes), all of it translates perfectly. As long as you are still in fourths, it will all make sense pretty fast. I used to play my Baris in GCEA but Mel’s ear has gotten good enough to know what I am playing even though that shape is different that I tunes them all down. Tuned slightly up, I doubt you even notice. That said, sell me the big guy and I will fund this endeavor ;)
 
I KNEW you were going to mention "the big guy"!!!!! (Sorry ... still no deal!) But, I do the same thing ... just translate the shapes from soprano to baritone - for some reason (and I know they're all the same shapes with different names), the chords always seem easier on the baritone .... it must be the keys I choose to play in.
 
LimousinLil said:
I KNEW you were going to mention "the big guy"!!!!! (Sorry ... still no deal!) But, I do the same thing ... just translate the shapes from soprano to baritone - for some reason (and I know they're all the same shapes with different names), the chords always seem easier on the baritone .... it must be the keys I choose to play in.
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If you're playing mostly guitar-based music and going from guitar chord sheets it likely is easier on the baritone because the tuning is exactly the same minus the two bass strings on the guitar. So the voicings and the relationship between them is better suited to the bari.

Like, if I see a song in E I'll instantly transpose it up to A because it'll suit my GCEA uke a lot better, from playing, to soloing, whatever.
 
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Yes, well, I play from guitar-based music when the uke chords aren't available. (I have a feeling that I'd read somewhere that they don't always translate accurately ... but I've never let that worry me!) Oh dear, how far can I get whilst being a complete numbskull so far as music theory is concerned!!! NO, THAT IS A RHETORICAL QUESTION ... PLEASE DON'T ANSWER IT!!!
 
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LimousinLil said:
Eb does not look easy, Robin ... especially Ebsus4!
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Either capo 1 and play in D shapes or capo 3 and play in C shapes. On a bari, I would go for the first.

You will need to rename your chords down a semitones to give you the shapes to play. If you aren't confident about transposing chords, this site will do it for you. http://www.logue.net/xp/ I use it all the time because even though I am happy to transpose chords, it saves time. You just copy and paste your chord chart in tell it the change you wish to make then copy and past the result as your new chord chart.
 
LimousinLil said:
Eb does not look easy, Robin ... especially Ebsus4!
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Not sure how it is on a baritone, but in my experience, sus4 chords can be a bit tricky. On GCEA ukes Ebsus4 is tricky, but there are worse ones. Anyway, I've yet to see an Ebsus4 chord required for a song in Eb. I'm sure they are all over the place, but I haven't had to play them.
 
robinboyd said:
Not sure how it is on a baritone, but in my experience, sus4 chords can be a bit tricky. On GCEA ukes Ebsus4 is tricky, but there are worse ones. Anyway, I've yet to see an Ebsus4 chord required for a song in Eb. I'm sure they are all over the place, but I haven't had to play them.
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Try 3346. Csus4 up three frets.

I also like to use 0331 for Eb, makes it a bit easier than the normal E shape down a semitone
 
LimousinLil said:
Very many thanks, Geoff! I use Ultimate Guitar myself. Haven't tried auto scroll, Ryan.
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A rough and ready check with Ultimate Guitar for Baritone chords is to look at the guitar chords and ignore the 5th & 6th strings (the two lowest pitch ones). I've done that successfully on a few occasions.

I usually copy and past the chord chart into a text file and use some software I have on my computer to convert the layout to chord pro format (chords inline with the text) and adjust the font size to keep everything on one page. No need for auto scroll then as I find it very difficult to get the scroll rate just right.
 
Val, if you like singing in G on the standard uke and your translating that shape to the bari you are singing D.
You are a soprano, but you already knew that.

All the talk about the Eb has me smiling. I always played the Eb as the E, backed up one fret. I never looked it up. I just figured it was the same shape as the E. When I was teaching my granddaughter a song that had Eb I saw that it is actually played 0331. That is quite easy for me and Id prefer to play the Eb over the E any day.

I never sing in the original key to any song and I transpose everything in http://www.logue.net/xp/ unless Im using Ultimate Guitar. It almost always works and if it doesn't then I have to figure something else out.....like using my brain which also hardly ever works out!

So many sites have the chords in C. I get very frustrated with Dr ukes site because it doesn't have the ability to transpose and doesn't work in logue.net. Thats when I grab the bari and use the standard shapes but that confuses my mind. In fact the whole switching thing confuses my mind too. I find myself playing several songs on the bari and then when I go back to the standard uke I will surely get stumped on some simple chord. Ill find myself looking up what an D is? go figure!

C is not my key. it is almost always too high and there will be several notes that are out of my comfort zone.
 
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I almost always work the chords to a song out for myself, it's just something I enjoy doing. I don't do it while listening to the song, so I never know whether I'm putting it into it's "original" key. I try to find a key that works for my voice (such as it is) and it also fun to play. Some progressions are more fun to play in certain keys, for example C-C#dim-Dm-G7 just doesn't "feel" right when transposed. I've played piano since I was a kid, so transposing and working our progressions is usually pretty easy.

I've also found that many songs that are covered a lot, often have very different chord structures. For example, "Ain't She Sweet" (all converted to the key of C for this example) usually starts out,
[C] Ain’t [C#dim] she [G7] sweet?

But Sinatra played it,
[C6] Ain’t [Fm] she [G7] sweet?

And others have played it
[C] Ain’t [C#dim] she [Dm] sweet? [G7]

As far as I'm concerned, they're all valid! Have fun and experiment!
 
i have my wolfelele and my cigar box bari uke, both half a step down all the time, they sound nice that way, i don't think to myself "oh this is g flat" i just play and think g chord, it works fine unless i wanna play along with someone else who is in standard tuning! but then i can always just grab another one of my ten gazillion ukes for that! ;)
 
Thanks so much, Linda, Randy, Ubulele and Lynda for all the words of wisdom and good advice ... which I need to re-read (several times) and inwardly digest! And actually, Linda, I DO play the "proper" chords for a bari when I'm playing a bari ... so when I play G, I am playing a G and not a D. I do, then, feel comfortable singing in the key of G ... what does this say about my "voice" (and I use the term advisedly)?
 
Thank you, Ubulele (what IS your name, please???) It's very kind of you to analyse my vids. - although I'm not sure I want to be a MALE TENOR!!! (I shall prefer to think of myself of as a "low contralto"!) That being the case, do you think that a bouzouki/uki tuned CFAD would suit my range? Very many thanks for going to such trouble on my behalf!
 
LimousinLil said:
Thanks so much, Linda, Randy, Ubulele and Lynda for all the words of wisdom and good advice ... which I need to re-read (several times) and inwardly digest! And actually, Linda, I DO play the "proper" chords for a bari when I'm playing a bari ... so when I play G, I am playing a G and not a D. I do, then, feel comfortable singing in the key of G ... what does this say about my "voice" (and I use the term advisedly)?
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i'm more comfortable singing low, once in a blue moon i find gflat tuning a bit low for a song, and it's more comfortable to tune back to g or grab a different uke, but mostly, the lower the better for me!


LimousinLil said:
I'm not sure I want to be a MALE TENOR!!!
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well it's better than only being a fiver ;)


you could always try tuning the instrument up half a step - to c#f#a#d#.... that would be like a bari tuned down half a step? a bazouki is steel strings, right? i think it should take a small tune up, although you may find you don't need it.

i had my blues box cbg tuned to open e, beb, i loved the sound, nice and low, but for singing along with it i changed it to open b, bf#b, the last time i played it... it's steel strings and there is fair bit of play up and down before the strings become too low and floppy or too high and pingy-gonna-snap, so you could play with tuning a little bit i reckon
 
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