Soprano Fingered Chords Sounding More Correct on a Baritone?

So, I've got many ukes in different sizes and have been playing both the concert and baritone lately. I've noticed something curious and am wondering if you all can clue me in as to why this phenomenon happens...

Daily Ukuele has Spooky in it. One of my favorites. When I play my concert with the chords the book uses, it's no bueno. Sounds too high, wrong, not good. When I play the same chords-with soprano fingering- on my Bari, (tuned DGBE) it sounds perfect.

Same with Mad World, Sunshine, Big Yellow Taxi, California Dreamin, and others. It doesn't always work, sometimes the baritone fingering of a chord works better, but why would it work at all? A 'C' fingering on a soprano, is a 'G' on the baritone, 'C' on the baritone is an 'F' on the soprano...

Why? How? Help!

Thanks!
Ginny
Denver

The "fingerings" are actually the same, they just sound in different keys. But, the Baritone is probably strung with a low D whereas the Concert is probably strung with the high G, or re-entrant tuning. The low D puts the note being played by the D string on the bottom of the chord. That changes the way the chords sound. Look up "chord inversions" to get an idea of what switching the order of the notes means to the sound being produced.

The Baritone tuning is a perfect fourth away from the soprano/concert/tenor tuning (or if you think in the other direction, it is a perfect fifth), so the chords are landing in a totally different place for your voice and ear, making them probably lower and easier to sing. Depending on the range of the melody, transposing a song up or down will help you when singing it. The baritone is doing that transposing for you in this case.

Ukejenny said:

The Baritone tuning is a perfect fourth away from the soprano/concert/tenor tuning (or if you think in the other direction, it is a perfect fifth), so the chords are landing in a totally different place for your voice and ear, making them probably lower and easier to sing. Depending on the range of the melody, transposing a song up or down will help you when singing it. The baritone is doing that transposing for you in this case.

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THANK YOU!!!!
That I understand.
You rock!

Ginny

Good to know I did one thing right today!!! :shaka: