Finger Picking a Baritone

bariukish

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I've been looking for a tutorial or a lesson book to help expand my finger picking on my DGBE tuned bari. There are plenty of them written for GCEA but I can't find anything for this tuning. I know the cord shapes are the same and the chord names are different but it is so much easier to learn and improve if additional mental gymnastics are not required.

If anyone knows of anything that might help, I would certainly appreciate the info.
 
Hello bariukish

Any low-G TAB can be played on baritone. The pitch will be different. I have a few low-G arrangements on my site

http://www.chiefnoda.com/ukulele

Maybe when I write out an arrangement for low G, I just get a baritone version as well?

Cheers
Chief
 
I'm interested in the same. The one most referenced seems to be Jumping' Jim's The Bari Best. While I know it is specific to DGBE turning, I believe it's primarily strumming (I could be mistaken here).
 
The Bari Best book is strumming only.

I've played baritone and tenor for years. To my knowledge there are no good baritone picking books. You just have to transcribe GCEA tuning. You could buy one of those cycle of fifths wheels that makes it easier.

Here's one solution that will work: Put GCEA strings on your baritone. I have those on one and like them very much. I also have dGBE on a cedar topped tenor and like that very much.

If you're picking are you going to play with someone else? If not, it doesn't matter. You might, also, start thinking of naming your chords I,ii, iii, IV, V, vi, dim.

Once you know your baritone key any good player should be able to handle progressions like I-IV-V or whatever they turn out to be.
 
I teach bari uke on Skyoe & have fingerpicking skills. No need to restring or retune! PM me if you kids are interested in taking a few lessons.
 
Hello bariukish

Any low-G TAB can be played on baritone. The pitch will be different. I have a few low-G arrangements on my site

http://www.chiefnoda.com/ukulele



Maybe when I write out an arrangement for low G, I just get a baritone version as well?

Cheers
Chief

Chiefnoda has some terrific arrangements on his site that can easily be played on a baritone. I do it all the time. Since these are solo arrangements, it doesn't matter that they are in a different key than if you are playing standard uke tuning with a low-G.

Like Chiefnoda said, any low-G arrangement will work. I purchased Craig Brandau's "Jazz Chord Solos" and find it to be a great book. The arrangements are all written in low-G, so they work fine on a baritone. His website can be found here: http://ukulelecraig.com/index.html

Another alternative is to tune your baritone to Bb. Of course, you need the correct strings to be able to do this. This has two big advantages: 1) your baritone ukulele will sound so much better than it does tuned to G, and 2) if you want to play music written in standard ukulele tuning, all you have to do is capo at the second fret. Since Bb is one step lower than standard C tuning, capoing at the 2nd fret puts you in C.

String for Bb tuning can be found at Southcoast Strings along with a great explanation of why you should tune a baritone to Bb rather than G.
 
Hello bariukish

Any low-G TAB can be played on baritone. The pitch will be different. I have a few low-G arrangements on my site

http://www.chiefnoda.com/ukulele

Maybe when I write out an arrangement for low G, I just get a baritone version as well?

Cheers
Chief

Great resource. Having the MIDI file is a huge plus for me, too. I like to hear what it's supposed to sound like and also like to run an MP3 version through Amazing Slow Downer so I can try to play along slowly.
 
Great resource. Having the MIDI file is a huge plus for me, too. I like to hear what it's supposed to sound like and also like to run an MP3 version through Amazing Slow Downer so I can try to play along slowly.

With Amazing Slow Downer you can also change the pitch higher or lower
 
Got some spare time so I played with my low-G arrangement of "Let It Be Me". Heck, changing it to Bari was easy! On TablEdit, I just had to tell it that strings are now DGBE. I had to delete chord names but that was it.

Maybe I can convert my previous low-G TABs to Bari. If you have a request, send it along!

By the way, I do have a question - how should I do standard notation. I can raise all notes up by one octave. Currently I'm doing the guitar notation. Let me know!

Cheers
Chief

Midi file (pitch shoud be correct)
http://www.chiefnoda.com/ukulele/tab/Let_It_Be_Me_(Bari).mid

TablEdit file
http://www.chiefnoda.com/ukulele/tab/Let_It_Be_Me_(Bari).tef

PDF File
http://www.chiefnoda.com/ukulele/tab/Let_It_Be_Me_(Bari).tef.pdf
 
By the way, I do have a question - how should I do standard notation. I can raise all notes up by one octave. Currently I'm doing the guitar notation.
I think regular guitar notation should work fine, since the notes on a bari are the equivalent on guitar.

But play with it and see how it comes out. What's awkward for me is when the standard notation consistently goes off the staff and you're trying to figure out ledger lines that are a mile high.
 
I teach bari uke on Skyoe & have fingerpicking skills. No need to restring or retune! PM me if you kids are interested in taking a few lessons.

Thanks for the reference to "You Kids". We kids will be 79 years young early next year. But, hey, you're never too young to learn, right?
 
Thanks so much for all the great comments. They are very much appreciated.
 
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