Baritone, shouldn't it be D tuning? Help.

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hammer40

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Ok, if a tenor is considered C tuning because the lowest note is the C string. Than wouldn't a baritone be considered D tuning, not G, since the lowest note is the D string? Or does re-entrant and linear have something to do with the classification?

Music theory confuses me, so please educate me on this.
 
No, the baritone has G tuning. It has little to do with the lowest note. Put a low-g string on your tenor and it still in C tuning, even when the low G is now the lowest string/note.

To drop some of the confusion you should call it c6 tuning for gCEA and GCEA strings, and g6 tuning for dGBE and DGBE strings.

Soprano: playing the open strings you get a c6 chord.

Baritone: playing the open strings you get a g6 chord.
 
Rodney. said:
No, the baritone has G tuning. It has little to do with the lowest note. Put a low-g string on your tenor and it still in C tuning, even when the low G is now the lowest string/note.

To drop some of the confusion you should call it c6 tuning for gCEA and GCEA strings, and g6 tuning for dGBE and DGBE strings.

Soprano: playing the open strings you get a c6 chord.

Baritone: playing the open strings you get a g6 chord.
Click to expand...

So, it is the the chord you get when you strum all open strings that gives you the tuning of the instrument? So for example, a baritone strung gCEA, would again be c6 tuning?
 
So, soprano, concert & tenor are all C6 tuned, but the baritone surely is not tuned to G6? My understanding was that it is tuned an octave lower, so would that not be G5? :confused:
 
hammer40 said:
So, it is the the chord you get when you strum all open strings that gives you the tuning of the instrument? So for example, a baritone strung gCEA, would again be c6 tuning?
Click to expand...

Yes, that would also be c6 tuning.

If you look at other stringed instruments things get confusing, so just don't do that ;)
(We call the standard EADGBE tuning on a guitar E-tuning. But the open strings don't form an E-chord, but an Em7add11 or an Em11 or an A11/E, all depending on the context you are playing in.)

So just stick to thinking ukulele, and we're all on the same page:
gCEA and GCEA are C6-tuning
dGBE and DGBE are G6-tuning
 
uke1950 said:
So, soprano, concert & tenor are all C6 tuned, but the baritone surely is not tuned to G6? My understanding was that it is tuned an octave lower, so would that not be G5? :confused:
Click to expand...

The C6 is the name of the actual chord of the open strings, like C Maj, C min, C7, etc...

It has nothing to do with the octave. If you want to be more specific, GCEA, i.e. re-entrant tuning is de facto G4-C4-E4-A4 in scientific pitch notation. Maybe you are confusing pitch notation for chord names?

The G5 note is in fact an octave ABOVE, not below the G4 in the above tuning.

With a dGBE tuned baritone, the G6 comes from the CHORD of the open strings, again, and those notes are D3-G3-B3-E4.

C4 IS 'MIDDLE C' on a piano if that helps at all.

Most orchestral instruments will use A-440, i.e. A4, which is a frequency of 440hz as the standard reference for tuning ALL the instruments in the orchestra.
 
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I always justified it because when you play melodies and single notes on the ukulele, the 3rd string is usually played as your tonic note.
On re-entrant tuning, the tonic C note is your lowest note. With low-G tuning, the 4th string (g) just gives you a few notes below the tonic.

That's if you think of the ukulele as being like a wind instrument or piano. But then again, the same logic doesn't apply to guitar.
 
The third string is the name of the tuning. I tune my baritones Bb or B to suit my voice and the resonance of the baritone. All the other strings are tuned based on that third string.

Sometimes I tune my baritone G to get a lower tuning.

I always tune my tenor and concert to C tuning whether high or low G.
 
Let's confuse things more....it all depends on how you string the instrument. My baritone is strung CGDA, just like my tenor guitar. There is no "mandatory tuning" convention.
 
SteveZ said:
Let's confuse things more....it all depends on how you string the instrument. My baritone is strung CGDA, just like my tenor guitar. There is no "mandatory tuning" convention.
Click to expand...

Yep...

I've got 4 baritones each strung and tuned differently right now:

1. 'normal' baritone G6 'chicago' tuning D3-G3-B3-E4

2. re-entrant aka 'high-D' chicago tuning D4-G3-B3-E4

3. re-entrant C6 'octave-down' tuning G3-C3-E3-A3

4. tenor guitar/mandola/viola 'fifths' tuning C3-G3-D4-A4

I plan to eventually get another baritone and also tune it like a cello, or 'Irish Tenor' banjo in G2-D3-A3-E4 'fifths' tuning.

and just because I've got nothing better to do, and I'm really bored with the standard EADGBE tuning, I'm going to retune one classical guitar in perfect fourths, and another in perfect fifths once I can source a flat/smoothwound 0.074" classical guitar wound string for the lowest bass string.

Since E4 or G4 is really about the maximum pitch you can get on a 25.5" scale length without having too much tensions to pull the bridge off, and then you can work backwards in pitches from there for how to tune the other strings...
 
You're counting your strings wrong, mate. It's the third string not the second. From your face down: four, three , two, one.

As you say, intervals are important. Though I may tune my baritones, Bb, or B, the intervals are the same as low g GCEA.
 
The answers here are clear.

Further discussion on this topic here seems redundant to me unless the OP is still confused.

I'm going to un-sub this thread before it starts to churn. Good luck! :shaka:
 
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