Tuning Baritone Uke to GCEA

Hello all,

I am completely new to the ukulele. I have a little experience playing guitar, but it is very little (mostly just punk songs from when I was in a band as a teenager, I normally played the bass though). So I don't have any real knowledge of guitar chords.

Anyway, I got a Makala MK-B off of craigslist for very cheap. I know that baritones are standardly tuned in DGBE, but all of the guides for learning ukulele that I can find are for the gCEA tuning. So I was wondering if it would cause any damage to tune my baritone to GCEA (standard, not the re-entrant) so that the chords/keys match when I'm learning. I'm not sure if it matters, but I thought the strings would be the stock ones, as it was advertised as new, but I found a little cardboard thing in the box that said Aquila Supernyglut strings (here's a picture) and I didn't think the Makala line had those since most reviews I found of them said upgrading to Aquila strings made it sound a lot better... so maybe it's not the stock strings or that cardboard thing is just a red herring? Anyway, I do know for sure that the 3rd and 4th strings are wound in this set.

And I know I could get a capo and put it on the 5th fret, but then I'd have to order it online and wait a few days and I'm just impatient and want to start learning tonight...

I also know I can buy some baritone Aquila sets for the gCEA re-entrant tuning. But same problem as getting a capo.

I don't mind if the strings might break, as I can always buy new ones (and I'll most likely be getting some of the gCEA re-entrants for spares, anyway), I just don't want anything bad to happen to the ukulele structurally, if I were to play with it tuned to GCEA for a week or so.

Thanks for any advice.

Woah man... Relax... I was just asking a noobie question I couldn't find answered from all my google attempts. Not threatening to destroy of the world. Lol. I was just excited to get my uke and start playing. Don't worry, I'll be patient and wait for the replacement strings.

Just tune it DGBE and play as if you were playing a GCEA uke. You'll be a fourth lower so C is G, G is D etc. But you don't know the difference and the songs are just lower pitched.

I did that when I got my Big Zebra and as long as you don't play in a group you're golden. Baritones are good in DGBE The chord forms are similar and There is lots of info for this tuning on the net. Baritone is not that much harder than Soprano-Concert-Tenor in C6 tuning. It just takes a mind set to be different. I tune my Tenors dGBE ( Hi d) and like the lower tension and easier playing.

Hi Lint, and welcome from Arizona here!
I had a baritone that I tried out the GCEA tuning with strings that Aquila sells specifically for that purpose. I think Elderly has them for sale on their site (I'm sure other sites do too). But tuning it that high up lacked a lot of Ooomph / balls/ cojones. I hated it.
If not, you can always get standard DGBE, low D/linear strings - Martin makes some decent ones cheap - under $5 apiece usually if you want to check out those. Most of those will have a wound D & G (low strings). Some people hate those; I didn't mind them.
Also, I tried Living Water re-entrant DGBE (high D) strings that I got from Ken Middleton (also a member here) that I really, really liked the best of the bunch. Gives it that re-entrant sound and the strings are nice/ easy to play. That was probably my favorite.
I never bothered to transpose when playing DGBE - either re-entrant or linear. Just play the normal GCEA chords - you're just making shapes to match basically.

Have heard many best reports about Southcoast GCEA or gCEA strings. My son has them on his Koloa and they are great.

JackLuis said:

Just tune it DGBE and play as if you were playing a GCEA uke. You'll be a fourth lower so C is G, G is D etc. But you don't know the difference and the songs are just lower pitched.

I did that when I got my Big Zebra and as long as you don't play in a group you're golden. Baritones are good in DGBE The chord forms are similar and There is lots of info for this tuning on the net. Baritone is not that much harder than Soprano-Concert-Tenor in C6 tuning. It just takes a mind set to be different. I tune my Tenors dGBE ( Hi d) and like the lower tension and easier playing.

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This exactely. Just learn the standard uke chords and play them on the baritone. A lot of us here do that as long as you aren't playing with other people being in a different key is no big deal.

JackLuis said:

Just tune it DGBE and play as if you were playing a GCEA uke. You'll be a fourth lower so C is G, G is D etc. But you don't know the difference and the songs are just lower pitched.

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This is called transposing instrument. And it is very common in wind instruments. Think your fretboard standard instead of Baritone. Think your 3rd strings C instead of D.

Trumpet, oboe, saxophone... they all take this method. Their tone is not real tone on the music. Even guitar is transposing instrument. Their tone is one octave lower than music.

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In this method, your C major scale is on the low position and very easy to recognize.

PhilUSAFRet said:

Have heard many best reports about Southcoast GCEA or gCEA strings. My son has them on his Koloa and they are great.

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Second that, I have a set of Southcoast on my Kamaka and it really sings. Tuned,gCEA. Great strings.

I too am a newcomer baritone, fooled around with tenor for a while and have played guitar for many years. I am getting a new solid mahogany kala and am worried about damaging it with too high of tension as for me it is a relatively expensive uke....however.....tone is really really important to me and a bought a bunch of strings for my tenor fluke in this endeavor. I eventually settled on worth browns.

Is it reasonable to assume it is worth exploring high c because of the tone? I guess this is somewhat disingenuous of me as There is a you tube video of Christmas Time is Here using high c tenor worth browns that I think is really killer both as to it's execution but also as to sound.

Would I hurt my uke doing this?

Charleydog, As Booli said, you can tune to gcea either reentrant or linear but you need the right strings. Otherwise if you just tune up dgbe strings to gcea, the tension will be way too high. I like Southcoast linear gcea on one of my baris. The other I keep dgbe for that guitary sound.

Well, I was talking about Tenor strings tuned to high g on a baritone, but thanks for responding so fast! I really didn't make myself clear. Sorry, a senior moment.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RO5Sm9ntZP8 High g on baritone

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uwRnoeVyYaw Christmas time, Vic Schmeltz, damn fine tone and nuance

You can tune it to virtually any tuning that you want. It's simply a matter of obtaining the correct strings that won't over tension the instrument or feel too floppy.
Strings are available individually, so you can choose the gauge in respect of pitch and tension. This is where a string calculator comes in very handy.

Ya know, of course people can buy any kind of Uke that they want, but I don't understand (I know, nobody cares) why people buy baritone Ukes and try to change them to "regular" Ukes. Seems really weird to me. Why don't they just buy tenors and move on?

I have a Kala baritone, and I love its deep tones. I have it tuned to DGBD, and I'm gonna use it for slide, someday. ld:

Down Up Dick said:

Ya know, of course people can buy any kind of Uke that they want, but I don't understand (I know, nobody cares) why people buy baritone Ukes and try to change them to "regular" Ukes. Seems really weird to me. Why don't they just buy tenors and move on?

I have a Kala baritone, and I love its deep tones. I have it tuned to DGBD, and I'm gonna use it for slide, someday. ld:

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I guess for the same reason people here experiment with their tenors, trying different tunings on them as well. One could ask them, why not leave it alone?

I tune my baritone to Bb, and currently have ordered strings to try D tuning on one of my tenors. It's all good, and doesn't seem "weird" to me.

Well, whatever floats your boat, I guess. I usually try not to post on equipment threads. ld:

Booli said:

I have more than a dozen ukes, ALL with different strings, and at least 4 of them are in FIFTHS tuning, CGDA or GDAE, and a few are in perfect-fourths tunings in various keys, and other ukes are also in all different keys...yes you can capo UP but intonation suffers and there is no way to capo DOWN, better to have uked dedicated to those tunings...

why???? for my songwriting - I dont play much music written by other folks...

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Just to clarify...I wasn't asking why. Just responding to DUD's asking. Also, not judging him either.

Booli said:

I dunno what this means. Please clarify.

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Seems clear to me. What don't you understand? ld:

Down Up Dick said:

I don't understand (I know, nobody cares) why people buy baritone Ukes and try to change them to "regular" Ukes. Seems really weird to me. Why don't they just buy tenors and move on?

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I could see people who like the space between the frets on a Baritone (as you know, more space than Tenor) but still wanting to stay in CGEA tuning. I'm not sure if that tuning is desired at soprano/concert/tenor pitch or an octave lower.

I have one baritone, which was obtained rather cheaply, and I play it occasionally, but most of the time I play tenors or concerts.