Baritone Uke Idea (take 2)

kissing · Aug 14, 2009

A while ago, I made a post on whether its possible to have a Ukulele that's tuned to GCEA, but an octave lower than normal.

Well, as I was falling asleep, I got this bright idea on how it could be possible (on a Baritone Uke) without risking damage to the instrument.

Regular Baritone Uke strings are:
DGBE

What if you rearrange the order of the strings set up on the Baritone uke to:
GDEB

Then you retune those strings to:
GCEA

Since the D string is close to C, and the B string is close to A (one note down), I don't see why it shouldn't work. As a result, would we get a Baritone-sounding uke that retains the re-entrant GCEA?

Alas I don't have a Baritone Uke to try this on (but I intend to buy a Baritone Uke as my next purchase... specifically a Kala KA-BE with shadow pickup

)

please comment and discuss~

Nonayourbeeswax · Aug 14, 2009

Cool idea Sam! I always thought that it was weird that you had to learn new chords to play a baritone.

kissing · Aug 14, 2009

LOL Hi Nona

You've caught me red-handed using my innovation towards ukuleles instead of ocarinas XD

Anyway, I'm putting forward this idea because I love the uke - but sometimes I want to play an instrument with more bass.
But I don't want to learn to play guitar, nor learn different chord fingerings... so why not have the same old GCEA, just tuned lower?

It's worth a try?
Anyway, when I get my Baritone Uke, I'll give it a try

Would appreciate it if anyone who has a Baritone uke could report on whether it works, in the name of ukulele science!

GrumpyCoyote · Aug 14, 2009

Nonayourbeeswax said:
Cool idea Sam! I always thought that it was weird that you had to learn new chords to play a baritone.

You don't - The chord shapes are the same. Only the key changes. So blues in A on a standard becomes blues in E on the baritone as an example... But the shapes are the same. It can be hard to remember to play a G shape instead of a D shape for example, but you don't need to learn anything new.

There are also GCEA strings for baritone - I forget who makes them, but there is a thread around here somewhere. They will let you string and tune your bari the same as a standard.

The cool idea here is to tune an octave lower - that I like in concept.

Nonayourbeeswax · Aug 14, 2009

kissing said:
LOL Hi Nona

You've caught me red-handed using my innovation towards ukuleles instead of ocarinas XD

I'm just a guilty as you. I haven't been playing oc that much.

kissing · Aug 14, 2009

I'm aware that there are GCEA standard tuning strings for Baritone (Aquila), but that's still tuned to the same octave as other ukes.

I personally think a low octave GCEA would be very nice

veep · Aug 14, 2009

kissing said:
A while ago, I made a post on whether its possible to have a Ukulele that's tuned to GCEA, but an octave lower than normal.

Well, as I was falling asleep, I got this bright idea on how it could be possible (on a Baritone Uke) without risking damage to the instrument.

Regular Baritone Uke strings are:
DGBE

What if you rearrange the order of the strings set up on the Baritone uke to:
GDEB

Then you retune those strings to:
GCEA

Since the D string is close to C, and the B string is close to A (one note down), I don't see why it shouldn't work. As a result, would we get a Baritone-sounding uke that retains the re-entrant GCEA?

Alas I don't have a Baritone Uke to try this on (but I intend to buy a Baritone Uke as my next purchase... specifically a Kala KA-BE with shadow pickup )

please comment and discuss~

That sounds cool.

bradley10 · Aug 14, 2009

Regular Baritone Uke strings are:
DGBE

What if you rearrange the order of the strings set up on the Baritone uke to:
GDEB

Then you retune those strings to:
GCEA

I'm new and this is my first post. I like the idea of dropping it an octave, but I think doing it by just rearranging strings would cause unintended strings to become re-entrant.
Since each string in DGBE moves up a little in pitch if they are played open, rearranging to DGEB would cause you, starting at G to go down to D then back up to E and back down to B, because of the DG and BE being reversed.

I think it would then look like
gDeB and retuned would make it gCeA instead of gCEA.
That would make the g and e re-entrant.

This is my first post and I could be wrong, but hopefully that makes since to other people and not just in my head.

Ahnko Honu · Aug 14, 2009

I just restrung my baritone with the Aquila gCEA and totally happy with sound and playability.

tadam3000 · Aug 15, 2009

Bradley is right... some of the strings would be an octave down (the c and a) but the other two (g and e) would be the same as a low-g tenor. Rather than look at uke strings, you might be better off looking at classical guitar strings and try to not break the neck while using the middle four (ADGB)

Baritone Uke Idea (take 2)

kissing

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Nonayourbeeswax

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kissing

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Nonayourbeeswax

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kissing

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