What are the biggest differences between Concert and Tenor?

gnordenstam

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I have two soprano's - a Lanikai LU-21 and a Flea. I played an Oscar Schmidt OU7T Spalted Mango Tenor the other day and found it comfortable. I haven't found a concert size to play yet.

So, I'm wondering, based on your experience, what do you find is the biggest difference between the Concert and Tenor size?

Thanks,
--G
 
The Concert ukes will have a smaller body and smaller scale length. The smaller body will give it a sound more soprano like then the Tenor sound. Also depending on the uke the Concert will have 12 or 14 frets to the body. If it has 14 frets it will have the same range as a Tenor but the 12 frets will have 2 less , easily accessible frets. I personally prefer the Concert size to the Tenor, I also prefer the Soprano to the Tenor but that is just me.

I just find the Tenors I have owned to be to big for me, body and scale. I have played some nice Tenors that I wouldn't mind having, one Kanilea and a Black Label Koaloha 6 string, but that would be expected.
 
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I find the biggest difference to be the distance between the frets. A tenor has more space between the frets than an concert.

Also keep in mind that different brands of ukes have narrower or wider fretboards. There are ukes with fretboards 1.375" wide, 1.4" wide, 1.5" wide.

I share this because fretboard width isn't talked about very often, but the fretboard width can have an impact upon how comfortable and easy a uke is to play. People fingers and knuckle joints are different lengths.

You may find that two ukes with different fretboard widths feel very different to play.
 
As an example of fretboard width look at the Fluke and Fleas.

Soprano and Concert sizes have 1.4" wide fretboards. A tenor has a 1.45" wide fretboard.

It may not seem like a huge difference, but if that last .05" throws a string into one of the recessed joint lines on your finger, it will probably be a little more difficult to get clean sounds out of the instrument when barring chords etc.

There are some other brands keep the same fretboard width for all their sizes, and there are brands which change the width as is the case with Flukes and Fleas.

When you play an instrument and find one that feels good, find out all you can about the dimensions of the instrument. This helps you begin to norrow down other brands that may work for you.
 
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