Baritone / Tenor Chords and notes

ukope

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Hi,
I have been given a Soprano Uke for Christmas but I do like the sound of the larger models . Can someone tell me, if I play the GCEA chords and tabs on the Baritone Ukulele whether I will run into any unforseen problems, because I have an old guitar and I can play the chords and tabs in my Ukulele beginers book ( Oh Susanna) on its bottom four strings and it sounds OK. If I can, it means that all the music written for GCEA Uke's will be available for me.
I have a feeling I'm missing something hear but my musical knowledge isn't great enough to know what.
Thanks for any info.
 
You can play standard-tuned tablature and standard-tuned chord shapes on a baritone uke and it will sound fine. (There might be some slight differences if the tab uses the fourth string, since a bari is normally not tuned re-entrantly.)

It will, however, sound in a different key. You will have put the entire tab/song a fourth lower. If you were to try to play along with someone playing the same thing on a soprano, you'd notice the difference.

It's important to note that a chord on a baritone is not played the same as the same lettered chord on a soprano. In other words, a C chord has a different shape on a bari than on a soprano. When you put your finger on the third fret of the first string on a soprano and strum, you get a C chord. If you do the same thing on a bari, you get a G chord.

JJ
 
Also, if you stick a capo on fret 5 on your guitar, you can finger the guitar chords as if a uke - they will GCEA (bottom 4 strings), although the G chord will not be in the same high G octave. You get the benefit of the guitars better sustain and larger resonant sound box, and if its a steel strung guitar, when you go back to your uke, the strings will feel nice and soft to your hardened fingers. LOL
 
Also, if you stick a capo on fret 5 on your guitar, you can finger the guitar chords as if a uke - they will GCEA (bottom 4 strings), although the G chord will not be in the same high G octave. You get the benefit of the guitars better sustain and larger resonant sound box, and if its a steel strung guitar, when you go back to your uke, the strings will feel nice and soft to your hardened fingers. LOL
Interesting about hard fingers, as the Soprano my Daughter bought me for Christmas is a bottom end model and it's got very low profile frets, so I am having to press down very hard to make a clean note. It was one of the reasons I started playing the bottom 4 strings on guitar to give my fingers a rest. When I can play a bit better it's my intention to buy a decent model,so expect some posts in the" What Ukulele should I buy".lol.
 
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