Haha you are way too sweet, that would have been quiet a surprise would it not? HEHE!! Yes I knew that before I ordered it
WHEW! Thanks for not being offended. I was trying very hard to choose my words carefully, and to be more helpful than critical.
I am glad that DISASTER has been averted, and good on you for educating yourself before the purchase, some folks as beginners just dive in based solely upon their enthusiasm (and there's nothing wrong with that per se) and do not realize the differences for the baritone...I was hoping to spare you that pain...and glad to find you already had it covered.
via a Michael Lynch video
His videos are a great resource, and lots and LOTS of song tutorials. He's great.
The first uke I owned was given to me by my grandfather back in 2004, and I did not know what to do with it at the time. It is a 1950's era Harmony baritone, in surprisingly good shape. My grandparents were moving to Florida at the time and passing on lots of items to the family. I've played guitar since I was 9 yrs old, and knew nothing of the ukulele, and it sat in the closet. My grandfather passed away at 93 yrs old on 2009, and since then I had taken the uke out and tried many times to play it, but never could adapt. At the time I had a mental block coming from all the years of guitar. I know, it's weird. It should have been easier, but it took a while to unlearn the things that were in my way, coming from guitar.
My grandfather was a master piano player for foxtrot and ragtime styles my whole life, as a hobby and pastime, and his music was always an inspiration for me. I played piano and had lessons when I was younger, but was nowhere near his ability.
Back in December of 2012 I saw a video of Jake Shimabukuro doing 'Bohemian Rhapsody' at the TEDtalks conference, and then another video of John King doing a Bach piece and then James Hill doing his one-man-band version of Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean', and after that I was hooked.
And I love the simplicity of the 4 strings, and the softer strings are easier on my fingers.
Now that I am more accustomed to the uke than guitar, when I have picked up my guitar it feels unnecessarily complicated. On the Harmony baritone I've currently got Worth Browns 'FAT' low-g strings (BF-LG) which is what I had on hand and are the same gauge as their 'baritone set'. They have no problem being tuned to DGBE, and the lower tension and the sweet deep sound, oh my, it's awesome. It's like melted chocolate and honey mixed together.
It is also a dream to play and very easy on the fingers...you might want to look into Worth Browns for your baritone...
I'm learning about the "low G" and once I understand that more may change up my tenor. We'll see, I need to understand it all on a deeper level before I try that.
At first I was violently opposed to re-entrant tuning and could not wrap my head around it, but now I have ukes tuned both high and low g, as well as one tuned to 'D' tuning. They all have different purposes and I love the sound of each for what it does for my ear.
I read really fast, and I read a lot and I'm not afraid to get technical. I took shop class in middle school and built my own furniture and did quiet well at wood working
That's great! maybe you will become a luthier as a hobby to help fund your forthcoming UAS, or at least build something cool for yourself. I am planning to build a solid-body 'silent' uke for late night practice with headphones since what I've seen on the market is either beyond my budget or not to my specifications. I can get all the parts for like $100 and it will probably take about 5-10 hrs to build it. Fellow UU member Daniel Hulbert has built MANY ukes and has a thread where he is offering free plans for a steel-string electric uke which you can see here, with video demo:
http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?93014-Free-Electric-Ukulele-Plans
and I can hand code a few different scripting languages and have a career as an information architect. I am basically, a geek
I too am a geek, or nerd, my sister calls me a 'tech-head', but I prefer technophile. I've been working in IT/Computers/technology for over 25 yrs, when I exited the corporate world I was working as a global network architect/engineer (having painfully worked my way up from the lowest levels of HelpDesk)
After teaching myself Python from scratch last April to solve a problem that a friend of mine and I were bothered by, we are now in the process of launching a startup company based upon the software we have created.
Maybe some day you and I could talk shop about code.
I've been creating web sites from scratch as well for at least the past 8 yrs or so, but I've been away from it for a while now, as I've been focusing on Python, C++ and some server-side applications (Tomcat, Apache, Varnish, nginx, etc) on Linux and FreeBSD....
Still no email update on my baritone, I am starting to get worried
You mentioned Amazon. You can log in to your account, and go into your Orders, and then there should be a button to TRACK ORDER, and that should get updated between midnight and 2am with new info everyday.
However I've seen that sometimes they do not have the latest info, and you need to copy/paste the tracking number into the UPS or FedEx or USPS web site in order to get real-time updates, which you can also have emailed to you like the Amazon tracking updates.
Maybe you can have a look at your tracking info this way?
Good luck on your baritone, and please do a NUD (New Uke Day) post when you get it, so everyone else can learn from your experience...
-Booli
EDIT: My bad. I just re-read your first post and saw that it was HMS and not Amazon as your vendor. So maybe I'm just confused.
Back in Feb 2014 I called HMS to ask a question and spoke to Aaron (who has done MANY of their videos) and he was just too cool (the nicest person to me on the phone), and he told me that on average it takes at least 7 days to get everything ready before they will ship an instrument out, and if they are very busy or even one person is out sick that it MIGHT take up to 10 days before they will ship.
The main thing he stressed is that every item they sell gets the full undivided attention of the person working on it, and there's no way to make that go faster, without making mistakes. So while it may be painful to wait, there may be some consolation in knowing that your instrument is being given a proper inspection and expert setup by one of the best shops to buy from.
You can also track the order on their web site, and due to Hawaii local time being a few hours behind the mainland USA, you might still be able to get someone on the phone when you call, even if it's after normal business hours where you are located at home.
