I've been playing a lot more guitar lately...mainly flat picking swing tunes with another uke player. Over the past few weeks I've returned to the baritone, and have been really surprised at how much I've improved as a uke player even though I've not played much for quite a while. I especially notice the improvement in my sense of timing and rhythm.
I'm thinking that this sort of 'cross' learning is a well known phenomenon. Have others noticed this kind of improvement in their playing?
I started out as a guitarist than started playing uke about 10 years ago (maybe 11 now).
I recently got into baritone ukulele, and realized it's actually helping me understand the guitar more.
I have always been a much better uker, but coming from the guitar first i feel the baritone is the perfect fit for me.
ANd now to mix both worlds even more i will be installing high D baritone strings, to keep the low tuning and feel of the baritone
but still get the close harmony's of the smaller ukes. Looking forward to how this sounds.
But after playing baritone more I'm understanding the break down of guitar chords.
I was one of those guitarists who learned the basic chords, but just found it to frustrating to bother.
With uke i was obsessed and studied the crap out of the mel bay chord books, I memorized every chord
I could find to the point where i can say 'name a chord i can play it" on the uke. As for guitar I can play
the basic major/minor/7th/major7th/minor7th and it pretty much stops there. Now with baritone all i have to do
is transpose the chord shapes from standard, and it breaks them down for me and shows me kind of how the chords are made up in a simple way (minus the bass strings)
and now the chords on guitar make sense to me more. I started on guitar, but i don't consider myself a guitarist i'm a uker
who knows a little guitar....I'm considering getting a guitar again in the future maybe but I really think i have found all I need
in the baritone ukulele but i also appreciate how it can be used as a learning tool for guitar also as well as a unique instrument
on it's own capable of many different voices.