I may be going to the dark side.

Rllink

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 14, 2014
Messages
4,566
Reaction score
292
Location
Ames, Iowa
I'm looking at baritones. Seriously looking at them.
 
You would think so, but it can still happen.

Did you know that a short scale tenor banjo can be strung JUST LIKE a ukulele? With "A" at 440Hz and everything.

That leads to solid body electric ukes, and eventually to tenor guitars.

It's a slippery slope. One minute you're just minding your own business, enjoying the Five Foot Two, the next thing you know you buying wah wah pedals and trying to figure out Smoke on the Water.
 
The dark side is the wild side. Red meat, whiskey, hormones.

And a capo at fret 5 lets you hit the GCEA spot.
 
You would think so, but it can still happen.

Did you know that a short scale tenor banjo can be strung JUST LIKE a ukulele? With "A" at 440Hz and everything.

That leads to solid body electric ukes, and eventually to tenor guitars.

It's a slippery slope. One minute you're just minding your own business, enjoying the Five Foot Two, the next thing you know you buying wah wah pedals and trying to figure out Smoke on the Water.

I have an SS Stewart tenor banjo that I tune in gCEA "C6" tuning (with the capo on the 2nd fret). It has Nylgut strings.
That's me in the top middle with the Maple Leaf Champions Jug Band
MLC JUG BAND.jpg

I don't know if you have to be a Facebook member to hear this, but this video is of the jug band, filmed by a person who wanted to concentrate on the young bucks and not the two old gaffers, so you can hear, but not see the tenor banjo,
https://www.facebook.com/mapleleafchampions/videos/691040872295
 
Last edited:
Baritones are gateway instruments. Once you play one, you want to look at tenor guitars. Then parlor guitars and 5-string banjos! Before you know it, you have a 12-string guitar in your hands! Resist! Resist! :p
 
Baritones are gateway instruments. Once you play one, you want to look at tenor guitars. Then parlor guitars and 5-string banjos! Before you know it, you have a 12-string guitar in your hands! Resist! Resist! :p

Yes, it is a slippery slope. When you start adding strings and different tunings there is no stopping

 
I assume that you'll also be using baritone tuning? I think they are fantastic. The sustain and mellow sound are very nice for picking and plucking. Jazzy and bluesy styles suit the baritone better than other styles (for me at least). Reggae, rhumba strums, percussive playing such as scratching and chunking, work way better on the smaller scales. For those playing styles, the sustain is a hurdle for me.

I don't feel tempted to try a tenor guitar, banjolele or a proper banjo. However, I do expect I will eventually buy a 30" basic guitalele, and probably tune that EADGBE.
 
Baritones lead you to tuning you tenors to dGBE and the Tenor-tone Fremonts! Ask me how I know.
 
Baritones lead you to tuning you tenors to dGBE and the Tenor-tone Fremonts! Ask me how I know.

So when you tune a Tenor to DGBE, what strings do you use? Baritone strings?
 
Tuning my Tenor to dGBE led me to lovely Pono mid size baritone DGBE. A slippery slope! You are toast.
 
Baritone ukes are fun once in a while, just don't think about what chords you're actually playing!
 
A little less than twenty four hours later and a baritone is on the way. Actually it has been sitting in my Sweetwater wish list for a couple months. I've been playing ukulele for a while but I took up the guitar a year ago last Christmas. So right away people were telling me how to play a guitar like a ukulele, which at the time was the last thing I wanted to do. While the guitar has evolved and eclipsed the uke, I still want to stay in the ukulele community. I like ukulele people. I really like playing with my ukulele group, playing at ukulele festivals, busking with the uke, doing downtown gigs and the senior center circuit with my ukulele friends. But switching back and forth has become cumbersome and especially when I'm under the gun. So maybe the baritone is a good fit right now. A ukulele that plays like a guitar. We will see I guess.
 
Last edited:
A little less than twenty four hours later and a baritone is on the way. Actually it has been sitting in my Sweetwater wish list for a couple months. I've been playing ukulele for a while but I took up the guitar a year ago last Christmas. So right away people were telling me how to play a guitar like a ukulele, which at the time was the last thing I wanted to do. While the guitar has evolved and eclipsed the uke, I still want to stay in the ukulele community. I like ukulele people. I really like playing with my ukulele group, playing at ukulele festivals, busking with the uke, doing downtown gigs and the senior center circuit with my ukulele friends. But switching back and forth has become cumbersome and especially when I'm under the gun. So maybe the baritone is a good fit right now. A ukulele that plays like a guitar. We will see I guess.

I was encouraged by several people to play bari when I told them that I had tried and failed to learn to play guitar. (They were, of course, baritone players themselves.) I looked at all of the resources and training materials available for ukulele and noticed the plethora of GCEA tuning information and the dearth of DGBE and declined. I have a hard enough time remembering C6 tuning and not get overly confused. Let alone trying a different one.
 
I was encouraged by several people to play bari when I told them that I had tried and failed to learn to play guitar. (They were, of course, baritone players themselves.) I looked at all of the resources and training materials available for ukulele and noticed the plethora of GCEA tuning information and the dearth of DGBE and declined. I have a hard enough time remembering C6 tuning and not get overly confused. Let alone trying a different one.

I've made pretty good progress on the guitar and looking at chord charts and such the baritone is the same as the bottom four strings on the guitar. So if that is the case, it should work pretty well to just play the guitar chords sans the two base strings and all is well. There are a lot of resources for guitar and those should transfer right over. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
 
Top Bottom