Seasonistas Baritone Thread

Croaky Keith

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I'm noticing that I'm not the only one who has recently bought a baritone uke, so I thought of opening a thread for us here.

What I'd like to see is anything to do with baritones that may be useful, all brought together in the one thread.

So if you find something, please put a description & a link to it in here.

I'll start off with this link to baritone chord charts.
http://www.ukulele-chords.com/baritone/charts

& some baritone PDF song sheets,
https://pdfminstrel.wordpress.com/renaissance-bari-pdfs-2/
http://ukeklub.blogspot.co.uk/p/baritone.html

& something that may be of interest, 'Low GCEA' strings,
https://ivanolarte.com/2015/06/28/guadalupe-custom-ukulele-baritone-gcea-strings-review/
 
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I've been playing my bari since January and learned the chord changes a good deal, not every one but most, and I find the G chords easier to finger. After playing it for a while I found that the C6 tuned ukes easier to play as well!

Thanks for the Bari song links. I needed an easier "City of New Orleans" transposition and found it there! I had it in C but the G key seems easier to finger out. I'll try that in this weeks Season 223.

I must say that the gcea strings sound really nice. I may buy a set to try on my tenor before I shift them to my bari. I've been playing tenors tuned dGBE but maybe the lower C tuning might be better?
 
Thanks for the Bari song links. I needed an easier "City of New Orleans" transposition and found it there! I had it in C but the G key seems easier to finger out. I'll try that in this weeks Season 223.

I must say that the gcea strings sound really nice. I may buy a set to try on my tenor before I shift them to my bari. I've been playing tenors tuned dGBE but maybe the lower C tuning might be better?

Adding this here for you to hear what the Guadalupe strings sound like on my tenor. The strings are a little slack on the tenor so this is tuned ADF#B.


 
Adding this here for you to hear what the Guadalupe strings sound like on my tenor. The strings are a little slack on the tenor so this is tuned ADF#B.

That Pono sounded wonderful and you played and sang great too! But another tuning to learn chords to! I'm just getting used to G tuning!

I've been waiting for the Worth Browns I put on my baritone to settle, to record them while I play something recognizable. I have some Worth Brown Fats that should yield a hi d and I'll try that on the Big Zebra before I get all crazy. I kind of like the re-entrant G tuning.

I may try tuning my Zebra Tenor to aDF#B. It has Brown Fats on it tuned dGBE and the strings are a little slack. Hmmm....
 
Funny you should mention baritone. I took my LoPrinzi Model B out this past week. It may appear in a video tomorrow or Monday. Every time I get it out I wonder why I don't play it more often. I've been preparing a tune for season 222 and 223, but have yet to press record. (Okay, I'll confess, I pressed record more than a few times late last Saturday night and decided not to scare the baby.) With that, I think I'll go pick it up and work on one of those tunes. Stay tuned!
 
That Pono sounded wonderful and you played and sang great too! But another tuning to learn chords to! I'm just getting used to G tuning!

I've been waiting for the Worth Browns I put on my baritone to settle, to record them while I play something recognizable. I have some Worth Brown Fats that should yield a hi d and I'll try that on the Big Zebra before I get all crazy. I kind of like the re-entrant G tuning.

I may try tuning my Zebra Tenor to aDF#B. It has Brown Fats on it tuned dGBE and the strings are a little slack. Hmmm....

Thank You Jack. Guadalupe are for GCEA tuned an active lower than the usual tones of a tenor. ADF#B is just tuned a whole step up to take up the slack (But still an active lower) and you still play that tuning just as if its a GCEA. It just requires you to adjust your singing a couple notes higher. No big deal at all.
 
That should read OCTAVE lower. :wallbash::biglaugh::D

Edit: Normal Low G is - G3 C4 E4 A4 - so we will be - G2 C3 E3 A3 - if my calculations are right.

Edit2: Normal baritone is - D3 G3 B4 E4 - I think.
 
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What a great idea for a thread! :)

:rock: :music: :nana:
 
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Thank You Jack. Guadalupe are for GCEA tuned an active lower than the usual tones of a tenor. ADF#B is just tuned a whole step up to take up the slack (But still an active lower) and you still play that tuning just as if its a GCEA. It just requires you to adjust your singing a couple notes higher. No big deal at all.

Since I don't sing...yet. That wouldn't make a difference to me. Since I started playing G tuning, I've tried to learn how to tell D from G, C etc. I haven't gotten there yet but I keep hoping. I'm thinking I may try the Hi d string out on the BZ next week as I like the re-entrant tuning of my dGBE tenors and the BZ may sound a lot nicer and Uke like with a Hi d.

I tried out the Key of G for City of New Orleans but it still had that d***ed Bb in it and while A7-Bb-C is easier, I didn't have time to plant it in my brain/fingers. Maybe next time? I did get my baritone in on it though, I played the last verse with the Big Zebra.
 
Greetings,

I am still cheating with my bari - yup - keeping the capo on 5 so I don't have to learn new finger patterns. Aha ...alas....it seems to make no sense. But, for now, the tones I get (even with the capo) are still rich enough to differentiate it from my sopranos. However...once my brain settles down I will start to play it as intended. In recent meet-ups, I discovered I am not the only "cheater".

:)
 
Greetings,

I am still cheating with my bari - yup - keeping the capo on 5 so I don't have to learn new finger patterns. Aha ...alas....it seems to make no sense. But, for now, the tones I get (even with the capo) are still rich enough to differentiate it from my sopranos. However...once my brain settles down I will start to play it as intended. In recent meet-ups, I discovered I am not the only "cheater".

:)

They make GCEA strings for baritones. I don't like them personally, but enough people do that they exist, BUT they are an option that you can explore for not a lot of money. Another option is to string your bari with GCEA tenor strings, but I don't advise it if you have weak fingers. The strings will be extremely tight compared to the GCEA baritone strings. I decided to use tenor strings one one of my baritones, because the bari strings seemed really loose and sloppy for my playing style. (which is why I didn't like them). However, the sound is more like a really loud tenor and lacks the rich sound of a baritone.

But, as has already been pointed out, the finger patterns don't change. The chords and notes change, but not the fingering. If you compare GCEA tuning to DGBE tuning, the fingering looks something like this:


GCEA = DGBE

C ______ G
D ______ A
E ______ B
F ______ C
G ______ D
A ______ E
B ______ F

(All the minors and 7th's are the same finger positions too.)


The reason this is important to know if you play a baritone is that the different fingerings make the chords sound very different. As you can well imagine, when you play a G chord (for instance) using 3 fingers; it sounds rather different than playing a G chord with one finger. This is precisely why I keep ukes with different tunings around.
 
Greetings,

I am still cheating with my bari - yup - keeping the capo on 5 so I don't have to learn new finger patterns. Aha ...alas....it seems to make no sense. But, for now, the tones I get (even with the capo) are still rich enough to differentiate it from my sopranos. However...once my brain settles down I will start to play it as intended. In recent meet-ups, I discovered I am not the only "cheater".

:)

But the chord " shapes " are exactly the same just different names . Phluff put a response to this effect above this, . If you keep on capoing you are going to lose out on the tone and richnerss of the instrument . Another way to think of it is that by jumping into the bari chords you are two thirds of the way to learning how to chord on a geetar !!!!


So a song that was say G C D
Open G would be same shape as an Open C SHAPE . Third fret E string (A string on soprano)
Open C Bari. Like an Open F SHAPE on Soprano.
Open D Bari. Like an Open G SHAPE on Soprano.

Really the best thing to try and do is just reassign your chord shapes the new names , get a Bari or guitar chord book . If you go down the guitar chord book then just use the four finger positions to the right of the chord box as you don't have the E and the A.

Would a video help ?
 
This is a dumb question, but could you play a Bari uke as a bass in a band?

Bass is tuned to EADG, i.e., two full octaves lower than a standard baritone, and in perfect FOURTHS, a baritone and shorter scale ukes are tuned in MODIFIED fourths.

BASS TUNING: E1-A1-D2-G2
Bari tuning: D3-G3-B3-E4 (linear) or D4-G3-B3-E4 (re-entrant)

I suppose you could retune your Bari to E3-A3-D4-G4 with a set of the right strings (that G4 from an existing set is likely either to snap or pull the bridge off), but if there are any other uke, guitar, banjo, mando, or even piano instruments in said 'band' the EADG tuned uke is going to get totally drowned out since many of those instruments either overlap or encapsulate the note range.

The REASON a true bass in the proper tuning can actually be HEARD above the din of everything else is simply because there are not other instruments competing in that low frequency range.

Human hearing perception can only keep so many things distinctly identified at one time before it all becomes just a mushy mess.

EDITED to add the info below:

To HELP illustrate the above info, here is a picture showing the comparative note ranges of various instruments:

9f460d8d06268f0a647cd717fdfb4dea.png


taken from the Wikipedia page for Ukulele: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukulele
 
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What about Tenor-tones? Tenors tuned to dGBE/DGBE? Can I put up a song on my tenor, as a baritone piece, if it is dGBE? Or should this be another classification?
 
I just changed my Big Zebra to High d, using Brown Baritones and a G string from a High g Tenor set. The tension on the d string is a lot stiffer than I expected, but it changed the tone of the BZ to a much ukyer sound. I put the Worth Browns on after I had a problem with the original Super Nylguts. I'm told the WBBs are "Warm", and it does seem to be a softer sound. I've got some bright strings waiting to try. The BZ sounds much like my travel tenor,(also dGBE) but richer and louder. I've had it about six months and I'm just now getting comfortable with the fret span, and appreciating the finger room. It sounds like chocolate tastes.
I surprised myself today. I had been trying to play Ukulele Lady on my concert for seasons and wasn't having much luck, but decided to bootleg it on the Big Zebra to hear it in a different key, wow, it was so much easier on the baritone. If I can get a good 'take' tomorrow, I may be able to fit it in the season.
 
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