Baritone 'Ukulele: What Resources Are Needed/Wanted?

Brad Bordessa

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Aloha gang,

Looking at starting up a baritone 'ukulele-specific website. There's very little good info out there and it seems a shame.

Hoping you can help me brainstorm some content to focus on. Here are my ideas so far:

- Strings (should be easy to cover most since there are relatively few bari sets)
- Basic baritone chords (also thinking of creating a "baritone edition" of my book, 'Ukulele Chord Shapes. All the content is already universal, but I figure it would be more fun for baris with DGBE examples.)
- Tuning a baritone/tuning variations
- Electric baritones
- Transposing to and from baritone tuning and how to adapt current GCEA uke resources.

(Think I'm going to avoid doing tabs since A. I don't enjoy tabbing as much anymore, B. there's already a lot of good stuff that can be transposed, and C. it's a matter of time before they really start to crack down on DCMA infringements.)

Any and all ideas are appreciated! Nothing is written/filmed yet. Figure it's smart to do some homework first and build a site people will want to read instead of guessing. Fire away!
 
Thanks for thinking about doing this. About last March I bought my first Baritone. I played Tenors for several years before. Now I play mostly Baritone, partly because I like the sound and partly because in the groups I play with I am generally the only Baritone and it adds to the sound. Although there are some resources out there for Baritones most resources have a Soprano tuned ukuleles. If there are some tricks to taking information written for Soprano tuning and easily adapt it to Baritone tuning that would be helpful.
 
I just transpose tabs written for low g tuning. Have also found baritone ukulele aerobics quintessential to my personal progress, and fingering the 'full chord' rather than relying on the bottom 3 to get sh@#T done.
But totally agree, seems such a round-about of achieving something that you'd think given it's popularity would have something more dGBE specific.
if you build it they will come!
 
Check out
humblebaritonics.blogspot.com

I'm fairly certain he's a member on here.
 
I have used my Bari to play Dylan songs and some other serious/dark numbers that a Soprano seems too cheerfull for.
Side note I was at a workhsop Brad did at the Kahumoleu 'Ohana 2010 at Pahala, Hawaii.
Incorporated it into an alternate verse for Island Style.
 
Great idea, Hippie Guy! Another baritone lover here too. Perhaps another topic could be 'conversions'. I am currently using a baritone converted to more of a nylon string Irish tenor guitar, or 4 string octave mandolin - tuning being the fifths, GDAE. I'm also contemplating getting an 8 string baritone to convert it closer to the octave mandolin.
 
besides the obvious differences between the Keys, you may want to clarify how playing a
Baritone (DGBE) differs from playing a ukulele with a 'Low G' - that is, if there are real
differences besides the Key :)

if what you want to share with Baritone (DGBE) players can be adopted by 'Low G' players,
you will be able to reach many more players... as long as they understand the differences,
besides Key, between the Baritone and their Low G instruments :)

keep uke'in',
 
Awesome! I would like to see some content about fingerstyle and classical music for baritone. Most everything seems to be written for GCEA with reentrant tuning, and it's definitely a missing groupsource from what I've seen so far.

Bradd
 
Mahalo for the feedback! Gives me some ideas where to go first. It'll be a few months to get it all together, but I'll post a link when the site goes live. In the meantime, if any other requests pop up, keep them coming. I'll be banging on my keyboard if you need me...
 
As already mentioned Humble Baritonics is the place to go for bari info, go check it out, then consider what is the best part of it that you like & incorporate it into your new site. :)

I don't mean for you to poach 100%, but to see what is already available, & see if you can supplement it.

I would suggest that you consider tenor ukes tuned to DGBE, (& maybe dGBE), that tuning started to get popular over the last year with some users. ;)

I have a tenor & a concert tuned to DGBE at the moment - just for something different occasionally - plus one bari in DGBE & another in dGBE.

There are also a few members that tune to fifths tunings, maybe they could be included so as they have a new home to visit too.
 
Brad I am so glad you are doing this. Whatever it is that you put together I know your expertise will make it an invaluable resource. I love baritone but just noodle around on it and am not good enough to transpose on the fly. I still think in GCEA tuning when playing the baritone. So if you could include some kinda conversion chart ie. forming an F chord used in GCEA is a C chord in DGBE. That might help myself and other start to memorize and think in DGBE terms instead of GCEA terms like I still do.

Thanks for do this, I enjoy your website and all it's content.
 
May I put my hand up to request Bari chord charts for those who own long scale Bari's and would prefer to tune in the key of B flat. A number of people had recommended this tuning for my 20.25 inch scale length Bari because it produces the best resonance for that scale length. So far I have been totally unsuccessful in finding a comprehensive chord chart for this tuning.
 
May I put my hand up to request Bari chord charts for those who own long scale Bari's and would prefer to tune in the key of B flat. A number of people had recommended this tuning for my 20.25 inch scale length Bari because it produces the best resonance for that scale length. So far I have been totally unsuccessful in finding a comprehensive chord chart for this tuning.

So you're up at F Bb D G? I've only ever seen a fretboard chart for that once. It was a handout at either a Benny Chong or Byron Yasui workshop over ten years ago. He called the tuning "tenor," which really confused the heck out of me, just having gotten a tenor uke and tuned it to GCEA!

Hate to plug my own stuff like this, but really, a "tuning-less" shapes approach like I present in my book (link in sig) might be the way to go. It's applicable to any 4th, 3rd, 4th tuning (standard, English, baritone, "tenor", half step down, etc...) as long as you have a corresponding fretboard chart to know your notes with (or have them memorized - big kudos!). Might be of help. Don't realistically see myself getting around to a whole different set of static chord diagrams. I'm already dreading making a simple chart for baritone. Yikes!
 
I'd love to get a 'Baritone Ukulele Cord Shapes' book!
Your original book has been great, and I have a kala baritone on the way to me now.
 
I'd love to get a 'Baritone Ukulele Cord Shapes' book!
Your original book has been great, and I have a kala baritone on the way to me now.

I'm on it! Definitely on the short to-do list. Most baritone players don't realize that every shape in the current book is universal, but I want to change the examples to be baritone-specific to give y'all a little more of a head start on the content. How's "'Ukulele Chord Shapes: Baritone Edition" sound?!
 
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