Tenor Guitar vs Baritone Ukulele

kkimura

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Not trying to pit one against the other as the title seems to imply.

I'm trying to find out if they are the same, or what the differences are between a baritone ukulele and a tenor guitar.
 
Traditionally, tenor guitar has a longer scale, narrower nut, steel strings, and is tuned like a mandolin (I.e., fifths).

BUT - “Chicago tuning” (DGBE) is a widely used alternative tuning for tenor guitar (tenor banjo as well). And if you can adapt to the other things, yeah, it’s basically a steel string baritone uke.

My opinion, anyway.
 
I'm not really that clever or musically savvy, but I'll tell you how I feel. You can interpret it as you wish.

My tenor guitar (Blueridge) and baritone ukulele are inter-changable. The biggest difference I find is the twang. I use Chicago tuning, so that the two are tuned the same. When I play them back to back, the tenor guitar is a bit more bright, or tinny as Monty Python would say. The baritone ukulelelis warmer. So for me the question is: do you want a brassier tenor guitar or a warmer barione ukulele.

If I were forced to take only one instrument to a desert island, I would take the tenor guitar. I do not prefer the tone of the tenor guitar. But it seems more solidly made and it has an electrical plug-in, so that I can queue up my fuzz pedal and get totally funky if I want. The tenor's neck is thinner, but thicker (if you know what I mean) and the steel strings are a bit harsh on the strumming fingers (I have never and never will use a plectrum), but it is louder.
 
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Interesting responses, thanks. Seems like they are the same but different. Steel vs plastic strings, build and sound. I should find a store that carries both so I can see and hear the differences.
 
Not to blur the lines, but Pono has a baritone uke built for steel strings. Some top luthiers like Jay Lichty have built 19" or 20" baritone ukes designed for steel strings. They are baritone ukes based on the scale length. My next instrument I build will be a baritone uke with a light X-bracing, Redwood top and Bay Laurel back/sides, 14" body and 19" scale, for light gauge steel strings. I am currently building a 23" scale tenor guitar, Redwood top and Indian Rosewood back/sides, lightly braced for classical guitar strings. Both will be DGBE tuning. As I'm building these for myself, I'm not too hung up on labels.
 
Not to blur the lines, but Pono has a baritone uke built for steel strings. Some top luthiers like Jay Lichty have built 19" or 20" baritone ukes designed for steel strings. They are baritone ukes based on the scale length. My next instrument I build will be a baritone uke with a light X-bracing, Redwood top and Bay Laurel back/sides, 14" body and 19" scale, for light gauge steel strings. I am currently building a 23" scale tenor guitar, Redwood top and Indian Rosewood back/sides, lightly braced for classical guitar strings. Both will be DGBE tuning. As I'm building these for myself, I'm not too hung up on labels.

What's the advantage of steel strings? More volume?
 
What's the advantage of steel strings? More volume?

Not an "advantage" per se, but it makes it a different instrument.

There are nylon strings and steel strings.
Best way to know is go, maybe to a music store, and try a few steel string guitars and see how they compare to ukuleles and nylon string guitars.
The experience will explain far better than any words can.
 
I’ve been playing baritone for about 10 years. I was drawn to it’s guitar-like sound in a small size, easy on your fingers nylon strings and easy chording. I still like it for those very reasons.

I was steel string curious a few years back and acquired an old Harmony tenor guitar. This is a full size guitar body and a typical long guitar scale neck but much narrower, with the close string spacing that you would expect on a guitar (significantly closer than uke). I was looking for a bigger sound with more sustain. I got it but really was not impressed with the tone. As ripock described, it was a bit tinny and I did not hang on to the Harmony. I’d like to try other tenor guitars, in particular maybe an old Gibson archtop and see what I thought; maybe experiment with different strings. I have heard some fabulous t.g. players on youtube, so I know better sound is out there. I’ve had the tenor in both traditional fifths tuning and in 4th/3rd guitar tuning and I think uke players will find it a little harder to play with the longer scale in guitar tuning and much harder to play in 5ths tuning.

I now have the Pono short scale steel string tenor guitar and find it to be a good compromise. Its a little bigger than a a conventional baritone uke. It has the typical wider fretboard of a uke and the scale isn’t that much longer than a reg. baritone. It does have more volume and sustain than a reg. bari w/o being tinny (dgbe tuning). I find it to be my go-to uke right now, when I want something guitary but couch friendly, and there is something about the simplicity of four strings.

That being said, tenor guitars don’t have the balance that I find in reg. guitars and when I want nice full chords with good tone, volume and sustain, I pick up my Taylor guitar.
 
To try and put things in perspective for me, is there a greater difference between a low G tenor uke and a baritone uke or between a baritone uke and the tenor guitar?
 
I had a custom, what I call, contra baritone built last year. It's tenor guitar size with nylon strings 1 3/8th" neck. With the larger deeper body it has a very deep rich sound. It'll shut down a Martin dreadnought guitar when I take it to a bluegrass rehearsal. An incredible instrument.

Big difference between a bari and TG is size, steel or nylon and neck width. TG is normally around 1 1/4" neck, 23" scale, larger body with steel strings.

Photo is of my Thomas conta baritone and a Chennell archtop baritone for difference in sizes.
 

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I own both tenor guitar and baritone ukuleles, they are very different. As others have said a tenor guitar is quite a bit bigger, think soprano to tenor ukes in relationship to each other. The steel strings are louder brighter with much longer sustain and greater projection. Steel strings are much harder on your fingers if you have never played such an instrument.

Yes they are both tuned DGBE but that is where the similarities end. A tenor guitar is more different to a baritone uke then a reentrant tenor uke is to a reentrant soprano uke
 
Blueridge makes a tenor guitar that is a wonderful value. However, I could not deal with the narrow nut width. Tenor guitars tend to have narrow widths because they were conceived/came into vogue at a time when banjo was going out of favor, so a lot of banjo players crossed over to it.
 
Blueridge makes a tenor guitar that is a wonderful value. However, I could not deal with the narrow nut width. Tenor guitars tend to have narrow widths because they were conceived/came into vogue at a time when banjo was going out of favor, so a lot of banjo players crossed over to it.

That's an interesting bit of info.
 
Be careful about dabbling with tenor guitar and baritone ukulele though.
It may lead you to the dark side, and just take up 6-string guitar.

It's what happened to me.
I used to play a lot of baritone uke and owned 2 tenor guitars (an Eastwood Warren Ellis signature tenor guitar and an Ozark) and also the Pono Nui (oversized baritone ukulele).

Now those instruments have been replaced by 6 string guitars, and the only ukes I have are GCEA tuned.
Once you get used to playing with 6 strings, a 4-stringed guitar feels a bit obsolete. The 6-string will do everything it does and more.

Sorry if this is an unpopular opinion here haha.

Baritone ukulele and tenor guitar tuned DGBE are useful and nice instruments in their own right. Just for my needs, they became redundant when they're simply 80% of a guitar.

Tenor guitar had a niche being tuned in fifths tuning to cater for banjo/mandolin players who wanted a guitar-like sound in their pallet.
 
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My story goes in the opposite direction. I started with a six string acoustic guitar but had trouble with the long scale and fretting (short fingers). Tried switching to a classical guitar but still had fretting and scale length issues. The ukulele scale lengths and strings work for me although I still like the range, sound and volume you can get with a six string guitar.

And so here I am thinking about baritones.
 
I too like the sound of a six string guitar. However, I am old and have some hand injury and old age problems along with short fingers. So during the last two years I found the baritone ukulele and then a tenor ukulele. I love both of them. Recently I purchased a short scale classical guitar which is fast becoming my main go to instrument even tho I play all three every day. I do not believe I could ever drop one of them. I cannot ever play a tenor guitar because the scale is one to two inches over my limit of reach.
 
Like kissing, baritone led to tenor guitar, t.g. led to reg. guitar. Once I started playing guitar, I found it hard to be satisfied with the sound of the baris or t.g. They are useful tho for portability and couch playing, and when my hands are tired. For this I use my Pono t.g. or a baritone that I have strung as an octave mandolin. When I want to enjoy the uke for exactly what it is…a sweet voice, I play my soprano.
 
I started with guitar, and still play it regularly, but I go back and forth between guitar and uke. A tenor is as small as I'll go ... even that fretboard is somewhat cramped in the 1-5 frets. On the classical string tenor I'm building, I widened the nut to the same width as a standard baritone.
 
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