Help me understand the Baritone

Hey Fingerguy, don't start thinking about a soprano tuned a, D, F#, B - you'll blow a gasket!

Edit - I'll try again. Where you are going wrong is in thinking that fingering (for example) 0003 on a ukulele will always result in a "C" chord, and 0232 a "G". Here's the thing - ONLY IF IT IS TUNED GCEA. You are being misled by thinking that ALL ukuleles are (or should be) tuned gcea. That has become the standard tuning for the main three sizes, but not everybody uses it. Some very accomplished ukulele players started out playing Mandolin, and that's how they tune their ukes - same as a Mandolin. Many players worldwide prefer to tune their soprano ukes a,d,f#,b - which used to be standard tuning for sops.

I hope that makes sense to you. It's the best I can do.

John Colter.
 
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If the three sized ukes are tuned to D then the third fret would be a D. What's your point? What if the tenor is tuned to a G? The intervals of notes are the same, just a different pitch. As far as why play a bari.; the same reason others play the other three, they want too.
 
I already know this. Going to say this one last time and then leaving this topic alone. The standard tuning of the baritone is different from the other 3 ukuleles. So the "chord" shapes will have different notes and as such I was asking what is the point of a Baritone? The open notes and the fretting is completely different. YES I know it is the same as the first 4 strings of a guitar. Yes I know the 3rd fret is a G. Yes I know the the 4 bar blues. What does that have to do with the question?

Ugh! I will leave you all to discuss this for I feel only one maybe two get it. I'm out!

The point of a baritone is this: some people WANT to play it.

There. Does that answer your question? Did you seriously need us to tell you that? Isn't that the point of any instrument?

Now you tell us: Why do you keep telling us the chord shapes map to different notes? WE ALREADY KNOW THAT, my friend. You seem to think this is a huge problem. We are telling you it's not much of a problem at all and there are many ways to deal with it.

I am trying to understand your concern about baritones and the only thing I can figure is that you are seeing a mountain where there is only a molehill. We are trying to show you it's a molehill and that's why we're talking about guitars and 12-bar blues. You don't want to hear that so I will cut right to the chase and say this bluntly:

The difference between GCEA and DGBE tuning is trivial. Not A Problem. Alternate tunings are common, transposing is a basic skill every musician needs at some point, and you should not trouble yourself over this.

If YOU don't want to play bari, that's OK. As far as I know there is no secret police forcing people to play baritone uke so you have nothing to worry about. If you should ever decide the sound difference is worth it, you will probably discover that bari is nowhere near as difficult to play as you think it is.
 
I am. I actually got my ukuleles to help me learn to play electric guitar. They are more conveniently sized to sit down and exercise my novice fingers on than the guitars. I have a tenor and a baritone, and I switch between them without thinking of them being any different. Same shapes, which just make slightly different sounds. My original instrument was lute....also pretty much the same thing on the fretting side with a different "right hand" technique.

OK by me, though I could argue that you are not actually learning standard tuning. You are learning to play DGBE and pretending that's what you've got when you're holding a tenor. It works fine when you don't care what key you're in. When the only available instrument is a guitar, I have been known to play the bottom 4 strings and use GCEA chord fingerings -- which works in a pinch but I wouldn't say I was learning guitar ;-)

Lute is cool. Were you using moveable frets? I wonder how to translate that onto ukulele!
 
And then there's the tenor guitar ...
 
I reckon Fingerguy will have his fingers in his ears by now.:rolleyes:

John Colter.
 
Yes BUT a 3rd fret on a Ukulele (Soprano, Concert, & Tenor) is C not G. That is my whole point!!!

But the 3rd fret on the first string on a guitar, and a baritone, is not a C, it is a G. I played guitar for decades before I went to the ukulele. I was thrilled the chord shapes were the same, actually easier with only 4 strings. This isn’t that difficult, unless you are trying to learn both at the same time. In which case, you might want to pick one and stick with that for a while.

John
 
I was going to learn to play the guitar and found the ukulele instead. I was attracted to the ukulele by its lively re-entrant sound and after six years I am still a re-entrant man. Although I have often thought about picking up the guitar and learning to play it as well. For the first few years I thought that re-entrant defined the ukulele and made it a unique instrument. But over the years I've come to accept that no one can really tell me what defines the ukulele and they are not unique. After plenty of philosophical discussions on the subject I've decided that the ukulele is such a versatile toy that one can pretend it to be anything that you want it to be. So we have all kinds of "ukuleles" tuned in any number of ways and built to look and sound like everything and anything. Once you accept that there is no such thing as a definitive ukulele, you will be much more content and happier.
 
About 14 years ago I was a guitar player, struggling with the size of the guitar because of old injuries, when I met a music teacher in the course of business. We spoke about music & I mentioned my difficulty. He said I need a baritone uke. I'd never heard of one before. Now I own 2 of them. Their SIZE makes them a pleasure to play.
That's why some people play baritone ukuleles!
 
And then there's the tenor guitar ...

:smileybounce: YES, got me two of those and 4 baritones and a whole gaggle of all the other sizes tuned “normal”
 
About 14 years ago I was a guitar player, struggling with the size of the guitar because of old injuries, when I met a music teacher in the course of business. We spoke about music & I mentioned my difficulty. He said I need a baritone uke. I'd never heard of one before. Now I own 2 of them. Their SIZE makes them a pleasure to play.
That's why some people play baritone ukuleles!

Yeah, the baritone ukulele feels just about "right" as a comfortable size for me to just sit and noodle with.
 
Lute is cool. Were you using moveable frets? I wonder how to translate that onto ukulele!

The frets were the usual gut tied to the neck, yes, but I wasn't even remotely advanced enough to worry about any trickery with adjusting or tilting them. I struggled to keep the 10-11 strings (6 courses) with friction pegs in tune with variable temperature and humidity, and it was a student lute so the action was terrible anyway.
 
Ugh! I will leave you all to discuss this for I feel only one maybe two get it. I'm out!

The real question in my mind is: what’s the point of your question?
A baritone is simply another version of ukulele that anybody well-versed in soprano ukulele can pick up and play using the same finger positions that they’ve learned even though they’re playing in a different key from that which they play on a ukulele in C tuning.
If you want to play with others, learn the corresponding chords or slap on a capo.
But I guess I just don’t “get it”. :rolleyes:
 
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So why would someone who wants to learn ukulele use one that differs greatly from the others past the sound difference?

I didn’t read all the responses in this thread but I did re-read your original post. It appears that you don’t want to know the differences between a baritone and a tenor, but why someone would ever want to play a baritone since the chords are different. Yes, that is a different question.

While I adhere to Jim Hanks’ position that if playing alone you don’t need to learn any new chords, I’m willing to guess most who play baritones with other ukuleles are able to easily adapt between the different tunings. It is fun to add a different dynamic to the sound with a baritone.

I’m not sure if you are trying to drum up opposition to baritones, but the instrument is firmly entrenched as a ukulele.

John
 
While I adhere to Jim Hanks’ position that if playing alone you don’t need to learn any new chords, I’m willing to guess most who play baritones with other ukuleles are able to easily adapt between the different tunings. It is fun to add a different dynamic to the sound with a baritone.
That's only half my position. The other half is that even if you're playing with others, you still don't to learn new chords - if you're willing to treat the baritone as a transposing instrument and re-write your chord sheets accordingly. Of course, that's not the only method, and if you focus on DGBE tuning, maybe you want *that* to be your "home base".
 
That's only half my position. The other half is that even if you're playing with others, you still don't to learn new chords - if you're willing to treat the baritone as a transposing instrument and re-write your chord sheets accordingly. Of course, that's not the only method, and if you focus on DGBE tuning, maybe you want *that* to be your "home base".

I agree that transposing sheets in advance can crutch learning chords for a baritone. I hardly ever play guitar anymore, but when I play a baritone uke I use my guitar mindset and to play guitar chords. It sometimes takes a bit to jog the memory, but it is a lot easier, at least for me, than playing B or Bb tuning. In those cases I would need to use a capo or transpose the sheets. But in reality I have a tenor I’ve kept in C that I use.

John
 
Group settings is what makes it matter. For instance I was part of a jam session and on average we had 2 Ukuleles, 2 to 3 acoustic guitars, and a bass. We all had to be in the same key. So if someone showed up with their Baritone and only know Ukulele shapes that key would not match.

That's not how it works.
Then does the acoustic guitar and bass guitar play chords using the exact same fingering as ukulele?
They don't. You play the chord shapes/method the correct way for the respective instruments.

Not everything revolves around ukulele's specific GCEA tuning.
Guitars with their EADGBE tuning similar to Baritone is far more prevalent than Ukuleles.

What you need to look at is not fixating on GCEA tuning as the centre of the universe, but realise that a musician needs to understand the universal concept of music. Chords are chords and are played differently on each instrument.

If GCEA-ukulele players are playing a "C" chord, then the Baritone ukulele player also does a "C" chord as it would be on baritone (F-shape as a GCEA-ukulele user would do).
Then they would be playing in the same key
It would be ludicrously ignorant for the Baritone player to mindlessly play with other ukulele players using the exact same fingering and be in the wrong key as everyone else.
 
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This thread has been frustrating but also entertaining to read. It makes me appreciate how fortunate I am to have a (minor) background in music. And by minor I mean minor. I played piano for a while before uke. I am mediocre at sight-reading on both uke and piano but get the basic concepts of music theory. What I appreciate from this thread is how the idea of transposing and keys is not intuitive to someone who maybe learned chords as positions on a uke.

To me, even with my limited knowledge, the transition between sopranos and baritones never seemed hard to understand. I've always been satisfied to know that if I play the same song on a differently-tuned uke, it'll sound different but it'll sound like the same song, just either higher or lower. And if I care enough, I think it through and figure out what the chords I just played were.

But other than that I'm satisfied to know I'm playing the same song in a different key. I think that would all seem more overwhelming to think about without a music background. When you have an idea of intervals - "oh this is just the same song but a few steps higher" - it doesn't seem like a big deal. But I think that if you dont have that concept in your head - "these are different chords now!" - it doesn't seem so simple.

But, on the positive side, I think it's probably easy to learn the basics of music theory once you've been playing a uke for a little while.
 
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