Learning Eight String Baritone

Keety

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Hi All

I pray you are in good health and spirits in this difficult time.

I have been inspired by my eight year old granddaughter to take up music again after she began to learn the uke at school this year. It's some 36 years since I last played (drums) although I originally played french horn and tinkered around with a bass guitar before settling on drums.

It is my intention to learn how to play the Baritone uke and as I particularly like the sound and tone of the eight string I was wondering am I asking too much to learn on an eight string?
 
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Eight string any ukulele is a bit harder to play than a four-string. Fretting is a little more difficult and barring (placing a finger across all the strings on the same fret) will probably more than a little more difficult. It's doable; the big risk is that because it's a little tougher on your fretting hand, you may get frustrated and quit. My suggestion would be to get an inexpensive four string baritone from a reputable manufacturer (Kala, Ohana, etc.) and buy it from a place that does setup (Mim's Ukes, The Ukulele Site, Uke Republic) and eliminate the additional difficulty of playing with double courses of strings until you feel comfortable with basics like fretting and barring, and then take on the slight additional challenge of the extra strings.
 
Hi, Keety! Baritone is probably my favourite uke size. I recently bought an 8-string Kala baritone. It is definitely more challenging than the 4-string and is probably best suited to strumming. I would recommend starting on a 4-string, if I were you.
 
Thank you both for your advice. I'm fortunate to have the opportunity to own a Kala KA-ASAC-B Baritone. It is 10 years old and in excellent condition. There seems to be little evidence of use bar a change of strings at some period. The fact it is aged appeals to me as new ones don't seem to have any character. What do you think?
 
Hi, Keety. I have a Kala tenor eight string, and, even though I can play melodies on it on good days, I don’t care for the way they sound. Agreeing with the others above, I only use mine to play chords to accompany my singin’.
 
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