Baritone Ukulele v. Four String Guitar

[JohnnySmash]

Until recently I had no interest in a ukulele, thought they were a kids toy. Now that I have changed my mind and have my first uke on order. I heard about and been reading about a four string guitar. Before, I never knew there was such a thing. Basically what are the major differences between a baritone ukulele and a 4 string guitar? Which is the best for finger picking solos? Any thing else one can add. Thank you.

[Earl49]

I believe you are talking about a tenor guitar. They were popular in the 50's and early 60's (Kingston Trio).

According to Wikipedia: Tenor guitars are normally tuned in fifths (usually C3 G3 D4 A4, similar to the tenor banjo, mandola, or the viola) although other tunings are also common, such as "guitar tuning", "Chicago tuning," or baritone ukulele tuning (D3 G3 B3 E4).

Except for the "fifths" tuning intervals, it is basically the same thing as a baritone ukulele, although tenor guitar may be slightly bigger than a typical baritone uke. All the chord shapes will be different because of the tuning, but you would fit right in with the mandolin / tenor banjo crowd.

[MC5C]

baritone uke is nylon strings and scale length around 19". Tenor guitar is steel strings and scale length around 23", although 21" up to 27" used to be common. Tenor guitar is/was kind of a cross-over from banjo, hence similar in scale length to common banjo scales, and tuned in fifths like a tenor banjo (or a mandolin). No reason in the world not to tune it the same as a baritone uke, or the top four strings of a guitar. Banjo players seem to do an awful lot of finger picking and rolls on their instruments, so there may be some advantage to tuning in fifths for finger picking in that style.

[Rudy4]

Tenor guitars are an entirely different animal and were mostly ignored for many years.

Several years ago they started giting more attention after high profile performers such as Niko Case started extolling their virtues. Thanks to that kind of exposure there are some new large factory tenors once again available.

Visit the main tenor guitar appreciation website to do your research:

http://tenorguitar.com/

You'll learn a lot (and hear some awesome playing...) by listening to the John Lawlor interview at Fretboard Journal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5vTIxaWxjE&t=19s

[Mezcalero63]

Originally Posted by JohnnySmash

Until recently I had no interest in a ukulele, thought they were a kids toy. Now that I have changed my mind and have my first uke on order. I heard about and been reading about a four string guitar. Before, I never knew there was such a thing. Basically what are the major differences between a baritone ukulele and a 4 string guitar? Which is the best for finger picking solos? Any thing else one can add. Thank you.

The tenor guitars have longer scales and to my taste extremely thin nut width, most being 1 1/8" They can be tuned in 4th's or 5th's. Most are steel string, though Pono makes what they call a big Baritone which has a guitar sized body, with a longer scale lenght, and it is braced for nylon strings.

Baritones have nut width ranging from 1 3/8" - 1 1/2", which to my taste are much easier to do finger picking on.

Here are some interesting links for you to look at ~

https://www.theukulelesite.com/shop-...ne-ul4-20.html

https://www.theukulelesite.com/pono-...-nui-bn-2.html