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Old 09-14-2017, 05:25 AM
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Location: wyoming
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Originally Posted by DaBoz View Post
A friend, who plays no instruments, what's to get a uke.... I know nothing myself and he's asking for some help on his purchase.

I see tenor, concert etc.... what's a good starting uke, type etc????

TIA!!
Hi DB

The soprano and alto Ukulele are tuned at the same intervals, but different notes, as a guitar (GCEA), with the G string an octave higher than on a guitar.

The tenor and baritone ukes are tuned just like the top four strings of a guitar (DGBE) and on the baritone uke in particular, you don't raise the D string an octave.

So the chords are named and fingered identically to playing them on a guitar (important if you as a friend are going to help him learn anything).

We keep a couple Baritone ukulele here at the house and I use them when teaching chord inversions to students. It's fun, and it's nearly impossible to make a uke sound sad (they always sound so happy).

Decent wooden ukes can be had as inexpensively as $60, or $100 and up for baritone ukes. Amazon carries them all (and strings and other supplies). My Kala (all mahogany) was $90 and my OscarSchmidt (Rosewood/Spruce) $150.

Soprano ukes are about 21" long, and baritone ukes about 32" long.

The OscarSchmidt lives in our living room and hangs on the wall, and gets played the most of our two. I had hoped my grandsons would be interested, but so far not. I may take one along on vacation again this year and see if them being a couple years down the road has made any difference in their interest. If there is interest, the Kala will likely live with them.

Hope this helps.



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