For me it was instrument innocence. I went into my local music store, Long & McQuade, looking for a ukulele to play with my grandchildren, who I knew had ukuleles. I strummed several instruments, and there was no question that the baritone produced the most pleasant, rich, deep musical results.

 Come along with me and try the strumming test: Trying out two ukuleles: Why a Bari?

Naively, I had no awareness of the differences among the ukuleles, and I didn’t realize until I fumbled through first attempts at playing a tune that there is different tuning on the baritone, compared to the soprano, concert or tenor.

The baritone is tuned like the top four strings of a guitar, DGBE, whereas the soprano, concert and tenor are tuned, GCEA. For a brief period, I considered restringing my baritone to GCEA, but that would kill all the deep resonance of the instrument. Sacrilege!

There is another wonderful side benefit to the DGBE – all guitar music that you download may come with chord illustrations that suit your bari, just as they suit the guitar.

Many ukulele performers gravitate to the baritone simply because it produces a lovely sound. Some ask what is the difference between a baritone ukulele and a tenor guitar. Not much, they’re almost identical, however, the tenor is falling out of favour, as more and more manufacturers are producing better and more astonishing baritones.  Just browse the baritone section of Flight instruments as an example.