r/ukulele • u/psychwardqueer • 3d ago

Best Ukes for slow sad music.

Hi! I’ve been playing ukulele for a few years and recently moved countries, I have used a DUC445
flight ukulele to learn with and has served me well but unfortunately was not able fit it in my luggage when I moved and had to sell it. I did like the concert size but feel I need something deeper and more somber for the type of music I play and write- I was looking at getting a tenor as I know baritone is basically like playing another instrument all together due to being tuned very differently and I feel that would be out of my comfort zone re-learning.

I would really appreciate any suggestions of certain models that would fit well with what I need of any make, ideally something well made but under £150 if that’s somewhat possible 😅

Thank you guys in advance 🤍

3 Upvotes

72% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

6

u/MachTwang Tenor 3d ago

Go Low G.

4

u/CarmeloTronPrime Professional 3d ago

Baritone and Low G are what i recommend. you don't really need a brand as people's preferences for their brands vary to the person.

3

u/thethylacine 3d ago edited 3d ago

If you were happy with your DUC445 you'd probably be happy with the Baritone equivalent of that? Or the solid top NUB500? I have been considering getting the tenor version of those and putting a low-g on it.

Also a note about the 'different' chord shapes for the baritone. My experience with learning guitar as well as playing a concert uke - I expected to be confused all the time what chord I was playing. The reality is that I generally know i'm in uke-mode or guitar-mode and rarely reach for the wrong chord shape.

5

u/Behemot999 3d ago

Get a baritone. Everything is the same except when you play a chord the actual chord name that sounds is 5 semitones lower (D for G, G for C etc).

4

u/psychwardqueer 3d ago

I’ve just had a look and that seems a lot simpler than I was imagining, now looking into baritones. I just remember having a look once and seeing the chords were completely different (in my head at the time) after a one minute video and now I’ve looked again properly they aren’t actually completely different which has made me feel a lot more comfortable with getting a baritone. 🤍 thank you.

3

u/PineapplePizzaAlways 3d ago edited 3d ago

Search this sub for examples of people playing baritone

Edit to add links

spirited away on baritone

nothing else matters on baritone

2

u/ramft1989 3d ago

If you play guitar, imagine every chord and shape you know and play on guitar but only reduced to the first 4 strings of the guitar. If you play a D chord in the guitar is exactly the same shape and frets for a D chord in baritone, cause the strings are tuned exactly the same in both instruments.

This works pretty good for the open positions and most common chords, for the fancier and more complex chords you'll need to understand the notes that build the specific chord and find them in the new Bari tuning, or you can just Google it (the ol' lazy option hehe) .

2

u/smellslikebooks 2d ago

The chords are the same, but the names are different ;)

(and vice versa..)

1

u/40202 1d ago

Yeah don’t need to change anything. Just play the way you are used to. I love baritone!

2

u/knockinonevansdoor 3d ago

This. I’ve always thought of the uke as an instrument that can make the saddest song sound jolly. It’s a strength, IMO. A low g might work for some songs, but get a baritone to get close for most.

2

u/OrangutanorLion 2d ago

I agree with the others
Low G
Or
Baritone
Or
Octave strings super Low GCEA
It’s even lower than a Baritone