Mel Bay Baritone Uke Chords

This book provides large-format chord diagrams showing finger placement for all the chords a beginning or intermediate baritone uke player is likely to use. There are also photos of finger placement for major, minor, seventh, diminished, augmented and ninth chords. Chords are not presented in music notation as shown on the front cover for one chord. Inside the book, you are referred to  Mel Bay Fun With the Baritone Uke  or  Mel Bay Fun With The Baritone Uke Book/CD Set  for additional (very basic) information on strumming a few tunes on the baritone ukulele. All of these books could also be used with a tenor banjo or plectrum banjo tuned in "Chicago" or "guitar" tuning.Some people will find the little book on this page to be useful along with  Mel Bay Guitar Chords . The basic introductory information in the DVD accompanying the guitar chord book (i.e., holding and tuning a guitar) are applicable to the baritone ukulele, and many of the finger placements for playing chords are the same. If you quickly compare the chords in the two books you will get good idea of the similarities and differences in playing the two instruments. This would be especially useful if you already play the guitar a little or if a guitar player is teaching a beginner on the baritone uke or tenor banjo. Where the chords are different, the baritone uke chord could also be used as a simplified chord on the guitar. This might be nice for beginning guitar players where the complete guitar chord is tough to play. The guitar book DVD sometimes presents these simplified chords as alternatives where guitar chords using five or six strings are presented in the book.The chords are presented in the same order in both books until the sixth chords, which are reversed in the uke book with the seventh augmented and diminished fifth chords in the guitar book. The movable and modern rhythm chords in the guitar book are replaced by a less extensive summary of movable major, minor and seventh chords on the baritone uke. These could be used as simplified movable chords on a guitar.

This is a useful book for anyone who just bought a baritone uke and wants to get started quickly mastering some basic chords. I didn't need this book -- I've been playing guitar for years, and any chord played on the top four strings of a guitar in standard tuning is the same on a baritone uke, so tuned. But even so, my brain thinks in terms of six strings, and I thought I'd find it useful to stare at, and focus on, chords for four strings only. I did -- to a point.The problem is, in its 32-pages, this book will generally show you one version (only) of any chord, like a C chord or C6. There are some additional moveable chords suggested on two pages in back, but only for Major, Minor, and Dominant 7th chords -- no minor 7th, minor 6th, major 6th, major 7th, etc. Of course, a beginner can figure out a lot of additional chord possibilities by just realizing that any chord shown, if it doesn't involve an open string, can be moved up the fretboard.Yet there are more ways to play a Dm7 chord on a baritone uke than shown here, fingerings which might be preferable, almost necessary, in a given situation, and which you can easily find online. Or, let's say you're playing a song that has a common "C - Cmaj7 - C6" sequence. You may not want to play the Cmaj chord at the first fret, as shown in the book, then jump up to the 5th fret to play the C6 chord, as shown, unless there's a musical reason to do so. So maybe you'd like to -- really quickly -- find some other chords. In that case, you'll end up putting down this book, and looking for another, better resource.

The book arrived and has the information BUT it also has an entire grammar book inserted into the middle of it.I cannot remove that part without ruining the book.

Always remember that the baritone is not a guitar. However, it is also not the typical ukulele and has a tuning and sound that is whole unique to itself. Therefore, A Baritone ukulele chord book is essential.

Because it was a 1961 printing, the first thing I did was get the yellowing pages carefully copied and lightened; then "archived" the book itself. (The tenor guitar version now sells for around $75). To have photographs of hand positions alongside the diagrams was a brilliant idea! I am not a really physically-skilled person, so this was the perfect book to learn from. Several times in my life, I had tried to learn to play ANY stringed instrument, and failed. Thanks, Mel! "You done good".

The baritone uke is really easy to learn for anyone that aleady plays guitar. It is just the top 4 strings of a guitar. This book does a pretty good job of showing how to play songs without those 2 missing strings. I recommend this book if you want to know the difference between guitar and baritone uke chords. The baritone uke is a great tool to write simple songs with.

This is an excellent resource for any music student. Although I purchased it for myself to learn to play the uke, I have often used it in teaching theory and music reading to my piano students, especially those who are planning to take up string instruments after learning to read music.

useful but slightly limited. I found I can get more out of standard guitar chord books because I can get different positions on the fretboard and then adapt those for the baritone uke, which can be helpful if you want to play more than just basic chords. Glad I have this one but it is not my #1 "go to" chord chart for baritone ukulele.

Very basic. Only basic chords included with b&w pictures of left hand, some of whichare misplaced.Waste of money

This has as many chords as I'm likely to use. You get a good selection of the most used chords without a lot of alternatives. Some of the books have so many chords that you probably would use less than 5% Of them. This one you'd probably use 20% of the chords regularly.A nice simple to use book

Very helpful for self-learning. Even for a leftie!

Fairly basic visual on chord constructs and where to put each finger...minimal explanation ...excellent for quick reference once your up to speed

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