Transposing from Standard to Baritone Ukulele

Posted by on January 24th 2021 @ 4:48 am

If you’d like to try your hand at baritone ukulele, but find the idea of learning a whole new set of chords daunting, try thinking of transposing from standard (GCEA) to baritone (DGBE) this way:

  • There are only 7 note names: A B C D E F G … A B C etc.
  • All of these can be sharped # or flatted b, but E#, B#, Cb & Fb almost never seen as they are the same as F, C, B & E respectively.
  • The C chord shape is the G chord shape on a baritone.
  • This means any chord on standard will be three steps down … C (skip B & A) becomes G.

Thus:

D shape becomes A.
E shape becomes B.
F shape becomes C … etc.

If you add a sharp or flat …
Db becomes Ab.
F# becomes C#.

Hope that helps!

Ryan's favorite starter ukulele: The Enya Nova U Concert Ukulele 23” on Amazon sounds great, is easy to play, in tune and nearly indestructable. "I left it in the car through the heat of summer to see what would happen, and it still plays beautifully."

Post filed under All UkulelePlay! Blog Posts.

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