Lynn Kleiner's Music Box
I just heard from a Music Box teacher that she bought a baritone ukulele and eagerly watched the Music Box ukulele lesson number one to learn to play. I know how disappointed she must have felt that what I was saying didn't match what she was playing! ugh. Baritone uke is the same top 4 strings of the guitar. However, what I use with my teachers, parents and students for easy playing is a concert size ukulele. My videos are concert ukulele and that's what I recommend to teachers who say that guitar is too hard for them. Baritone will still be much easier than guitar and you can play songs using guitar chords without the bottom 2 strings (or get a baritone uke book of chords) but my chords for uke and lessons on Music Box are all for the concert size.
For the last 27 years, I have offered baritone ukulele to students who want guitar classes but are just too small and I’m certain will become easily frustrated. I am concerned about starting lessons when the child is too young because if they think it was not fun, too hard, they will not give it a try when they are the right age/size!
I have also offered concert and soprano size ukulele at camp. These two ukuleles have the same tuning. You can watch two videos in Music Box videos to see the progress of two of my classes, one for 5 and 6 year olds and one for 10-14 year olds.
In the Music Box ukulele lessons, you will notice that I have replaced the high G string with a low string. I had my local guitar store recommend the best type of string and I really enjoy the low string. If you want more of the traditional Hawaii sound, keep it with the original tuning and you can still follow my lessons and all the chords will be fine.
Happy Strummin!
