Baritone Ukulele from Scratch

Being self taught I missed out on some important things along the way. This book was just what I needed to help fill in the gaps. The way things are laid out and explained kept me engaged and wanting to continue. Go page by page, take your time and this book will have you playing confidently in no time. Thank you Bruce Emery for a fun and educational book.

This book was my primary choice when searching for beginners training books for playing the baritone ukulele. It's my very first attempt to learn any musical instrument, other than a juice harp. At 70 years old and widowed, I'm needing to fill my days with something other than watching Star Trek and YouTube. This book explains to the neophyte (inexperienced boob) like me, anything and everything about strumming, picking, various chords, and other weird stuff. He even gets into the weird stuff, as he calls it. I really like this author, he's I on my level. Too many teachers make assumptions that the student already knows certain basic elements of the chosen field of study. This dude assumes I am just as ignorant as he was when he first picked up his first stringed instrument. Great guy!

I don't usually buy music books, but since I was just starting to play the baritone, I decided to give it a try. I guess, based on other reviews, I was expecting something a lot better. It's not bad, but it hasn't enthralled me. I appreciate having the chords at my disposal, but the included songs are pretty lame.

I was trying to learn guitar and got a baritone uke to take to work to mess around with on my breaks but this workbook is actually significantly better than the one I got for guitar so I've been focusing more on uke and transferring these lessons to guitar. This book's strength lies in the author's care to build up your skill as you move through the book without letting certain skills and topics fall out of practice. This was the issue I ran into with my guitar workbook but Emery here managed to very effectively keep up the pressure and keep challenging all of the skills you learn throughout the book. This never would have crossed my mind to see as a strength in a book until I saw how much more effectively the lessons of the book compare to a similar book. This book isn't comprehensive: it's pretty short, not much information on fingerpicking, fairly restrictive song variety, and though it does includes numerous chord diagrams and strum patterns, it lacks a good set of reference sheets (I found blank ukulele chord charts from the internet and filled it in as I went, which was nice exercise to be honest). Despite this, the effectiveness of the book's lessons (at least compared to my guitar book) completely overshadow all of that. It's not a songbook, but a lot of online guitar song tabs can very easily be transposed to bari-uke so this hasn't been a problem for me at all. It's a fantastic workbook for this absolute beginner in conjunction with reference to all the 6-string guitar material accessible on the internet. This book is an integral part of my dive into stringed instruments.

I bought this book to help me learn baritone ukulele. I already play a tenor uke, and wanted the help in deciphering the new chords for the baritone. I got so much more from this book than what I was looking for. It’s the best music theory book I’ve ever seen! Takes so much information and manages to condense it into a very readable and fun resource. I’ll be using this book and studying it over and over again. Highly recommend for all ukulele players and even guitarists who want to understand more about how chord families work.

This book just came today so I haven't had the chance to use it yet but think I'm going to really like it. The spiral binding is very helpful and the book is loaded with info for a baritone uke beginner incliluding strum patterns, chords and tabs. Delivery time was excellent...less than 48 hours.

I picked up a cheap bari uke and wanted an easy to follow instruction book. This book is great - easy to follow instructions, clear diagrams, easy song charts, and a bonus - the writer is very funny and clearly enjoys sharing his love of all things ukulele. Highly recommend - I purchased another book from this author already.

first off, i bought this for my husband when he got his baritone ukulele (which is an AMAZING instrument). there are a few things to take note of here. Pros: 1) the book's quality is good. 2) you get a ton of information. 3) the lessons are laid out clearly and neatly, in a linear way. it's well-written and the author is obviously an expert. 4) it's a pretty fair price for what you get--in my opinion, more info than the standard Hal Leonard books. Cons: 1) the author insists on filling the text with corny dad jokes...a LOT of them. it's kind of amusing at first...but once you get to page 20 or so, you kinda have had enough of the puns and other cheesy jokes. it's a little distracting. 2) the book doesn't include chord charts. you'll have to buy that separately...i recommend Hal Leonard's "baritone ukulele chord finder", which is cheap and comprehensive. 3) the book is VERY heavy on theory, and not so much on techniques like finger picking, strumming patterns, or other fine things. you get a little of it, but no comprehensive info. so if this book is for a 7 year old, it might get a little boring. 4) you get NO popular songs or pieces. you only get like 3-4 cheapo public domain tunes like Jingle Bells and Auld Lang Syne; as the author explains, "i can't afford to pay anyone to use real songs". now, this wouldn't be a huge problem, but bear in mind: the baritone ukulele is a bit of an obscure instrument, unlike the standard soprano or concert uke. youtube has sort of limited information about song playalongs and other things like that for baritone, so be aware--you're going to have to buy a baritone uke songbook if you want to play songs. or you can spend a bunch of time googling the tabs, which works too. 5) there's sort of limited success using this book in weekly lessons. some parts get a little repetitive and drag a bit, like the part where you're playing Jingle Bells and You Are My Sunshine over...and over....and over....for like 9 pages. if you (or your child) expect rapid progress, this probably isn't the learning aid for you...in which case, Hal Leonard's book is pretty good, because it covers aspects not in this book. again, this book isn't comprehensive. it seems mostly like an introduction to some strumming patterns and theory for baritone uke. Overall: I'm about 75% happy with this book. it isn't "bad"...it just doesn't have quite as much comprehensive info as i'd like. on the other hand, it isn't very expensive, and it's positive that the book is written in pretty easy-to-understand language for regular folks. i could do without the plethora of corny jokes in EVERY paragraph, though. i guess he wanted to make the text friendly and approachable, but tbh, it does get kind of distracting and annoying after awhile. i don't regret purchasing it, and you probably won't either. just be prepared to purchase supplemental learning materials to go along with it.

Nice relaxed style, simple presentation. Accurate content.

Love this book. It helps a lot

Bought this a couple of months ago. Arrived much quicker than expected which was nice. Great resource for anyone interested in teaching themselves, especially as there's not much on offer to choose from for self taught baritone ukulele players. Easy to understand and very well balanced it gives you just the right amount of theory and background for a beginner but enough to keep you busy for months. Would buy more from the author if he brings out any further books.

Excellent from cover to cover

Upon 1st glance I thought it was a bit lightweight but its been a revolation. By practicing each section my playing has come on considerably thereafter couple of weeks. The trick is not to get too far ahead if yourself and keep practicing before you go on to the next section. Its really well written, humorous and clear, giving you a good overview of music theory without getting bogged down in the technicals. Worth every penny.