The word baritone is usually
defined
for a male voice in a
range between tenor and bass. Frank Sinatra I guess would be
the most
popular example. The word baritone is also applied to musical
instruments
as well. The most popular being maybe a baritone trumpet or
sax.
These instruments play in a range a little lower than a standard
trumpet or
tenor sax.
My Tip #1 on this site
addresses this issue a little. Without even
realizing what I was doing at the time, age 15 or so, I made my own
baritone
guitar by lowering the tuning of my guitar from standard tuning E A D G
B E to
C# F# B E G# C#. I have a baritone voice and would learn a
really cool
song only to find out later I couldn't sing it because it was keyed too
high. The major problem was, the intonation of the instrument
was thrown
off because lowering the tuning of a guitar properly also requires
re-adjusting
the saddle back a little thus increasing the scale length.
Scale length is
the distance between the nut at the top of the neck and the saddle on
the
bridge. The scale length for my guitar tuned up to pitch (E A
D G
B E) is around 25 2/5 inches, a baritone guitar tuned (B thru B)
usually uses a scale length of around 26 1/8 to 27 inches.
The gauges of the
strings for a baritone guitar are usually a little heavier like maybe
ranging from .014 - .068 inches to help prevent string
buzzing. A bass
guitar is more like 30 to 36 inches and has even heavier strings.
There are a few guitars manufactured to properly correct for this
situation. Santa Cruz makes a Bob Brozman Baritone
guitar with a
27" neck scale designed to be tuned down 2 or 3 half steps.
Although
Taylor doesn't market it as such, the Leo Kottke 12 string is designed
to be
tuned in the baritone range as well.
Bob, Gman ( o )==#