Am I hearing Drop D or a Baritone guitar?

Lee Gustafson · From: Mohawk Michigan, USA

I love country songs with low notes from the guitar. Are some of those lead parts played with a drop D tuning or with a baritone guitar? If drop D is used, is there any instruction on the subject? Any suggestions on good, not necessarily expensive baritones that would serve the purpose?

D Schubert · From: Columbia, MO, USA

You are probably hearing both at one time or another.

Most regular-scale Fender guitars can be tuned down 5 frets to BEADF#B if you use strings that are heavy enough, with a little minor tweaking of the bridge saddles for height & intonation. I use light-baritone gage strings for that purpose, 0.013" to 0.062". All your regular guitar licks and chords will work just fine.

With that low tuning, you will probably want to use a "clean" amp with plenty of treble and reverb for clarity.

Jerry Overstreet · From: Louisville Ky

Danelectro® has been a popular baritone for a few years. They are recently reissued and pretty reasonable I believe. Mostly tuned in A.

A bunch of guitar makers build baritones. You'll find a variety of styles, scale lengths and tunings.

Gretsch® and Fender® [Bass VI] build 30" scale models. Some tune in A, others E an octave down. Fender® also builds or built at one time or another, the Jaguar® baritone which I believe is 28 or 28 5/8" as well as a strat® in a shorter scale.
Their custom shop built a tele® [Subsonic] in a 27" scale that tunes in B. My favorite. Great guitar, but a tad pricey.

There are makers who do double neck models built with a standard neck and a baritone neck. There are also 7 string bari models if you want to really rattle the floor joists.

I saw some discussion on "the gear page" website a while back. There were several pictures of different brands.
You might do a web search on that site or others.

I love that low end growl. I have a Squier® tele w/Bigsby® and Hipshot® D drop that I'd like to convert to a 27" baritone, but all I find is a 28" replacement neck, and I want the 27" for my smaller hands.
I might look into D's alternate method of detuning a standard Fender® scale with heavier strings. Thanks, I didn't realize that was a possibility.

I watched Confederate Railroad's guitar man [name escapes me] play Queen of Memphis on a Fender® Subsonic® a few years back which was the first one of that model I saw.

D Schubert · From: Columbia, MO, USA

I have fooled with several different baritone tunings, and I think that lo-B is the most useful on the bandstand, because of key transposition.

Here's what I mean about key transposition. Consider your basic cowboy chords with available low note runs....

standard guitar.......E A D G C
low-C.................C F Bb Eb Ab
low-B.................B E A D G
low-A.................A D G C F

Lo-C is good if you know a horn player.

You can do lo-C and lo-B with a regular scaled guitar and heavy gages, but lo-A is "floppy" and uncontrollable for my hands.

Jerry Overstreet · From: Louisville Ky

Cool D. I suppose you could use a capo as well.

I'm seriously going to tinker with a heavy set of strings and detuning to one of these. Probably B.

Thanks for the tips.

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