I first started playing guitar when I was 14 years old. I have know idea where I got money from back then but I manged to save up and by a black Kramer. This was a relatively new guitar brand at the time (mid 1980's) that was sort of leaning toward the metal crowd. (I think?) Kramer wiki This was the guitar I played for the first 5 years or so. It wasn't a bad first guitar. I wish I still had it but from what I remember it was pretty beat up by the time it disappeared out of my life.
I've never really considered my self a "guitarist" It was always just an instrument I played. I was never really that good at it but I always learned just enough to pull off certain styles. I've never been a guitar expert and I've never collected them. I played and owned many different ones over the years but I never owned more then one or two at a time. I never had any interest in getting an expensive one like a Paul Reed Smith but, those have their place for certain people and certain styles.
Now that I'm in my later 40's I own three guitars. Each one has a specific purpose for what sound I may need. First, I have an Epiphone acoustic guitar. This is a middle of the road type of acoustic guitar. It's not cheap but it's not a "pro" model. It's sounds good so that's what matters to me. My second guitar is a G&L Legacy classic. The same applies to this guitar as the Epiphone. I bought it over a Fender Stratocaster because I liked the sound a bit better. It's a really good "all around" electric.
Around 2011 I found myself researching baritone guitars. I was looking for an instrument that could sit in the area of the mix between regular tuned guitars and bass. Something that I could double with the bass or guitar line without having to use effects. It would also serve as something to deliver jazzy sounding chords that were lower than a regular guitar. I found that many baritones at the time seemed to be either aimed at metal or rockabilly. I was leaning more toward rockabilly models since it was closer to what I might be doing.
It seems that fate would have it that I was looking for this at the perfect point in time. Fender had just released a baritone Telecaster in a very limited run and my local store had one. A Telecaster was the perfect medium for what I was looking for. Soon as I played it I knew it was the one. It came with 2 single coil pickups and a double coil on the bridge and a 5 way selector switch. It had an amazing lush sound with certain combinations of the pickups. I bought it on the spot. I think this may be the first guitar that I had ever bought new.
I've ended up using this guitar a lot since then on many different recordings and projects. The nice thing about baritones is you can alternate between lower tuning depending on what you are doing.
The tuning I use most of the time is the "B" tuning which is a tuning of: B,E,A,D,F#,B which is a forth lower than a regular guitar tuning. I also use the "A" tuning with is a fifth lower. I only use this tuning when I'm doing something that is less chords and more individual notes. The sound can become more muddy when strumming in the A tuning if it's not equalized correctly.
These days in my current project "Gordon Gallant" Website I use my baritone along with my U-Bass (See my other blog post about this instrument) U-Bass blog post to create the sound on many of the tracks. Below is one of the songs where this combination can be heard:
I can't say that I would recommend a baritone to anyone who plays guitar. If you are someone who already owns and plays guitar or bass and likes to experiment then this may be the guitar for you.
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