good thread! Thanks y'all.

Glen, I gotta find a way ... been dreaming about your baritone last night; I'll take that as a sign from God that she wants me to work this problem out!!

The Santa Cruz bari, being set up for slide makes no sense, either. The one I played at Elderly was set way low. I thought that might be aprt of the problem. And their use of light strings on the instrument didn't help.

Mooh - you may be right about standard tuning being a bit too high. A baritone range for guitar really solves a lot of problems, it seems to me.