Hi!!! I absolutely LOVED your knowledgeable and thorough discussion of these instruments. YOU KNOW YOUR STUFF!!! :) I've been playing guitar, bass and keys/piano (self-taught, by ear) since I was a little kid. Let's call that 42 years now. :) After 25 years of marriage (she's a classically-trained singer, majored in that in college, where we met), my wife decides she wants to learn the Ukulele because "the strings were too hard to manage" (turns out, she was struggling with bad carpal tunnel syndrome since before we met and didn't know it -- good news, she had the surgery and plays guitar AND ukulele very well). SO... I see this beautiful thing, I pick it up, and I'm immediately shocked by its reentrant tuning. That notwithstanding, I learnt all of the chords and within DAYS, I was playing chords and solos along with some of my favorite songs. As a guitarist-getting-older, yeah, span is beginning to be a problem on my fret hand (I have a Taylor GS-e Mini and also it's Baby BT2 brother)... but there's something about the Guitalele that keeps me REALLY sharp because the nut IS a little wider than a regular guitar and it FORCES me to stretch out (I even have a UBASS Ukulele bass... definitely something to check out, with its round, rubber-like-strings). One of the reasons that I love the Uke is exactly one of the things you warned about, expecting the guitalele to be easier to play than a guitar because the nut is wider. Back to the Ukes: I use them not only to play for fun (or even at parties)... and they're GREAT for warming up, as well, especially for classical stuff (as you know, the Uke is the Portuguese variant of the classical guitar). SO, where are you going with this, Joe!!! Besides being excited to see someone else with an affection for "exotic" stringed instruments, I saw you pick up a Uke with the name "Blackbird" on the headstock, and it has a LOW-G on it. Be sure to warn your fellow Ukers that putting a nylon acoustic G string on there that's wound may damage the frets, because not all uke frets are designed to handle metal-wound strings, and they'll be damaged. So, as a "guitarist-ukist", imagine my dismay when I "run out of strings" playing a descending solo, and my solo crashes into that reentrant hi-G string!!! That's the only annoying thing about the Ukulele to me. Can you PLEASE tell me, WHERE CAN I GET THAT UKE??? I can't find it anywhere!!! THAT is the sound I've been looking for from a Uke. Love your channel!!! Thank you so much, in advance, for your advice!!! Uke-on!!! :)
I'm so glad you went into details about the nut width. I think it makes a critical difference. I've been playing ukulele for about a year and decided to start noodling around with the guitar that's been gathering dust in my closet. I found the wide 51mm nut difficult to fret. It turns out I had a Kent classical guitar with widely spaced strings that are suitable for fingerstyle play rather than the strumming I wanted. I got a Fender acoustic with a 45mm nut that is much easier to fret. It is also the classical guitars that have 3 nylon strings where acoustic guitars have all steel strings. My advice for strummers is to go with a baritone ukulele over a guitarlele. I doubt that adding the 2 low strings of the guitarlele will make enough of a sound difference to justify stretching your fingers across the wider nut, learning more complicated chords, and learning to strum (or mute) the 2 low strings on a chord by chord basis, as one does with the guitar. Maybe you could do some sound comparisons in a future video. It seems like the guitarlele is a smaller classical guitar and is best suited to fingerstyle players.
Great to find you this early morning (PT) I find your style very clear so I will be able to learn from your videos! Thank you for being easy-going & straight forward
Glad you mentioned the fret size difference between guitar as far as comfort goes. Do you find the body size to still be more beginner friendly tho? That's what intrigued me about the guitalele. I've played ukulele for years but want to dabble in guitar as I inherited a few from my grandpa. I feel like I was able to get ok at uku because I would sit in bed and just pluck as I went to sleep. The body of the guitar is much larger and me being on the smaller side Regardless of sitting up/laying down, it strains my neck and back being hunched over the body.
Ahhh, that makes sense now. I have a classical guitar as well as a couple of ukuleles and I was trying to imagine how a Guitalele could have a wider nut than that, or why it would. So I guess it would not be wider than that after all. I am already shopping for my next three ukuleles (!) but who knows, there could be a guitalele in my future too, after seeing this! Now, about that Blackbird uke...! I am going to have to see if you did a video on that, because that is an instrument I am very interested in! I've read a bit about it and now hearing it played, I am even more interested. I know they are expensive, but one can aspire. Thanks for an informative and inspiring video!
I like my Guitalele because I like the feel of a smaller instrument acoustically, But I still practice electric guitar. hey, Talk to me about that tenor uke, is that a Pineapple? I'd love to own that model
My two tenor 17" guitaleles (Cordoba & Yamaha) sound better than my Cordoba Mini M! I think it's due to the depth of the body, which is thinner on the M... The 46 mm Cordoba neck is perfect. However, the nut with 38mm between the 2 "E" strings is a bit tight. I replaced it with a 40mm one, which is much better. We've still got 3mm on each side, and that's enough not to get out of the neck. Since the frets are closer together, the neck shouldn't be too wide either...
I have recently been thinking of getting a guitalele. During the pandemic I can get these make and models of Amazon. I realise that the market for guitalele is smaller, but if you still have both instruments I definitely still would like to see the comparison, and maybe buy one of these. I know you are busy with your daily uke project, so I'm not expecting you to jump on it!
I'm fascinated by the guitarlele and enjoy your series. I've seen a number of videos on the subject from other channels such as UkeLikeThePros. I'm still waiting for someone to give a key piece of basic information on how to play one. That piece is this: you need a guitarlele chord chart. Sure, the high 4 strings will look familiar, but it's the only way to figure out what to do with the new strings. It will also show that you have to learn NOT to strum those strings for certain chords. That's a pretty new concept for ukulele players.
The notes and chords are simply a 4th up (if you tune A to a) from a guitar, if you know guitar chords, you know guitalele chords. If you play ukulele, just remember the chord shapes are similar, you can play a G in the exact same way, by ignoring the low A, remember a C on the ukulele is essentially the same as a G on guitar if you ignore the bottom 2 strings, so if you grab the 3rd fret on the low A to get another C and another E on the 2nd fret of the D-string, you have it, you can also just play ukulele chords on the top 4 strings if you don't need the full voicing, you can even just follow guitar chords to do stuff like play the forbidden riff in D-minor instead of A-minor, try to picture what notes make up the chord you are playing, remember that if all else fails, grabbing the same fret on both A strings and moving down 2 frets from your E-string or up 2 from your C-string on your D-string, depending on what is possible will complete the full chord, and the shapes are moveable if you can do barre chords.
Thank you ,your information is very beneficial and helpful Not for myself ,but thinking about my husband who has a harder time with the ukulele because of the narrow nut .
Thank you! Wish you played some melodies on those though :) . I have small hands and as much as I love guitar sound seems like ukes is the way to go for now, perhaps will give a try to some guitarelle as well (I understand though in terms of copyright it might be tricky)
Thanks for the breakdown Jodi!! Hmm, Maybe someday I'll try the guitalele but then again feel like my baritone checks all the boxes I need for a more guitar-like sound. seems like guitalele are for guitar players that want a small guitar....interesting that the nut is so wide on them though, wonder why?
In a nutshell, string spacing. If you look at a standard 1.5" (38mm) nut baritone, you will commonly find 4mm between each edge and the nearest string (4mm each side = 8mm), then ~10mm between each string ( 3 spaces @10mm each = 30mm. 30mm + 8mm = 38mm nut). This large spacing between each string helps with the larger oscillation of nylon strings, as nylon strings are more "stretchy" than steel acoustic strings. If the inter-string spacing isn't wide enough, the strings can collide with each other when you strum or pluck them, resulting is a buzzing sound. When you add two more lower strings (which are even more stretchy), and you keep this same string spacing you would end up adding 10mm between the A and D string, and another 10mm spacing between the A and E string, resulting in a nut width of 58mm! This is if you want to keep the same spacing as a baritone uke. As 58mm is really wide, compromises are made to make this string spacing smaller than a baritone's normal spacing resulting in something smaller than 58mm (48mm, 42mm,...). As this string spacing is now smaller than a baritone uke, an issue you may run into with the smaller string spacing is if you have wide fingertips, you can end up touching adjacent strings when you fret a string resulting in buzzing. I recently went from a Baritone to a classical guitar. I started with a 48mm crossover neck width as 52mm seemed much too wide, and I ended up with the buzzing issue due to large fingertips. (Those with skinny fingers may not experience this issue.) I then got a standard classical guitar with 52mm nut and had no issues with buzzing but did have to get used to a wider neck. So it is important to look at the inter-string spacing when purchasing a stringed instrument to see if it will work for you. This is why many recommend playing an instrument before buying it. Don't just rely on someone else's review, as their hand, finger, arm, and body size might work well with the instrument, where yours won't. Sorry for the long response, but you raised a very important point that is often overlooked by reviewers and those watching the reviews and I thought I would address it based on what I have found trying and buying multiple instruments in the hopes of saving others needless returns.
Thank you for your informative video. I wanted to mention though, that the Yamaha classical guitar does have a wider nut (52mm) than the Yamaha guitalele (48mm). Classical guitars have much wider nuts than steel string guitars, so could it be that guitaleles are more like classical guitars in that respect?
Thank you for making this video! It is very well organized and informative. The only bad part is that it makes me want to buy a guitalele! I like how you were very clear about the different tuning options and listed the string names on the screen. Many videos on the topic just say “A to A,” or “E to E,” which leaves the other four strings unidentified. I also especially like that you have both a low G ukulele and an acoustic guitar for comparison. Many videos make that comparison verbally, but don’t illustrate with a comparison to the actual instrument. I also appreciate the time you took to explain about the wider nuts on guitaleles. A lot of videos don’t mention this, and it can be an important factor for people with smaller hands. I am curious how the neck size and shape (chunky vs. slim) affects the playability and if that factor makes the wider nuts more tolerable. I have found that the neck shape and size make a big difference in playability and comfort for me on regular ukuleles, so I suspect it would on these too. KoAloha makes an Opio guitalele, and I bet it would be more comfortable, even with the wide nut, since they use a slimmer neck. Obviously the only answer is that one of us needs to buy an Opio guitalele to test the theory, LOL! I was really happy to see this video appear in my notifications. I’ve been having a challenging week, and it cheered me up to watch this :)
Thanks so much for your kind words. I’m so glad you found this helpful! How about if you buy the Opio Guitalele and gift it to me?? 😂 You are right. With their neck profiles, I bet it would be a lot easier to play...
Great video, but saying that a guitalele has wider nut than the vast majority of acoustic guitars is a bit of a oversimplification. Most nylon-string guitars have a much wider nut, a guitalele also has much more in common with a nylon string guitar than a steel-string guitar (build and everyhing). Great video otherwise 🙂
Thank you. That is why I tried to specify acoustic guitars rather than classical guitars. Maybe I should have made that more clear, because you’re right- classical guitars do have a wide nut.
Hi!!! I absolutely LOVED your knowledgeable and thorough discussion of these instruments. YOU KNOW YOUR STUFF!!! :) I've been playing guitar, bass and keys/piano (self-taught, by ear) since I was a little kid. Let's call that 42 years now. :) After 25 years of marriage (she's a classically-trained singer, majored in that in college, where we met), my wife decides she wants to learn the Ukulele because "the strings were too hard to manage" (turns out, she was struggling with bad carpal tunnel syndrome since before we met and didn't know it -- good news, she had the surgery and plays guitar AND ukulele very well). SO... I see this beautiful thing, I pick it up, and I'm immediately shocked by its reentrant tuning. That notwithstanding, I learnt all of the chords and within DAYS, I was playing chords and solos along with some of my favorite songs. As a guitarist-getting-older, yeah, span is beginning to be a problem on my fret hand (I have a Taylor GS-e Mini and also it's Baby BT2 brother)... but there's something about the Guitalele that keeps me REALLY sharp because the nut IS a little wider than a regular guitar and it FORCES me to stretch out (I even have a UBASS Ukulele bass... definitely something to check out, with its round, rubber-like-strings). One of the reasons that I love the Uke is exactly one of the things you warned about, expecting the guitalele to be easier to play than a guitar because the nut is wider. Back to the Ukes: I use them not only to play for fun (or even at parties)... and they're GREAT for warming up, as well, especially for classical stuff (as you know, the Uke is the Portuguese variant of the classical guitar). SO, where are you going with this, Joe!!! Besides being excited to see someone else with an affection for "exotic" stringed instruments, I saw you pick up a Uke with the name "Blackbird" on the headstock, and it has a LOW-G on it. Be sure to warn your fellow Ukers that putting a nylon acoustic G string on there that's wound may damage the frets, because not all uke frets are designed to handle metal-wound strings, and they'll be damaged. So, as a "guitarist-ukist", imagine my dismay when I "run out of strings" playing a descending solo, and my solo crashes into that reentrant hi-G string!!! That's the only annoying thing about the Ukulele to me. Can you PLEASE tell me, WHERE CAN I GET THAT UKE??? I can't find it anywhere!!! THAT is the sound I've been looking for from a Uke. Love your channel!!! Thank you so much, in advance, for your advice!!! Uke-on!!! :)
I'm so glad you went into details about the nut width. I think it makes a critical difference. I've been playing ukulele for about a year and decided to start noodling around with the guitar that's been gathering dust in my closet. I found the wide 51mm nut difficult to fret. It turns out I had a Kent classical guitar with widely spaced strings that are suitable for fingerstyle play rather than the strumming I wanted. I got a Fender acoustic with a 45mm nut that is much easier to fret. It is also the classical guitars that have 3 nylon strings where acoustic guitars have all steel strings.
My advice for strummers is to go with a baritone ukulele over a guitarlele. I doubt that adding the 2 low strings of the guitarlele will make enough of a sound difference to justify stretching your fingers across the wider nut, learning more complicated chords, and learning to strum (or mute) the 2 low strings on a chord by chord basis, as one does with the guitar. Maybe you could do some sound comparisons in a future video.
It seems like the guitarlele is a smaller classical guitar and is best suited to fingerstyle players.
Great to find you this early morning (PT) I find your style very clear so I will be able to learn from your videos! Thank you for being easy-going & straight forward
Glad you mentioned the fret size difference between guitar as far as comfort goes. Do you find the body size to still be more beginner friendly tho? That's what intrigued me about the guitalele. I've played ukulele for years but want to dabble in guitar as I inherited a few from my grandpa. I feel like I was able to get ok at uku because I would sit in bed and just pluck as I went to sleep. The body of the guitar is much larger and me being on the smaller side Regardless of sitting up/laying down, it strains my neck and back being hunched over the body.
How are these compared to the Yamaha gl1? Gl1 seems the most affordable as well for a gift to an amateur uke player?
The nut is wider than a steel string acoustic guitar, but slimmer than a classical guitar nut which the nylon strung guitalele more closely resembles.
Ahhh, that makes sense now. I have a classical guitar as well as a couple of ukuleles and I was trying to imagine how a Guitalele could have a wider nut than that, or why it would. So I guess it would not be wider than that after all. I am already shopping for my next three ukuleles (!) but who knows, there could be a guitalele in my future too, after seeing this!
Now, about that Blackbird uke...! I am going to have to see if you did a video on that, because that is an instrument I am very interested in! I've read a bit about it and now hearing it played, I am even more interested. I know they are expensive, but one can aspire. Thanks for an informative and inspiring video!
I like my Guitalele because I like the feel of a smaller instrument acoustically, But I still practice electric guitar.
hey, Talk to me about that tenor uke, is that a Pineapple? I'd love to own that model
My two tenor 17" guitaleles (Cordoba & Yamaha) sound better than my Cordoba Mini M! I think it's due to the depth of the body, which is thinner on the M...
The 46 mm Cordoba neck is perfect. However, the nut with 38mm between the 2 "E" strings is a bit tight. I replaced it with a 40mm one, which is much better. We've still got 3mm on each side, and that's enough not to get out of the neck. Since the frets are closer together, the neck shouldn't be too wide either...
I have recently been thinking of getting a guitalele. During the pandemic I can get these make and models of Amazon. I realise that the market for guitalele is smaller, but if you still have both instruments I definitely still would like to see the comparison, and maybe buy one of these. I know you are busy with your daily uke project, so I'm not expecting you to jump on it!
Very helpful 👌
I'm fascinated by the guitarlele and enjoy your series. I've seen a number of videos on the subject from other channels such as UkeLikeThePros. I'm still waiting for someone to give a key piece of basic information on how to play one. That piece is this: you need a guitarlele chord chart. Sure, the high 4 strings will look familiar, but it's the only way to figure out what to do with the new strings. It will also show that you have to learn NOT to strum those strings for certain chords. That's a pretty new concept for ukulele players.
Here’s a link for a free guitarlele chord chart. ua-cam.com/video/8HsqwO6tgSg/v-deo.html
The notes and chords are simply a 4th up (if you tune A to a) from a guitar, if you know guitar chords, you know guitalele chords. If you play ukulele, just remember the chord shapes are similar, you can play a G in the exact same way, by ignoring the low A, remember a C on the ukulele is essentially the same as a G on guitar if you ignore the bottom 2 strings, so if you grab the 3rd fret on the low A to get another C and another E on the 2nd fret of the D-string, you have it, you can also just play ukulele chords on the top 4 strings if you don't need the full voicing, you can even just follow guitar chords to do stuff like play the forbidden riff in D-minor instead of A-minor, try to picture what notes make up the chord you are playing, remember that if all else fails, grabbing the same fret on both A strings and moving down 2 frets from your E-string or up 2 from your C-string on your D-string, depending on what is possible will complete the full chord, and the shapes are moveable if you can do barre chords.
Thank you ,your information is very beneficial and helpful Not for myself ,but thinking about my husband who has a harder time with the ukulele because of the narrow nut .
Thank you! Wish you played some melodies on those though :) . I have small hands and as much as I love guitar sound seems like ukes is the way to go for now, perhaps will give a try to some guitarelle as well
(I understand though in terms of copyright it might be tricky)
hi i got a ortega guitarlele can i safely change it with guitar strings
Very informative, thank you Jodie!
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks for the breakdown Jodi!! Hmm, Maybe someday I'll try the guitalele but then again feel like my baritone checks all the boxes I need for a more guitar-like sound. seems like guitalele are for guitar players that want a small guitar....interesting that the nut is so wide on them though, wonder why?
In a nutshell, string spacing. If you look at a standard 1.5" (38mm) nut baritone, you will commonly find 4mm between each edge and the nearest string (4mm each side = 8mm), then ~10mm between each string ( 3 spaces @10mm each = 30mm. 30mm + 8mm = 38mm nut). This large spacing between each string helps with the larger oscillation of nylon strings, as nylon strings are more "stretchy" than steel acoustic strings. If the inter-string spacing isn't wide enough, the strings can collide with each other when you strum or pluck them, resulting is a buzzing sound. When you add two more lower strings (which are even more stretchy), and you keep this same string spacing you would end up adding 10mm between the A and D string, and another 10mm spacing between the A and E string, resulting in a nut width of 58mm! This is if you want to keep the same spacing as a baritone uke. As 58mm is really wide, compromises are made to make this string spacing smaller than a baritone's normal spacing resulting in something smaller than 58mm (48mm, 42mm,...). As this string spacing is now smaller than a baritone uke, an issue you may run into with the smaller string spacing is if you have wide fingertips, you can end up touching adjacent strings when you fret a string resulting in buzzing.
I recently went from a Baritone to a classical guitar. I started with a 48mm crossover neck width as 52mm seemed much too wide, and I ended up with the buzzing issue due to large fingertips. (Those with skinny fingers may not experience this issue.) I then got a standard classical guitar with 52mm nut and had no issues with buzzing but did have to get used to a wider neck. So it is important to look at the inter-string spacing when purchasing a stringed instrument to see if it will work for you. This is why many recommend playing an instrument before buying it. Don't just rely on someone else's review, as their hand, finger, arm, and body size might work well with the instrument, where yours won't. Sorry for the long response, but you raised a very important point that is often overlooked by reviewers and those watching the reviews and I thought I would address it based on what I have found trying and buying multiple instruments in the hopes of saving others needless returns.
Great and informative. I keep one in the vehicle while traveling.
Your videos are always so informative. I think I'm going to stick with my baritone uke, possibly the world's most perfect instrument.
Thank you for your informative video. I wanted to mention though, that the Yamaha classical guitar does have a wider nut (52mm) than the Yamaha guitalele (48mm). Classical guitars have much wider nuts than steel string guitars, so could it be that guitaleles are more like classical guitars in that respect?
So, except for the tuning, how are they different than a kid's size or a 1/2 size guitar?
Thank you for making this video! It is very well organized and informative. The only bad part is that it makes me want to buy a guitalele! I like how you were very clear about the different tuning options and listed the string names on the screen. Many videos on the topic just say “A to A,” or “E to E,” which leaves the other four strings unidentified. I also especially like that you have both a low G ukulele and an acoustic guitar for comparison. Many videos make that comparison verbally, but don’t illustrate with a comparison to the actual instrument. I also appreciate the time you took to explain about the wider nuts on guitaleles. A lot of videos don’t mention this, and it can be an important factor for people with smaller hands. I am curious how the neck size and shape (chunky vs. slim) affects the playability and if that factor makes the wider nuts more tolerable. I have found that the neck shape and size make a big difference in playability and comfort for me on regular ukuleles, so I suspect it would on these too. KoAloha makes an Opio guitalele, and I bet it would be more comfortable, even with the wide nut, since they use a slimmer neck. Obviously the only answer is that one of us needs to buy an Opio guitalele to test the theory, LOL! I was really happy to see this video appear in my notifications. I’ve been having a challenging week, and it cheered me up to watch this :)
Thanks so much for your kind words. I’m so glad you found this helpful! How about if you buy the Opio Guitalele and gift it to me?? 😂 You are right. With their neck profiles, I bet it would be a lot easier to play...
@@girlmeetsuke2980 Haha, I wish I could be that generous!
If you're still online, how's the Caramel guitalele holding up after several years?
To be honest, I don’t play it much. However, I haven’t had any issues with it. Wish I could be more helpful!
Hi Jodi! You really need to adjust the sound volume on post-production to make it at least -6 or -3db.... It's too quiet
Sorry about that!
so can I tune A and D like a guitar and GCEA like a uke?
Great video, but saying that a guitalele has wider nut than the vast majority of acoustic guitars is a bit of a oversimplification. Most nylon-string guitars have a much wider nut, a guitalele also has much more in common with a nylon string guitar than a steel-string guitar (build and everyhing). Great video otherwise 🙂
Thank you. That is why I tried to specify acoustic guitars rather than classical guitars. Maybe I should have made that more clear, because you’re right- classical guitars do have a wide nut.
You are so cute