Guitalele - Help request to Musicians. (1 Viewer)

[sciac2001]

I am the least musical person imaginable. However, the other day I came across a lovely music shop in an old building in Valladolid and came away with a "Guitalele", which is a ukulele sized instrument but with 6 strings.
I will try and learn it as we travel but first I need to learn how to tune it. I understand that the G,C,E and A notes are tuned like a Uke and I think I can find out how to do this BUT, how do I tune the A and D strings? I have access to piano sounds on my ipad so a guide v.v. the piano would be much appreciated.

 

[Janine]

You can tune it the same as a guitar EADGBE or have a look on Google for tuning it as a ukulele but with octave different on two of the strings.

If you are a complete musical novice, a baritone uke is easier. Just the top four strings of a guitar but a lot smaller and much easier to play

 

[Dogeared]

Hope your right about baritone, just bought one.
again a complete novice to music.

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[Janine]

Hope your right about baritone, just bought one.
again a complete novice to music.

I absolutely love mine! Get yourself to a uke club - preferably one that meets in a pub - and have fun learning

 

[Solwaybuggier]

Ideal source of info on all things ukulele-related is https://www.gotaukulele.com/

 

[sciac2001]

Thanks all, but I chose a lovely sounding guitalele over a uke and want to persevere with that.
Will try and tune it to a guitar tone but I understand that it only resembles a guitar from the 5th fret onwards. Might this be a problem?

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[Janine]

Thanks all, but I chose a lovely sounding guitalele over a uke and want to persevere with that.
Will try and tune it to a guitar tone but I understand that it only resembles a guitar from the 5th fret onwards. Might this be a problem?

It's a bit of a mongrel- neither one thing or the other!

Some more info here :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitalele

You can tune it however you want - even mandolin tuning - you then have to find the chord charts that match.

 

[xgx]

Google Cordoba Guilele ...tuning on youtube


and there's a pdf
https://www.cordobaguitars.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/cordoba-GP100-Booklet_F.pdf
...

 

[Deleted member 29692]

Thanks all, but I chose a lovely sounding guitalele over a uke and want to persevere with that.
Will try and tune it to a guitar tone but I understand that it only resembles a guitar from the 5th fret onwards. Might this be a problem?

For the purposes of tuning it get yourself a tuner. You can buy a clip on one if you want but I just use an app on my phone. I check it against something else occasionally and it's 100% accurate.

The actual tuning, if the video above is right, is 5 steps down from standard guitar. The start of the video explains what that means quite well. You could play a song on it exactly as you would play it on a guitar, using the same chords, and it would be recognisable but would be higher pitched than if it was played the same way on a guitar so wouldn't sound quite right. If you wanted to play along with someone else on a guitar you'd be playing completely different chords to them. The same applies if the other person is playing a uke. You might be able to get it to standard guitar tuning but I doubt it, 5 steps is a long way.

As to learning how to play it @Janine is right, it's not one thing or the other especially with that tuning. If you're a complete novice I'd suggest either buying a uke or buying a guitar, at least learn the basics then come back to the Guilele.

If you don't want to do that either find someone who can teach you to play that instrument specifically or look on Youtube for lessons.

Ultimately though you're going to need to have at least a passing familiarity with both guitar and uke in order to make the most of the Guilele.

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[xgx]

Standard Guitar tuning is possible but the strings would need changing, with the original strings the Low E would be a bit slack

There's loads of info out there on both th'interweb and U-tube

have fun with it

 

[Deleted member 29692]

Standard Guitar tuning is possible but the strings would need changing, with the original strings the Low E would be a bit slack

There's loads of info out there on both th'interweb and U-tube

Kind of pointless though. You may as well just buy a guitar.

 

[Janine]

Just to elaborate on what @NickNic said - if someone plays a C chord on a guitar, Ukulele, guitalele or mandolin, they will all sound the same but the chord shape will be different.

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[Deleted member 29692]

And to elaborate more and add some confusion

If you play a C chord shape on a standard tuned guitar it will be a C chord. Play the same shape in the same place on a Guilele tuned like that and it will be an F chord (I think )

You could also just play the Guilele as a uke and ignore the top two strings but again that would be pretty pointless.

 

[Janine]

I'm not sure that there is really any resemblance to a uke except for the size.

 

[Deleted member 29692]

I'm not sure that there is really any resemblance to a uke except for the size.

In that <5 tuning in the video the bottom 4 strings are tuned GCEA.

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