Too scared to post this in the main Ukulele subforum

I started on guitar but lost the training wheels.

When I was young the only ukes were in toy stores. My first uke had to be found at the salvoes store. Today in the same music stores the ukes take up half a wall and the entry level mahalos are stacked waist high and fly out the door as quickly as they bring them in.

I play both, and love them both. Crap at both too.

They're different instruments and there is no comparison. I find there are some songs I prefer to play on one or the other, and quite often that's more down to which chords I can play on which instrument. Sometimes it just sounds better on one or the other.

Hoping to get a mandolin, bass and banjo at some point too.

Sabantien said:

I play both, and love them both. Crap at both too.

They're different instruments and there is no comparison. I find there are some songs I prefer to play on one or the other, and quite often that's more down to which chords I can play on which instrument. Sometimes it just sounds better on one or the other.

Hoping to get a mandolin, bass and banjo at some point too.

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Play all instruments you can, that's what's great about music. You can make it with many instruments. Good for you, play them all!

Glad to see this post. My new Baby Martin arrived today. I own a OscarSchmidt and a Lanikai uke both concerts. And I think I will be the same way in that some songs just sound better playing the ukulele (which I love love love) and others better on the guitar. Yes I used to play guitar a lot and do know a lot of chords...hope my memory won't fail me when I start going back and forth!!

I am not able to see the attachment. What is it?

UkeTX said:

I am not able to see the attachment. What is it?

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What attachment?

RichM said:

All instruments have their strengths and limitations. None are better or worse than others. I've played guitar for 30+ years, but these days I am more likely to pick up a ukulele for casual play; I am drawn to its portable size and simplicity. I also play mandolin and five-string banjo, and each of those instruments has its benefits and challenges, too.

I've never understood this need to "apologize" for liking or playing a certain instrument. Play what you like, like what you play. Hum into a kazoo if need be. Music is awesome.

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Copy all of that with a hearty. Hear! Hear! Music is music. Play what makes you happy. I don't understand anyone that puts down any musical instrument. I've heard about these elitists but in some 40 years of playing and singing I have met very few, happily.

I started out playing guitar and played on and off over the years. Then a few years ago I started playing the ukulele. It opened me up even more musically. The guitar even made more sense to me as well. I even started writing and singing my own songs. It doesn't matter which one I play, the theory is still the same. I can play the uke all day long, however. The nylon strings are so much easier on my fingers. I like guitar too and just recently bought a new tenor guitar but, they are both great. So, the point I am trying to make is the same as most of us here in that it doesn't matter they both sound wonderful and different. I've always wanted to try a dulcimer. Maybe that will be next.

My next instrument:

http://www.residentadvisor.net/review-view.aspx?id=10993

I bought my first guitar circa 1960. I added a mandolin to my arsenal in the mid-sixties and a banjo 37 years ago. I have many instruments now and I'd be a much better guitarist if I'd stuck to guitar only, but, as my wife says, "The concept of enough just hasn't gotten through to Jim."
Until a few years back, I considered the ukulele a toy or, at best, a starter guitar. One night I was at a party and a fellow had a resophonic ukulele that looked and sounded kinda neat. He asked me if I'd like to try it out. I said, "Sure." I figure he meant for a tune or two, but he ended up playing guitar for the rest of the night and a few weeks later I had my first ukulele.
I use the uke and the guitar for different songs. I prefer to leave the three or four chord folk songs for guitar or banjo. I like old standards like Somebody Stole My Gal or Walkin' My Baby Back Home or Sweet Georgia Brown on the ukulele. The uke seems really suited to chord melody, but single string melodies work too. I really like the banjolele for jug band stuff. I still play the guitar more than the uke, but not a lot. To family gatherings, I usually take a uke, 'cause everyone has a guitar or mandolin.

If you feel up to it at some point, a post with some pics and explanation of I wouldn't go too-too cheap (Oscar Schmidt) on an 8-string, given that for If you want a really dead-simple demonstration of basic uke chords, here's a has its own thread in SA's "Musicians' Lounge" subforum on the main page.




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Property Management Geelong

I suppose the Ukulele versus Guitar discussion has legs that just won't quit. So, here is my 2¢ worth. I used to play a little guitar. I mean, it both ways, I only played a little, and when I played, I played a little guitar. It was a Little Martin, that's actually the model name. Anyway, I never felt close to the Guitar, never quite one with it. I always felt that I was standing or sitting behind a Guitar, and that I was manipulating or operating it. It never seemed like part of me. But, with the Ukulele, from the very first I've felt an intimacy with the instrument. I think it has something to do with physical size. I notice a more distant feeling when playing the Baritone Ukulele. I keep thinking about the Spanish word for "playing" an instrument, "tocar" which literally means "to touch." When I'm really doing well on the Ukulele, it feels like I'm merely touching it, and it's jumping to respond. I never got that feeling with the Guitar. And, I suppose it's entirely personal. Listening to good Guitarists causes me to believe that they are fully engaged with their instruments, and that for them, the size isn't a limiting factor.

I think you nailed it and absolutely agree! Some of my ukes feel like they are happy to be held and snuggle right up. They are so accessible.

Yet I do have a Tacoma PM-20 that just seems to love to be tucked into my leg and side and when I'm finally wrapped around it just so, is so responsive.

I used to have horses, it's like having a little quarter horse or Arabian, or a big Percheron or Clydesdale. I had friends who had drafters and it's like riding a barrel. I like quick agile little horses, but it's kinda cool being way up high on a big broad back too, with that big high stepping action.

VegasGeorge said:

I suppose the Ukulele versus Guitar discussion has legs that just won't quit. So, here is my 2¢ worth. I used to play a little guitar. I mean, it both ways, I only played a little, and when I played, I played a little guitar. It was a Little Martin, that's actually the model name. Anyway, I never felt close to the Guitar, never quite one with it. I always felt that I was standing or sitting behind a Guitar, and that I was manipulating or operating it. It never seemed like part of me. But, with the Ukulele, from the very first I've felt an intimacy with the instrument. I think it has something to do with physical size. I notice a more distant feeling when playing the Baritone Ukulele. I keep thinking about the Spanish word for "playing" an instrument, "tocar" which literally means "to touch." When I'm really doing well on the Ukulele, it feels like I'm merely touching it, and it's jumping to respond. I never got that feeling with the Guitar. And, I suppose it's entirely personal. Listening to good Guitarists causes me to believe that they are fully engaged with their instruments, and that for them, the size isn't a limiting factor.

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Went through the same epiphany, but it was first with the mandolin. It was the 4-versus-six string thing (yeah, mando are 8-string, but a 4-doubled). That led me to tenor guitar and tenor banjo, and then to the ukulele. Tried all sizes/types of ukulele and seem to center mainly on tenors and the concert banjolele.

What is noticeable is that, despite the instrument differences and inferred "centrics" for the various instruments, the genres which I favor haven't changed and the instruments are played in a manner fitting those genres than any "traditional" way. I play the tenor ukuleles and banjolele mainly flatpick, the same as I do the other stringed stuff. The instruments respond well that way.

I'm on a few other instrument forums, some are musically broad-minded and a couple are instrument-biased almost to the point of bigotry (which is sad). It's good to be around folk who aren't afraid to see a musical bigger-picture and how it all interrelates. There's a lot of knowledge out there that transcends all stringed stuff.

VegasGeorge said:

When I'm really doing well on the Ukulele, it feels like I'm merely touching it, and it's jumping to respond. I never got that feeling with the Guitar. And, I suppose it's entirely personal. Listening to good Guitarists causes me to believe that they are fully engaged with their instruments, and that for them, the size isn't a limiting factor.

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I think the "oneness with the instrument" thing is not really true - what we have is "oneness with the music". When you are really feeling the music, the instrument gets out of the way, regardless of what it is. I have had that feeling with a few different instruments, including the guitar.

armchair_spaceman said:

Yeah a few things resonating here (pardon the pun). I've had a couple of cracks at guitar over the last 20-30 years (I'm early 50's) and for whatever reason couldn't get brain and hands into it. Then one of my kids started with guitar, then the other one, I still didn't get it but I wanted in somehow. Started with Uke which I really enjoy but sometime last year I started to want something richer, like the OP I guess...started thinking about baritone ukes, tenor guitars etc. I picked up my boy's classical guitar one day and started noodling around just making uke shapes, then learned some guitar chords and some simple progressions and songs that I liked...it started to come much easier because Uke had broken the hoodoo. I bought a big old dreadnought from a friend of a friend and I'm finding my way around that...it's a lot less forgiving than my ukes but I'm enjoy the early learning...and my uke playing is coming along faster and I'm enjoying it more because my hands are getting stronger and stretching more from guitar. So I for me they complement each other, it's all good.

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My path from uke to guitar is very similar to yours. Indeed, my uke playing has only benefited from my practice time on the more rigorous guitar. And vice versa: I found that my uke callouses and muscle-memory familiarity with barre chords and chord shapes has made my recent foray into the 6-string world seem doable now, versus the frustrations I felt with guitar before my several years of tenor uke playing.

My fave axe so far is my wife's 3/4-size classical Yamaha guitar but I also enjoy twanging my son's Telecaster. I'm looking at Ibanez semi-hollowbody electrics for myself now, particularly Ibanez's smaller-body AM series, e.g., AM93, AM73b. Also admire the Taylor GS Minis. I doubt I'll ever be as good on guitar as I am on uke (not that I'm all that "good" on it), but I just love the full, rich sound you can get from six strings.

stevepetergal said:

Guitar dominated world? I get it, but....
In some musical spheres, we are said to live in a piano-dominated world. But, there would be no bands, orchestras, quartets, ensembles,.. if everybody played only the piano.

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Technically, it's actually the synthesizer and computer music software that are dominating the world. The vast majority of music produced nowadays is electronic in one way or another, even when the lead plays an acoustic or electric instrument.

Retuning or restringing any axe can make it a new instrument. So many new hand positions and techniques to learn! So many new patterns and combinations to explore! As a guitarist, I'm used to linear tuning, with fat strings on the bottom and thin strings on top. I've adapted to the 'uke's re-entrant tuning. As a fingerpicker, my new Kala 6-string tenor 'uke twisted my mind around -- tuned G4, C4-C3, E4, A4-A3, its lowest string is on top and mostly masks its highest string unless one flips the course and picks near the bridge. I'm learning to pick bass lines with my freshly-calloused index finger. It's just another 'uke, sure -- but the stringing makes it a rather different experience.

I like string tricks. A simple one: tune a guitar in straight fourths to 'rationalize' the fretboard. Chords will be tougher but melodies may be easier. (I did this with a soprano uke. Interesting and challenging.) Almost as easy (except for the calculations): restring a guitar so it's tuned in straight fifths like a big mandolin. Chords will be simpler, and different, and the tonal range with expand. And of course open and modal tunings are there to explore.

A little more work: redo a 12-string guitar which now has the bottom two and top two courses doubled in unison, and the middle two doubled in octaves, so they're ALL in octaves! That will make the bass brighter and lighter and the treble richer and darker. Similarly with a mandolin: set some or all the courses in octaves. It'll play differently depending on whether the high or low string in each course is on top or bottom. Yes, another easy experiment! And for strange, tune the strings in some or all courses to seconds or minor thirds or fourths. I sometimes tune a 12-string guitar ED, AG, D, G, B, ED. Very jangly!

I'm just about to restring a short-neck (21-inch scale) 12-string for fifths-tuning. This is like an audition to see if I want to spend a non-trivial amount of cash on a cittern. A cittern would cost something like US$1000 while the strings will be about US$10. I think I can afford that.

The simplest and cheapest 'uke tricks besides slacking the A to G are 1) go low-G (play more like a guitar), 2) take all strings up a whole tone from G, C, E, A to A, D, F#, B (the brighter 'English' tuning), and 3) the all-fourths I mentioned above, to G, C, F, A# (using the same chord forms as the bottom four guitar strings). Or get tricky: set an 'uke in DESCENDING re-entrant tuning: G4, C4, E3, A3. That will sure mess with your expectations!

Are any instruments or tunings 'better' than others? That depends on how well they're played, right?