Tips on playing guitalele

robinboyd

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Hi guys. I've just received a new (well, second-hand) guitalele in the mail, and I have no idea how to play it. I'm really enjoying messing around with it and adding extra notes to uke chords played on the top 4 strings, though. I've noticed that the strings are closer together than on a uke, which makes it harder to finger pick. Should I use a pick? I have some lying around that I decided I didn't like using on ukes.

I'll post a short video review/NUD when I have got used to it a bit.
 
According to what folks tell me on here and Acoustic Guitar Forum the best way to fingerpick is with a thumb pick. Then just play it as a standard guiitar. If playing with other intruments, then you have to transpost.
 
While I have no guitalele, my idea is that it could be played as a transposing instrument to classical guitar music. I'd like that because my hands are not big enough really for serious classical guitar playing. But what you told the string spacing is not enough. And this is only if you can play classical guitar music already.

Anyways it would not be so good if you wanted to play with others. The ultimate thing is not to transpose. Of course as an uke player you can strum, if it is hard to fingerpick. Anyways you will have to learn new chords, because a 6 string instrument needs them. One can't just use the top 4 strings and be happy with that or even possible.
 
While I have no guitalele, my idea is that it could be played as a transposing instrument to classical guitar music. I'd like that because my hands are not big enough really for serious classical guitar playing. But what you told the string spacing is not enough. And this is only if you can play classical guitar music already.

Anyways it would not be so good if you wanted to play with others. The ultimate thing is not to transpose. Of course as an uke player you can strum, if it is hard to fingerpick. Anyways you will have to learn new chords, because a 6 string instrument needs them. One can't just use the top 4 strings and be happy with that or even possible.

Yes, I'm not a guitar player, so I need to learn new chords that incorporate the top 2 strings. It's going to take a while, but I'm enjoying it so far.
 
Thanks. That should get me going. Then it's just a matter of working out chords (I'm going to go with a combination of learning guitar chords and transposing them, and working out chords for myself). Having 2 extra strings means there are so many different combinations! It's really overwhelming.
 
Sorry to bother you guys with stupid questions, but I've been noticing that a lot of guitar chords don't seem to use all of the strings. For instance, I just looked up the guitar Am chord , and the most common result is X02210, so it is essentially a Dm chord on the uke, except with one extra string. I'm used to strumming all 4 strings on the uke, but is this not usually done on 6 stringed instruments?
 
There are so many genres you can access with your guitarlele. You do not have to just play classical guitar music. You can play a lot of genres.
Just revisit some easy tunes with C F G chords to get going on the chords. Then follow a similar learning route to what you did on the ukulele, but with six strings. Revisit the tunes you know and learn the rest of the chords on six strings.
To access the guitar music, make a simple transposing table by writing the chromatic C scale on one line and the Chromatic G scale underneath it. The guitarlele notes and chords will be on the C line and the transposed guitar notes and chords will be on the G line. Or vice versa. You can use this simple table to find the chord shapes in a guitar chord book, and navigate using guitar material.
Once you get to a point where you feel comfortable with the two extra strings, you have a lot of choice in directions you can take.
Classical, Jazz, Country, Blues, Chet Atkins/Tommy Emanuel and Co, George Young and Co, Angus Young and Co, Slim Dusty, Kieth Urban, Stuie French, Nick Cave, Daniel Johns, John Butler, Alex Lahey and many many more. A way to navigate the maze of opportunities is to pick a guitar hero name and follow them for a while, listening, looking up the TAB and videos, learning about how they play.
Also there are actually magazines you can probably easily find at your library or newsagent like "Australian Guitar". They have a teaching section for several genres and information about guitars in Australia. Plus a lot of glossy stuff.

So if you accompany guitars with your guitalele tuned ADGCEA and they play in the key of G using standard G scale chords, then you should play all standard C scale notes on guitalele. There, Guitar, Key of D is your, Guitalele Key of G. There Key of C is your Key of F and so on.

Hope I got that right.
 
The guitar G chord and guitarlele C chord are exactly the same shape on the same frets.
The guitar D chord and guitarlele G chord are exactly the same shape on the same frets
The guitar A chord and guitarlele D chord are exactly the same shape on the same frets

Writing the chromatic scales down the page, with #s, I have put some **** next to the examples:

C G ******
C# G#
D A *****
D# A#
E B
F C
F# C#
G D *****
G# D#
A E
A# F
B F#
C G

Overall if you get stuck or confused, just look at the open C/G string, its not hard to remember. It is G on a guitar and C on a Guitarlele, you set it up every time you tune. So the transposing interval is always C-G or G-C depending on which way you are going. One way is a fourth interval and the other is a fifth interval, I find it easier to just think about C and G, other may like to use fourth or fifth.

Hi Bill,

Thanks, but that is the point that I'm starting from. I should have made clear that I can play the uke, but I have never played the guitar. I'm quite happy with the theory of transposing chords, etc., but its the practicalities of playing them that are eluding me so far.
 
Sorry to bother you guys with stupid questions, but I've been noticing that a lot of guitar chords don't seem to use all of the strings. For instance, I just looked up the guitar Am chord , and the most common result is X02210, so it is essentially a Dm chord on the uke, except with one extra string. I'm used to strumming all 4 strings on the uke, but is this not usually done on 6 stringed instruments?

Not a stupid question at all!

Yes, guitarists often leave out strings, in fact it's one of the great secrets of the trade... Power chords (5ths) are often only played on three strings. Keith Richards plays ona guitar with just 5 strings on it (but 6 tuners...).

But no, you can play chords on all 6 strings - in the above case, the X is in fact the same E note as on the first string, so Am can be played as 002210. A real D chord in first position should be 200232, although that's the one where I see most guitarists just skipping the 6th string (because you have to use your thumb there).
 
Not a stupid question at all!

Yes, guitarists often leave out strings, in fact it's one of the great secrets of the trade... Power chords (5ths) are often only played on three strings. Keith Richards plays ona guitar with just 5 strings on it (but 6 tuners...).

But no, you can play chords on all 6 strings - in the above case, the X is in fact the same E note as on the first string, so Am can be played as 002210. A real D chord in first position should be 200232, although that's the one where I see most guitarists just skipping the 6th string (because you have to use your thumb there).

Thanks. That's handy to know.

I also just remembered that I have a guitar-playing friend that lives nearby, so I'll have a chat to him too.
 
Not a stupid question at all!

Yes, guitarists often leave out strings, in fact it's one of the great secrets of the trade... Power chords (5ths) are often only played on three strings. Keith Richards plays ona guitar with just 5 strings on it (but 6 tuners...).

But no, you can play chords on all 6 strings - in the above case, the X is in fact the same E note as on the first string, so Am can be played as 002210. A real D chord in first position should be 200232, although that's the one where I see most guitarists just skipping the 6th string (because you have to use your thumb there).

With guitar we actually prefer mute the 6th string with thumb when strumming so the preferred way to finger is the X00232. Often we like to leave the root on bottom, but in case of this chord, the G in guitalele muting the fifth string is not really possible and also it brings some depth to the the chord with the 5th note :)
 
Thank you, Bill. It is a lot clearer now. Since September 2017 I went from guitar to playing baritone ukulele tuned DGBE. Then added tenor ukulele tuned GCEA in May and July 30 I received my guitalele tuned ADGCEA. One can easily get confused.
 
A quick and simple way to learn is to just play guitar tabs. Notes won't be the same but the melody will be. Obviously it's not an ideal way but to get you started it's fine. That is what I plan on doing, just using the tab from my flamenco guitar books to get a feel for playing a six stringed instrument before I decide to delve deeper into it. My last teacher encouraged to explore the guitalele (guitelele?) so I will but I'm not 100% sold on it being a good idea. Cheap enough to try though.

John
 
I dont have a guilele, but I have a guitar. I am no serious players, but for what it is worth:

It it my impression that thumb picks are mostly for steel strings. When fingerpicking, one would usually assign the thumb to the base stuff, played on the the three deepest strings, and the index and following two fingers are assigned one of the higher strings each.

One of the most inteteresting new possibilities with a guitar that you don't have with an ukulele in my view, is that you can add a bass line to the music. But this depends on what you want to play.
If you want to play melodies, you off course also have more notes for that.
I like to use guitar for accomplement singing. I will sometimes combine picking the single bass note, or a progression of bass notes, with my thumb and strumming the rest of the notes in the chord with my index. Sometimes do a very simple travis picking. I am not so serious.

If you play melodies only by yourself with no singing, I see the advantage of transposing the melody so you can use guitar tabs made for EADGBe tuning without rewriting it. But for most other purposes I think that it is best to learn the chords you really want to play rather than something that sound easier but is probably not. Many songs will need transposing anyway, but not to the easiest key to play. More to the key that fits your voice.
 
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I dont have a guilele, but I have a guitar. I am no serious players, but for what it is worth:

It it my impression that thumb picks are mostly for steel strings. When fingerpicking, one would usually assign the thumb to the base stuff, played on the the three deepest strings, and the index and following two fingers are assigned one of the higher strings each.

One of the most inteteresting new possibilities with a guitar that you don't have with an ukulele in my view, is that you can add a bass line to the music. But this depends on what you want to play.
If you want to play melodies, you off course also have more notes for that.
I like to use guitar for accomplement singing. I will sometimes combine picking the single bass note, or a progression of bass notes, with my thumb and strumming the rest of the notes in the chord with my index. Sometimes do a very simple travis picking. I am not so serious.

If you play melodies only by yourself with no singing, I see the advantage of transposing the melody so you can use guitar tabs made for EADGBe tuning without rewriting it. But for most other purposes I think that it is best to learn the chords you really want to play rather than something that sound easier but is probably not. Many songs will need transposing anyway, but not to the easiest key to play. More to the key that fits your voice.

Thanks :) :)
 
check out Jims guitalele songbook through google, he has guitar, uke, bari uke, and mando all with the chord fingerings too
 
check out Jims guitalele songbook through google, he has guitar, uke, bari uke, and mando all with the chord fingerings too

Thank you. I'm downloading it as we speak.

Edit: Oh my, that thing's huge!
 
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