Please convince me against picking up classical guitar at this stage

If you can play the ukulele you are actually technically two thirds of the way to playing the guitar. A ukulele is tuned the same as a guitar in that it is in 4 ths and it starts at the equivalent of the 6th fret on guitar. The fifth fret being GCEA on the guit box.....the chord shapes are the same except on the git box you add the two bass strings as well. So a full chord would like the ukulele chord + 2 . There is no huge mystery once you can get your head round the two bass strings and that you are starting lower down the scale....in fact just thing of it as a low tuned uke with extra bassy strings. In actual fact ...SMH ...DGBE the open strings higher up are exactly the same as baritone ukulele tuning......and you have the EA bass strings too.....If you go classical or Spanish with nylon strings then that at least reduces the pain of developing steel string callouses.Which you probably will on the round wounds anyway...


A C chord on the uke is this 0003 or the full fat version is 5433......the same shape on the guitar at the third fret is G except it would be 320003..and you can play it as XX5433 or 335433..same shapes...


Just to square the circle.If you try a guilele you will find that C is ...320003...and etc.


Thing is it's up to you, your itch. Do you scratch or leave it alone......?
 
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No good. I just took the plunge at age 64 (months from 65.) Someone wanted me to review a new Cordoba guitar for beginners and I agreed and took the plunge.

The old Zen proverb: When the student is ready, the teacher appears" seems to hold true for me. I struck out finding teachers and suddenly ran across a guy in our largest city, about 35 minutes from my house. Unfortunately he only teaches at night, but he's so AMAZING a teacher, it's worth it. He's also a luthier and runs the local classical guitar society.

I'm REALLY enjoying it. It's vastly different than the ukulele except that I always loved fingerstyle. He's a bug for good hand position and how to move on the fretboard with maximum efficiency. The uke doesn't require such rigor because you aren't stretching over 2 inches of board.

The Cordoba Protege is fairly nice, has a truss rod which even my old Yamaha didn't have and it's not going to break the bank. One probably should restring it. It comes with Savarez, but I prefer D'Addarios.

I can't dissuade you. Because I'm enjoying it myself. Just find a good teacher. I was blessed. My guy is amazing.
 
I forgot to add something important.

You need to read music to truly play classical guitar. Frankly, reading music is good for any instrument, but really good teacher will want you to read music, not tabs.

I'm very lucky in that I've read music since I was 8 years old and I'm fluent in sightreading both clefs. (Piano player.) It's a skill that I'm sorry to say is being dropped by our government schools. Like languages, it's best learned young, but it can be learned. If you do not read music, find a tutorial that will get you at ease with it. This opens a world of riches to you.
 
I played guitar for years before playing ukulele. The conversion from guitar to ukulele was easy, but I think going from ukulele to guitar is a lot harder.

As far as instrumental solos and fingerpicking, I do both on guitar and ukulele. I have reached a much higher level of proficiency on ukulele than I ever did on guitar. Classical guitar requires more discipline and time than I was ever willing to give to it.
 
Time is certainly the problem. I have a cordoba mini that calls out to me sometimes but I know it's going to need serious time. I also have piano, voice and strings background and I was very proficient sight reading 5 or so different clefs in college. Attaching notes to guitar frets and strings is the effort part (esp since I'm used to seeing notes at ukulele pitch), and of course my whimsical nature regarding instruments I want to learn.
 
Picking up classical guitar was the best things I've done for my playing. I started last year and finished this book https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Guitar-inline-Leonard-Method/dp/0634093290 , which is an excellent book to get you up and running on classical guitar. I supplemented the book with classical guitar courses on www.udemy.com .


Classical guitar developed finger independence on both hands, taught me to sight read, and gave me the technical skill to play other types of music using finger style.

I took up Jazz guitar and the classical guitar techniques helped with making chords and finger style Jazz.

I've noticed that I can play blues guitar, rock guitar, or finger style guitar much easier. These would be much more difficult without learning classical guitar.

Not to mention that ukulele is much easier now.

Classical guitar can be a fun instrument and not at all stuffy. I have fun with and it's just one of the guitar styles that I'm learning.
 
Absolutely agree with you that guitar-uke is easy, uke-guitar is NOT. But guitar is a totally different animal. I love the sound of those bass strings. You really do accompany yourself, the way you do with piano. I do love the uke, but guitar is well worth learning and it's added so much to my life. But challenging? Oh my. I think it's almost as bad as a violin. No one tells you this. But there is so much to learn in subtle, tiny things. Hand position across the strings, your FINGERNAILS (my teacher files my nails if they aren't angled correctly), the left hand--how to move around the fretboard. Fingering both hands, important. And how to fool the ear--holding one note to keep a sustain going, even if it's a different note to give the ear something to listen to as you move to new notes on the fretboard (as my instructor says, "Smoke and mirrors.")

The uke is great but the addition of those deep notes brings such a dimension to music.
 
Classical guitar has a steep learning curve in the beginning because of demands for precision in fingering unlike any other guitar style or uke discipline. Also you really need to learn to read standard notation.
It takes a while but if youre persistent, the reading ability comes eventually (like typing /instant reaction) but it comes w persistence and patience.
 
I started at aged 12 to play guitar - it was what is now called classical but then it was simply affordable. It was for playing chords and singing - those days it was Buddy Holly etc., and we knew no better. Eventually I graduated to a dreadnought and steel strings. I still keep a couple of classical guitars around - never got to play classical music but as a parlor guitar for singalongs they are terrific. I now play mostly ukulele (and banjo) and love its size, portability and happy sound. For we strummers the nylon strung guitar is a joy.

A note of caution - there variety of neck shapes/profiles out there mean that you have to choose carefully.

In the for what it's worth arena - I play a lot in South America with friends and they all strum classical guitars.
 
It is interesting how many people who commented on this thread when it first came out are no where to be seen now. I wonder if they just got tired of posting but are still here, or if they moved on? Anyway, I don't want to play classical guitar. I tried it for a month before I discovered the ukulele, and I didn't think it was fun. However, over the last several years I have become interested in bluegrass and I have been thinking about taking up the guitar so that I can play guitar with bluegrass players. Now before anyone posts links to bluegrass books for ukulele, that's fine if you are entertaining yourself, but when it comes to actually playing bluegrass with other bluegrass players, there isn't really a ukulele part. So my wife has a guitar in the basement that no one has played for years, except for my brief classical guitar attempt, and I'm trying to decide if it is worth the time that it would take out of my ukulele playing to learn to play it.
 
I still think that four strings are more than enough, so I won't be trying to play any guitars any time soon. ;)

(If I really wanted to have a ginormous uke, I'd maybe get a tenor guitar. :) )

How much do you want to play bluegrass, I reckon that will be the deciding factor. :cool:
 
I still think that four strings are more than enough, so I won't be trying to play any guitars any time soon. ;)

(If I really wanted to have a ginormous uke, I'd maybe get a tenor guitar. :) )

How much do you want to play bluegrass, I reckon that will be the deciding factor. :cool:

I have a lot of things going on in my life right now, and I don't want to abandon my ukulele playing for playing bluegrass, so you are right, that is the deciding factor. There is a lot of bluegrass and bluegrass players around here though, and not so much for ukulele players. I don't really like playing by myself all the time. So that is probably what is the draw with bluegrass. But I don't know if I want to put the effort into it or not.
 
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