Guitaleles are small travel sized guitars. They are a great choice if you look for an easy portable instrument with low weight and minimal size.
Usually the most common choice for a small travel stringed instrument is a Ukulele. However if you are already playing guitar or prefer to use a more versatile instrument you could go with a Guitarlele instead.
Yamaha GL1
The Yamaha GL1 is a low budget Guitarlele with a decent quality. In my opinion it is totally worth the 90$ price.
It has a fairly good sound for the size and can even cope with bigger instruments in a jamsession if you pull melodies from the higher strings.
Tuning
One thing to notice is that guitarleles usually have a differend tuning. They are tuned to A instead of E because the tension of the strings would be too low and wobbly if you tune it to E for most of the stringtypes. (there is one alternative below)
Guitarlele tuning from lowest to highest sounding string: ADGCEA
The A tuning sounds also very nice and the chord-shapes are nearly the same. But this is only true for shapes and techniques.
One important thing to know is that the chords have different sounds on a guitalele.
Chords and notes
A Guitalele is basically a Guitar neck cut down to the fifth fret so it has differend chordshapes.
Here is an example:
The D chord has a differend shape on the guitarlele, if you want to play a D Chord you actually need to play an A-Chord.
Those fret stickers can be found on the internet, not everybody wants to have them on their guitar but even as a picture they can help you to translate chords if you need to.
If the correct chords are not to important to you, you can simply play around with the chord shapes that
you are familiar with and have some fun on the go. The songs you play will be still recognizable, they just have a different key.
Tuning to E instead of A
The standard strings and most of other types will be to wobbly if you tune them to E.
However I found one set of strings that actually works in E tuning: Pepe romero guilele strings.
For the size they have a pretty high tension, so high that you would rather not tune them to A.
Beginner tool
Even if you are a beginner the guitalele is a great investment because you can practice everywhere you like without taking a bulky fullsize guitar.
It also makes practicing more accessable.
Just place it on your couch and you will automatically grab it from time to time and try around, whereas on a full size guitar you might be hesitating because you need a propper sitting position and it is way louder than a guitalele.
In my opinion, the Yamaha GL1 Guitalele is a must have for every musician – pro or rookie.
Weight + Size
830g / 1,83 lbs
70cm x 23cm