Nice singin’ and playin’, Peggy!

yes, fancy names :-D

I actually tried out a Taylor mini in our local Guitar Center and I loved the small scale and the sound, but my fingers got sore from metal strings! I think you need callouses?

Back to hunting for a nylon string short-scale…for now playing with capo on 2 or 3 fret these days on my full-size…may try out a Cordoba C9 parlor guitar but I can’t find one without a 50 mile radius of me, LOL…That is the problem with classical guitars! There’s no hurry though, just need to wait until I’m in a major city or simething! My current guitar came from Philadelphia…made by a small workshop in Spain (Picado). I guess it should have a Spanish name?! :-)

NCnotes - When this was discussed before I found this shop in Asheville, but I guess that's not too close to you. When I suggested you look at short scale nylon string guitars, you assumed I meant for "classical" music, but you can play anything on them. The Beatles used them some, and if you search YouTube you can find a video of Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed playing all kinds of stuff. Here's one: youtu.be/3vC8hIU6zEw?si=Yruy-vQ-oU4Oktop
Very creative names, Peggy!

PS - Here's the shop in Asheville - sounds like they know what's out there: xguitars.com/collections/short...oD3FPt1bE

BTW - I don't play guitar much these days, but in recent years the instrument I've used the most is a Martin 00-21, c. 1970. It has the same 630 mm scale length as the Cordoba C9 parlor model, a wide fretboard (but not quite as wide as classical), 12 frets to the body, and a slotted headstock. I really love the size and sound of that guitar - steel strings though.

Doug, Thank you for the link!! Asheville is a bit of a trek for us, but we do go out there to hike sometimes! Ooo yes I have heard good things about the Martin 00s…people love them. I just can’t do steel strings though, I am apparently too soft-fingered, haha. (The Taylor Minis are 615mm scale, talk about short scale!)

So yea I will probably play some simple classical, and perhaps some fingerstyle + singing, and perhaps tune to DADGAD for some Irish Trad backing. I think I can get away with a nylon stringer for that kind of stuff…the question is whether I should sell my Picado, which would probably fetch a pretty price (solid spruce top, solid rosewood sides/back) but maybe it’s good to have multiple guitars…like Peggy! :-)

Guitar people call that having GAS...Guitar Acquisition Syndrome...lol. I've tried to avoid it but sometimes you just get GAS and can't control it...lol. So yes, NC, maybe multiple guitars.

I always liked the sound of nylon strings, but the guitars have too much space between the strings and my fingers get confused. I just can't play them. It's true you do need a good set of callous on those fingertips for the metal strings. You can get it if you play it and suffer through the hurting fingers. But what the heck...if you're used to nylon and can get the kind of guitar you want with nylon strings...it'd be more practical (and pain-free) to just try for that.

Anybody know what would happen if you strung up a regular steel string guitar with nylon???? What would happen? I used to think about that. But never long enough to do anything but think. Then one time back when I was so broke I was happy to just have one guitar...lol...I got crazy and decided to buy nickel electric guitar strings...I was in an experimental mood. It was fun, but I don't mind stopping to tune every 5 minutes, myself...if a person didn't like to tune or took a long time to tune, they'd hate that. After a while I was done with that idea and got some regular acoustic strings again. At the time I was the only church musician too...so it kinda made it awkward to have to turn around and tune as quietly and quickly as possible between hymns...lol. Anyway, never got around to buying nylon and trying that...would it hurt a regular acoustic for the lighter tension across the neck???? And maybe even the ends of the strings might not go into the guitar right...I don't know.

I was thinking the other day...lookin' at my Gretsch, which I paid more for than cars in my past...how in the heck do you change strings on that thing? I think either grandson will have to help me, if he knows...I mean it's way different than his electric guitars...or else take it back to the music store and pay those guys to change and let me watch. It looks really weird where the strings hook into that guitar....lol...I never noticed that when buying it...I just sat in the store and got into a really nice state of Strum with the thing and then lost my mind and got the credit card out...lol. That was all there was to that. By the way, I had taken a vow to never go inside a music store...then grandson started dragging me in there because he has GAS for his heavy metal thing he's into...the result is I now have two more guitars I have no need for and big bills to pay...lol. No more of that for me. No more music stores, and if I do have to go into one to figure out how to change my Gretsch's strings, I'm putting the blinders on and getting outta there as fast as possible.

LOL yes Peggy, look only straight ahead! :-D. So nice that you and your grandson now have this music/guitar thing in common!

Yea my problem with the mini-Taylor was I kept missing the strings because they were so much closer together…like missing with both left hand and right hand! :-). i guess our hands get used to whatever we usually play!

And yea, I was mentally comparing cost of a short-scale guitar vs repairing car bumper…hmm, honestly, I’d rather drive around with the dented bumper...

On strings...the nylons are slipped into holes at both ends and tied via special knots...They don't have anything on their ends, it's literally just a string. Not sure how steel strings are connected, but I'm pretty sure you guy don't tie knots? So that might be tricky...figuring how to get nylon strings onto a guitar that doesn't have holes to slip the string through and tie the knot...(also hmm, I think they make something like "silk steel" strings which might feel softer, but I don't know a thing about them!)

There's little doo-dads at the bottom of steel strings to hook them in with...lock them in might be a better word. So...yeah it would take some engineering to make nylon strings go on there...I have always wondered...I love the sound of nylon strings but as I said, the strings are so far apart my fingers feel lost in the woods. I think you're right, NC...we do get used to just the geographical location of wherever our fingers have to get to in a hurry for the notes we need...I do think the longer a person has played an instrument the less likely they can adapt at newer ones. Grandson wanted me to play one of his guitars and I can't even find the strings...seems to me on those solid body electric jobs the strings are all the way back into the player's ribcage...lol...I can't get my hand to reach them...I got the Gretsch because the strings are out there in the same neighborhood as the acoustic strings are...lol...plus if it was good nuff for Chet Atkins it's certainly good enough for a groundhog.

Yeah it's really awful that stuff like car dents and bad gutters, heck even hunger...lol... are always competing with musical interests! No fair. Musical instruments should be free all around the world...if I was the queen that would be my official decree!

Strings with the "little doo-dads" on the end are called ball end strings, and they are available for nylon string guitars. Here's a whole page of them:
sweetwater.com/store/search?s=...ch-header
So you could put them on a steel string guitar. It won't hurt the guitar but it probably won't sound very good, because the top and bracing are heavier (and in a different pattern) than a classical guitar. The action would probably be off too. I like the sound of a classical guitar, but a lot more goes into it than just the strings.

That red one is BAD A_ _!!!! I caught that on YT!

I've probably mentioned this a thousand-and-one times, but the steel string acoustic guitar is certainly the instrument I'm the most proficient with. Me and the wife have a bunch of them, too, of various makes. None of them are the least bit vintage. The oldest probably dates from the 1970's. My Hawaiian born wife, though, does have a many-decades-old Martin ukulele that her father used to regularly flog. In any case, I ain't a gonna' count the guitars right now.

And yes, we toured the Martin factory, once upon a time. C.F. Martin the 47th (or some such number), greeted the tour and was nice as heck. A true treat for those inclined toward Folk Music.

I happened upon this ukulele at an antiques show. Stamped "Ditson," it was made by Martin, probably before 1920. Style 2 - like a 28 series guitar, but with mahogany top, and strung with gut strings. This photo, which I scanned to ask about it, still seems to be floating around the Internet.

Gorgeous uke.
Gut strings?! Wow. Had those on my violin for awhile!
Whenever I played outside, I’d be cranking my D peg sometimes in the middle of tunes, and retuning at least 5-8 times during the jam. I hope they are more stable on ukelele! At least for my gut strings, I think they’d only be useful if you always play in a 72 degree room with constant humidity…and don’t look at them sideways…LOL.

These ukes were made by Martin starting about 1916 for the Ditson music stores in Boston and New York. Some were in the usual hourglass shape, and some in this shape at Ditson's request. Then a series of Ditson guitars were made in this shape, eventually evolving into the familiar Martin "Dreadnought" guitar, so this is the origin of that style. The wood in this uke is different from what you often see - more like what you see in fine old furniture. I wonder if it might be Honduran mahogany, which was getting scarce even then, and is pretty much unavailable today.
As far as strings, the strings rest in slots in the bridge, and terminate in a hole where you tie a knot. When I tried to install regular Martin nylon uke strings, some wouldn't fit in the slots. These instruments are fairly rare and somewhat valuable, so I didn't want to just attack it with a fret saw. There was a fellow in California who made gourd banjos and sold reasonably priced gut strings for them in many gauges, which solved my problem. He's retired now so I don't know what I'll do when Ineed more.
When I bought my first fiddle about 1974, it looked like it might have had the neck broken out at some point, and I wasn't sure it would stand up to steel strings. Nylon strings were still quite new then (having been introduced about 1967) and gut was the only other option I knew of. So I learned on Pirastro gut strings. I eventually ignored the fiddle, and it fell apart. I had it repaired sometime in the '90's and its been living happily with Prim steel strings ever since.

PS - Think I meant "Cuban Mahogany," not "Honduran."