Lauren Bateman recommends parlor-sized guitars like the Taylor GS Mini and Baby Martin for smaller beginners who find standard dreadnoughts uncomfortable. Parlor guitars are more compact with a punchier tone, while larger guitars have warmer, deeper sound. Many parlor models include electronics for amplification.
So you're trying to learn the guitar but you feel like you're climbing over your guitar. Well, it's very possible that you could be learning on the wrong size guitar. And I find this especially for my female students like myself. I'm only five, four and a half, so I'm not very big. And I have a lot of students who are, you know, 5, 2, 5, 3, they're even smaller than I am and they're trying to play guitar and they're like, Lauren, this is the most uncomfortable thing. Is it supposed to be this uncomfortable? And I asked them a bit about what kind of guitar do they have. And usually they have one of those big dreadnought guitars which are the biggest size guitar you can buy. They sound absolutely beautiful because the body of the guitar is so big. But if you are a smaller frame person, it can be very uncomfortable to play. And that's where a parlor sized guitar like this could come in handy. Now this is a PRS Tonir P20E. It's the E because it does have electronics. So you could plug this into an amp. You don't necessarily need that, but it's a nice to have, you know, because then you can play through an amp and amplify things. But you know, even though this is a smaller guitar.
You don't sacrifice a ton of sound. Now the difference between, you know, a parlor sized guitar other than one, it is much thinner. Okay. This is much thinner than my crafter guitar on the ground here, which I'll show you in a second, which is much wider. It's also much bigger in the hip area too. So I find a lot of students, they're like, they feel like their elbow, I'm over exaggerating, but they feel like their shoulders like up here, here. Because sometimes guitars have a big hip back here and it can make it very uncomfortable. Where a parlor size guitar is much more compact and it's just much more comfortable. You can see the size of this guitar. I'm going to grab my crafter real quick. So I've got my crafter here. I'm just going to put it on my lap in front of the tone air and you can already see, see how much bigger the hip of this guitar is versus this one here. Okay. You can see the size difference. It's so this is a grand auditorium size guitar, my crafter. That's usually the style of guitar that I like to play because it's not as big as a dreadnought. It has a great sound to it, but it's not quite as small as the parlor size guitar. Now there's always trade offs when it comes to playing guitar. So with a bigger guitar you're going to get a bigger sound. You're going to get a lot more warmth and low end out of a bigger guitar than you are a parlor sized guitar. You're going to get a lot more mid range. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. It just, it's going to come through a little bit better if you're playing with other people because of that. So the bigger guitars have a little bit more of a warmer and balanced tone where the smaller guitars have a little bit more punch to them.
But again, I don't think it's much of a sacrifice here. It's still a beautiful sounding guitar. So if you are someone that is, you know, learning guitar and you're just like, I feel like this guitar is too big. Look up a parlor size guitar. Like I said, this is the PRS Tonier P20. Very, very comfortable. It comes in a number of different finishes as well. A lot of guitars come in different finishes. Other ones that are great, that students of mine like the GS, the Tape Taylor, the GS Minis, those are great. I have a lot of students that have those as well. Or like the Baby Martins, those are also great. Any of these parlor sized guitars, they're just going to be a little bit smaller in frame. They're easier to travel with too because they are smaller, but they still sound great. And some of them do have electronics that allow you to plug into an amp if you want to. But if you are someone of a smaller stature like myself and you find those big guitars just a little bit too much and you feel like you're climbing over them, I highly recommend that you check out a parlor size guitar today. And not only does the size of your guitar change the tone, but also the strings you have on the guitar can also impact the sound. So if you're interested in learning what guitar strings I like to play with, go check out this video over here where I explain the differences between the different types of strings you could put on your guitar.
