Basically I've got a child's toy guitar for my son's fifth birthday tomorrow, made by Reig in Spain.

I tuned the strings using http://www.proguitartuner.com/guitar-tuner/ and when I tried a chord it doesn't sound right so I experiment and find that the fourth fret of a string plays the note of the string above it, not the fifth. Completely weird so I play up the fretboard again using http://www.proguitartuner.com/guitar-tuner/ and the first fret is a jump of two notes - e.g. from E to F sharp (not F) or D to E (not D sharp) - also to my admittedly tone deaf ears it sounds like the start of a major scale when I do that.

It's sold as a guitar but is this then some other instrument any of you know of with no first fret? I looked up ukeleles but they seem to have a normal first fret.

Any advice on what to do with this one? (I can't afford to send it back and buy a "proper" one) I did want to teach my son some actual playing on it (just some chords I played a very little bit in younger teenage years) - but given that might not be possible I'm thinking of just tuning it to an open C. Any better suggestions?

cliffs: Guitar has no first fret. How to tune it?

not sure i understand what you mean by no first fret. could you post a picture of the guitar?

What I meant was that using the first fret increases the pitch of the note by two semitones rather than one semitone, as on a standard guitar. So the first fret has the same function as the second fret on a standard guitar.

I've actually discovered the problem now though with the help of:

https://cooldiscountinstruments.com/...e-guitars.html

Basically my technique dates from when I was a 13 year-old pressing the strings really hard to try to play a darned F chord on an adult guitar. Doing that as an adult on a very short child's guitar overtenses the strings enough to move the note by an entire semitone - by just pressing lightly, I got the frets to function as they should.

I did tune it to an open C in the end (i.e. the strings are CEGCEG and you get the major chords just by putting your finger straight across at different points) so they can at least get a nice sound out of strumming it without having to learn too much. My son's probably too young (wasn't my idea to get it for him) but my daughter is experimenting a with it a bit more so I taught her an A minor chord as well but she is still really learning to make an actual clean note with it. If they get serious I will retune it to standard tuning.

Here's the picture anyway:



so it's just a standard guitar but only 55 cm long.

The right way would be to return it. Failing that, a tech could file the nut slots to a more reasonable height if the neck isn't bowed or otherwise out of whack. Or if you have nut files and depth gauges you could do it yourself.

Actually since you don't need pro-level precision here, you could use a crappy paperback book and any needle file, or something like a popsicle stick with 320 grit sandpaper wrapped around it. Before you do that you'd want to press down on the first fret and test the playability of notes above it in case the board isn't flat.

Since none of those sound like options you'd be interested in, you could just capo it at the 2nd fret permanently. The first few fretboard markers will still line up for teaching purposes.

Unless there's a truss adjuster in the soundhole there I'd go with their recommend strings and tunings to keep the proper tension on the neck. Remember to go a whole step up with the capo on.

Also try http://www.123guitartuner.com which is better suited to children. Just letting them listen and try to match the sound will improve so much more than their hearing alone.