Buying Your First Guitar? Here are some tips:
Picking out a guitar is a lot of fun! It is also one of the hardest things for a new player to do. When you buy your first guitar, you probably have no idea what kind of music you or perhaps your little students will wind up playing. Also, you won’t have any idea how to make such an investment pay off right away. I hope you enjoy these practical tips about how to pick what you really need.
Fortunately, guitars are relatively inexpensive compared to most other instruments, and there are a lot of good, reasonably priced models out there. Here are some important things to keep in mind when you’re buying a new guitar:
Type
One of the first things to decide is whether you want an acoustic or an electric guitar. Many instructors recommend buying an acoustic guitar first, for various reasons. From a professional standpoint, I disagree with this common preconception. I favor choosing a guitar that is well suited to the type of music you will be playing on it. While the notes are in the same place on all types of guitars, certain techniques sound better or work out better on the guitar that the technique was meant for. For example, string bends are much more easily and properly done on an electric guitar.
Some of the reasons given for buying an acoustic guitar are the following:
- Cost
- Ease of play
- Ease of tone
- An fairly standard misconception that the acoustic guitar needs to be learned before the electric
With regards to cost, it is true that if you just buy an acoustic, the cost will likely be less than a guitar and amplifier combined. However, recent advances have made some very good sounding small practice amplifiers and there are several package deals that make an electric guitar and amplifier combo very affordable.
With regards to ease of play, acoustic guitars tend to be much harder to play than electric guitars. There are many factors, including heavier gauge strings, higher action, and wider necks, but genely this is true. With a proper neck setup, an acoustic can be made to play very easily.
With regards to ease of tone, for a true beginner, generation of tone is secondary to generating a good pitch. What this means to the uninitiated is simply that if you cannot generate the pitch in the first place, then you cannot work on the tone. As I have already discussed, acoustics are generally harder to play than electrics (especially if they are “off-the-rack” and not set up by a guitar technician.) Thus, for this argument’s sake, it is relatively untrue that it is easier to generate “good tone” on an acoustic guitar.
The final argument is one of the oldest misconceptions about why one would want to buy an acoustic first. There is no pedagogical reason to buy an acoustic guitar first. The notes are in the same place on all 3 types of guitar. When working on tone, it is best that the student applies their practice time to the type of instrument that will generate the type of tone they wish to achieve. For most modern pop and rock, this is an electric guitar, so the student should start on an electric. However, if the student is interested in classical guitar, they should NOT learn on an electric. And, of course, if the student is interested in folk and certain styles of acoustic rock and funk, those styles are best played on the instrument they were written for, the steel-stringed acoustic.
Kyle Mendes, one of my interns, has cashed in about why he asserts that a student should get an acoustic first and I think that he makes some valid points, although I disagree. Here is his article.
You can and should make the decision for yourself! Regardless of the type of guitar you pick, you should consider the accessories that I talk about in this article about Accessories (Necessities?) to your first guitar.
