How to Choose your First Guitar
Choosing your first guitar could be a daunting task. In this article, we’ll talk about all the details you should consider before you buy. Follow our guitar buying guide below and you’ll be playing your first guitar before you know it!
Step 1: Style Over Swag
Your choice of guitar will vary depending on your musical taste and style. For example, if you love classical music, you will want to buy a nylon string, classical guitar. If you enjoy a more acoustic, folk-oriented sound, an acoustic steel string guitar is a good place to start. Finally, if you’re a fan of pop, rock or any derivative in between, an electric guitar will be the best choice for you. Don’t get a particular kind of guitar because one of your friends thinks you should or because it’s “cool.” Stay true to your musical preference and you won’t regret your first musical instrument purchase. Keep reading below for a quick and easy reference chart to help you decide which guitar style and size is best for you.
Step 2: Size Matters
Depending on your age or your overall stature, you will want to consider different sized guitars. Choosing the right guitar can be the difference between success and failure. Often times, people buy the wrong shape or size guitar and feel uncomfortable when playing. Worse, their learning progress is hindered due to the added difficulty of overcoming unnecessary obstacles. Here’s a quick reference chart that can help you decide which guitar style and size suits you best:
Step 3: Don’t Get High
Not that kind of high. What we really mean is that the height of your strings matters when you first start playing guitar. In other words, the distance between your strings and your guitar’s fretboard (string action) is an important consideration. Here are the guitar string actions we recommend for beginner guitar players out there:
Step 4: Branded By The Light
Let’s face it, all you want to do is buy that USA made Gibson or Fender, or maybe even that custom Paul Reed Smith. Well, that’s what we all want. If you have that kind of loot, who am I to stop you, but as your first guitar, you can save yourself quite a few bucks by purchasing a solid, beginner brand guitar. Most high-end guitar makers offer entry-level guitars, but more often than not, they aren’t the greatest and are still rather expensive. For our money, we really like what brands like Ibanez and Bacchus bring to the table. They’ve both been around for a long time and have a great variety of guitar designs to choose from.
Step 5: Don’t Get Fancy
There are plenty of great guitars out there that sound like the gates of heaven are opening to let you in. Thing is, to get one, you have to do more than confess your sins. When you first start playing guitar, your ear needs to get used to tuning your strings accordingly, much less worry about what it sounds like. On average, a beginner guitar player will figure out his own sound within 6 months to a year of practicing. In that time, you’ll be drawn to other guitar players and a myriad of different sound choices. You’ll grow into your own sound in due time. Also, your musical tastes will change in time, so don’t invest heavily in “quality sound” that you don’t need when you’re starting out.
Guitar Buying Guide For Beginners
If you feel like you need some further guidance or just want to let us know that you copped your first killer guitar, get in touch with us. We’d love to hear your story. And, if you are looking to put our buying guide to use, check out online store for all your musical instruments needs
