Buying A Guitar – How To Buy Your First Or Next Guitar.

Buying your first guitar is a tough one! Buying for a child is relatively easy:

• Ages 7- 10 then a 3⁄4 size nylon string for around the £50 mark is bang on – job done, mission accomplished! With children it is about getting them started with an instrument that is easy to handle and doesn’t cause too much stress on small hands.
• For an adult however, you are in the land of compromise.

What it eventually boils down to is money – the best advice is to buy the best you can afford. If you or indeed the person you are buying the guitar for is a total beginner then there are two factors to consider.

• What style or genre of music does the person in question want to play ?
• How much do you want to spend.

I have been playing the guitar for over 40 years and I have literally bought and sold hundreds of guitars – I worked in a musical instrument shop for nearly 10 years!

Before we move on. Something to consider and its really important and that is the expression ‘Cheap & Cheerful’ doesn’t exist in the guitar world – its the ugly sister that dominates that world and is called ‘Cheap & Nasty.’ As the great Bob Dylan once said, ‘If you buy cheap, you buy twice!’ Indeed, my first guitar came from the Kay’s Catalogue in 1976 and I can tell you never EVER buy a guitar from a catalogue or a place that is catalogue based if you get my drift?

Buying A Guitar Via Mail Order Verses A Shop.

Don’t! Ebay, Amazon etc are convenient and great for buying anything apart from a musical instrument – fire up the computer and you are a click or two away. The problem is you haven’t held the guitar let alone tried it out or had someone try it for you and not to mention the hassle of sending the thing back if it isn’t right!

I regularly help students and their families buy guitars – its all part of the service I can provide. Basically, its a no-brainer really – Always purchase from a good reputable specialist musical instrument shop. If there happens to be an issue with your guitar then the guy at the shop will know how to put it right because the guy at the catalogue shop won’t have a clue!

What Sort of Guitar Should I Buy?

As I said, your first guitar is a compromise. Its completely pointless buying a high end Gibson Les Paul or a Martin D28 because:

• You Can’t play it.
• Those guitars are a fortune.

There are no strict rules for which style of guitar you choose. If you want an electric guitar then get one and likewise if you fancy a steel string again go for it.

The Electric Option.

The electric guitar is cool – full stop! There is absolutely nothing standing in your way for choosing an electric guitar as your first instrument. My first guitar was an electric! What you need to consider are the extras you need.

Firstly you need an amplifier because the electric guitar has no tonal qualities without an amp so you’ll need to budget an extra £50 or £60 for a basic 10 watt practise amp and you’ll need a lead as well as picks and either a bag or stand or both and then add a tuner on to that as well.

Most music shops will do a complete package that can range anywhere from £130 to £300 and up to the sky’s the limit – depending on the entry level, brand of guitar, quality of the amp and the accessories. Either way you look at it its a chunk of change for your first guitar but that said if you are more drawn to the electric guitar and all its Rock Star glory then lay your money down and enjoy the journey because its cool!

To get to the Rock Star status is something for another article down the line – it’s definitely a practise issue !!

Acoustic Guitar Route.

Walking into a guitar shop for the first time can be daunting especially with all the wood and wire on display. Back when I worked at the shop many a novice exclaimed ‘They all look the same!’ The thing is, they’re not.

Acoustic guitars are a complex beast and to the untrained eye (and ear) they may look similar but the devil is in the detail. There might be a guitar for £100 and one on the wall for a £1000 and the colour is the same and the pick guard is in the same place and the head-stocks both look alike so, why the extra zero on the price tag? That is not necessarily to do with the ‘make’ its to do with the build.

Solid Top Verses Laminate.

The top of an acoustic guitar is the front and that is the soundboard. Usually the top of a guitar is either spruce, mahogany or cedar. All these tone woods bring a unique sound to each guitar and spruce is one of the most common. My advice to anyone purchasing a first guitar buy one with a solid top.

An acoustic guitar with a solid top automatically has a much richer sound with depth and expression and indeed gets better the more you play it. You might ask, Why? A pertinent question and certainly one deserving a full explanation.

Solid Top Acoustic Guitars

Purchasing an acoustic guitar you need to take notice of it’s construction and materials. The guitar brand Vintage make a lovely solid top guitar called a Vintage V300; it’s a folk size steel string acoustic with a solid spruce top. One of my students own one of these guitars and you can usually pick one up for about £150.

I helped her choose the guitar from a local shop about 12 months ago. The soundboard is a solid slice of spruce wood and out of the box it sounded great and really full balanced sound and quite bright sounding on the treble strings. After 6 months of playing the guitar I noticed that the bass end was more resonant than when she first bought it and the reason for that was the grain of the solid top had in effect mutated and matured because of the vibration of the wood brought on by the resonance of the strings due to all the playing.

The development of the sound character of the instrument is what sets a solid top guitar apart from a laminate. They get better the more you play them. Investing in a solid top guitar from the outset will reap dividends in the long run. It will be several years before you need or want to upgrade and the guitar will in effect get better with you and indeed it will become the musical you.

Laminate Guitars.

Laminate – it’s a posh word for plywood! Make no bones about it – laminate guitars have their place and appeal. They are the nearest you get to cheap & cheerful – nearly !!! The best laminate guitar I have really come across is the Yamaha F310. They retail for around £100. That said there are a number of brands out there today which are good for a laminate guitar and in turn good for a first guitar £70 – £100 gets you a decent first guitar if you’re on a budget.

Buying A Second Hand Guitar

Buying a second hand guitar is a land of opportunity for the knowledgeable as you will in all likelihood get a lot more guitar for the money but it can be a nightmare for the unwary.

This is the best way of not only ensuring that you get more guitar for your money but a higher resale value in terms of financial reimbursement – as it will be worth more or less what you bought it for if you ever decide to sell it later on.

The minefield, which is buying a second hand instrument, only becomes easier to navigate when you have someone with you who can see the potential in the instrument, can identify any necessary repair work or any required tweaking and who is expertly aware of the guitar and it’s handling capabilities.

Additionally they should also be knowledgeable of its possibilities with regard to the price being asked for. I offer a full buying service for the wary purchaser, to ensure the next guitar you buy is the right guitar.

Conclusion.

I hope this article has been useful and informative. If you want any more information on buying a guitar or wish to engage my services in helping you buy a first guitar then please feel free to contact me.