There are hundreds of choices in buying a new guitar, but not all of them are good. I’m sorry to all you folks out there looking for great bargains, but you get what you pay for. You aren’t going to find a great guitar that a professional would even think about owning for $100 at your local guitar center, it’s just not the way the market works.
If you are a beginner with a normal pocketbook, you should buy a medium priced guitar. You don’t know if you’re going to say “Screw it!” after a few weeks or months, so it is best that you don’t put too big of a dent in your wallet for something that ends up collecting dust in your closet. I won’t tell you to buy a cheap one because if your guitar is absolute shit, you’re much more likely to give up because you aren’t getting that sound/playability that you should have. Also, cheap guitars lose their resale value pretty much as soon as you pay for it, but more medium/high priced guitars do not. Some may even grow in value over the years.
If you are planning to get an electric as your first guitar, I highly discourage you from doing so. Guess what you need with an electric? An amplifier. A good one will cost you a pretty penny. A bad one will make a crappy sound, which may lead you to give up. So, what’s the solution? Learn on an acoustic. That’s right folks, you heard right, learn on an acoustic. Acoustics are usually more difficult to play than electrics (yes, that is IN DEED a good thing!). Your fingers will hurt, but that’s a sign of building those finger muscles that any guitarist should have. Those finger muscles are harder to obtain when learning on an electric, because they’re easier on you. If you learn on an acoustic, your first words when playing an electric will be “Holy crap! This is easier than I thought!”…maybe not that much excitement, but you hopefully get the point. Now, I know that some are reading this who are completely devoted to getting an electric as your first. I’d just like to remind you that virtually all forms o f music utilize the acoustic guitar in them. Yes, that includes rock.
Another benefit of acoustic guitars is their portability. You can take the acoustic guitar anywhere you want, and you don’t need a power source…or to lug around an amplifier with a bunch of cables. An acoustic guitar is an all-in-one learning machine, while an electric is a semi-complex system.
Now, if you unfortunately have a habit of giving up as soon as you’ve determined that you “can’t do it”, then you may want to learn on an electric.
Acoustic Guitars – Acoustic guitars, besides being a better choice for learning with, are easier to choose from in that there aren’t so many options. With an electric, you can change things out to radically change the sound. Plus, if the amplifier you try it with sounds terrible, a great guitar will sound terrible along with it…leading you to make an incorrect choice.
Acoustic Guitar Size – There are many sizes of acoustic guitars. How the size affects the sound is quite simple: larger guitars have more bass (they sound deeper).
Steel Stringed versus Classical – Two main categories of acoustic guitars exist: steel stringed and classical. Steel string guitars have steel strings, classical guitars have nylon strings. They both make different tones, which you will have to hear for yourself at a guitar store. The necks on classical guitars are generally wider, also – which should affect your choice if you have small hands.
Acoustic Guitar Construction – One of the first things to look at is common sense structual integrity. If the guitar seems as though it will far apart as soon as you drop it (you will eventually), don’t buy it. In guitars, it is better to be safe than sorry. Cheaper guitars have plywood (AKA laminate) backs/sides/tops. Most of the sound from an acoustic guitar comes from the top, so it is best to get a guitar with at least a solid top (plywood doesn’t sound as good). The more expensive the guitar is, the more solid wood it has, generally speaking. If you have a deep wallet, go ahead and buy an acoustic guitar with all solid wood.
Make sure that the neck is straight by looking down it from the headstock.
Then, make sure that the guitar is tuned (if you don’t know how to, ask a salesman…they will help, they want you to buy their guitars). Strum it a few times, and even to the untrained ear it should be apparent as to if it has a good tone to it. Be careful with this though, don’t strum one guitar and say that you’ll buy it because you happen to like it. You need to compare it to all the other guitars, in all price ranges, so that you get a good idea as to where it stands among them.
What’s it for? – Now, decide what the hell you are going to do with the guitar. Are you going to record with it? Play live with it? Or just sit on your porch and play songs with your friends? For recording, it is best to get a guitar with a bright tone (high pitched), as bassy guitars will sound very muffled through a microphone. For playing on a stage, you want to double check that the guitar is made well. A guitar that is played live often takes a beating, so you don’t want it to snap in half in the middle of a show. For playing just for fun, it’s pretty much up to you: what sounds the best to your ears?
Hey, guess what? You’ve (hopefully) bought yourself a good guitar that will become one of your closest friends through the years. Don’t forget to name it!