Choosing a Guitar

The thing for beginning guitarists to remember is that your first purchase should be based solely on the fact that you are just starting out. Many budding guitarists buy a guitar based on their favorite player’s guitar or some other reason without knowing the facts or what guidelines they should use for their choice of guitar. So this is a primer on how to choose your guitar, know that you are picking the right one for you and know how to prevent getting ripped off.

The first thing you should keep in mind before purchasing a guitar based off of things such as buying the model of guitar endorsed by one of your favorite players is that your favorite player may be paid to use that guitar. For no other reason is that particular model played by that musician other than money!

Many times, 9 times out of 10, the guitar that your favorite guitarist is using is a highly modified and custom version of the standard model you will buy in the store, so much so that its really not even the same guitar. So think twice about purchasing your guitar based on some famous hot new shredder’s choice.

The second thing to remember is that when you are starting out, you are a much different player than you will be in the future. So don’t get carried away thinking you need a guitar for a specific type of music or tone. You only paint yourself into a corner if you buy a heavy metal guitar only to find out that 1 year later, you love to play jazz! Its best to pick a guitar that has a basic and broad range of tones, rather than specific models for specific genres or tones. This way, your purchase will allow you to be open to many styles as you learn and grow as a guitarist.

Here is probably the most important part of choosing your guitar. The “action” of the guitar should be your primary focus as a beginner. “Action” means how far away the strings are from the neck, meaning that the higher the action, the harder you have to press on the string to get a tone, the lower the action the easier it is to get a tone.

As a beginner, you really need to pick a guitar without very high action, this is because the lower the action of the guitar, the easier it will be on your fingers. You may ask yourself “well what would be the benefit of higher action?” The action of a guitar affect its tone as well, many players prefer the tone that only high action can give. However as a beginner you don’t need to choose a guitar for its tone so much, because you don’t know what kind of tone you like as a beginner.

The second most important point on choosing your guitar as a beginner is the price point! As a person first starting out, you want to pay as little as possible for a decent guitar with low action and a broad range of tone. You don’t want to break the bank because simply put, you don’t have the experience or knowledge of what you want out of a guitar yet. Once you have been playing a while and know what to look for, what tones and accessories you want, then you can make a decent informed decision and choose something more expensive. However purchasing an expensive instrument, only to find out it’s a dud for what you want to do, is totally avoidable by buying something modest and affordable.

There are other things to look for when choosing a new guitar, however there are so many things to cover that it can’t be talked about in the scope of a single article. So remember when choosing a guitar for a beginner, be it you or for someone else, you need to make your choices for the person starting out. If you don’t make you choice based on the main points listed above, you most likely will be wasting money and disappointed with your purchase in the near future.