I started taking piano lessons at the age of eight and by the time I was sixteen I had reached grade five. I had become a fan of rock music and had a strong desire to be one of those long haired tatooed heavy metal nutters that you saw everywhere back in the early nineties. I convinced my dad to buy me a guitar for my birthday. He's glad I did so! He also bought one for himself at the same time so that he could learn. They were both steel string acoustic yamaha's. Seeing as though I already had a good knowledge of music I picked it up quite quickly and starting getting good. My dad asked me to teach him but after hour upon hour he eventually ...  Read the complete review

Rather than going into a Wikipedia-style history and definition of 'guitars in general', the following write-up offers advice and guidance relating to a guitar's purchase, interspersed with my experiences regarding the guitars that I've owned over the years. The basics - buying advice - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - With proper care a guitar can last indefinitely - and unless you're a collector there's no reason to go around buying willy-nilly. That said, it's important to purchase a guitar that is produced by a decent manufacturer, as buying a cheaper brand (e.g. the ones that you often see in Argos for around £20) can be a gamble. What you'll ...  Read the complete review

The guitar has always been one of the most popular musical instruments of all, and will probably continue that way. In all its different forms, it is an incredibly versatile accessory, whether your tastes and chosen repertoire are folk, pop, blues, country, classical or jazz. And while you obviously need a musical ear to become reasonably proficient, you don't have to be able to read music to master the basic chords or riffs. (If classical or jazz are your chosen fields, it must be said, you do have to be better!) Let's assume that you're an enthusiastic, possibly starry-eyed, beginner. Somebody has lent or given you a guitar to try out. While ...  Read the complete review

I've been playing for, hmm, must be three years nearly now. Over this period of time I've accumulated a modest collection of gear - three guitars, a bass, a digital modelling FX box and a digital 8-track. In this, my first DooYoo review (yay!) I'll cover my three six-stringed instruments of destruction. Bwahahahahaha. --==THE APPLAUSE AE-28 ACCOUSTIC INSTRUMENT OF DOOM==-- My Applause AE-28 was the first guitar in my collection, bought as an ex-demo model for £150 from Sound Control in Glasgow. Like all three of my guitars, it had the certain 'something' I now look for as soon as I started playing it. If a guitar doesn't say ...  Read the complete review

I sold this guitar a few years ago but it's memory lives on. I bought it as a package second hand and the price was comparitively cheap. It looked good and sounded good. Very similar to a Fender in design with a fender strat shaped body and a slight camber on the neck it felt great to play and the frets were nice and wide for fast and easy lead runs. The main draw back was the lack of a locking top nut (easily remedied) but one thing this guitar had that the others I looked at didn't was a coil tap on the bridge pick-up (allows you to change from a double coil to a single coil for a sharper sound). Most of the Aria guitars in ...  Read the complete review