A beginner's guide to buying a guitar (Guitars in general)

Member Name: bruffyboy

Product:	Guitars in general
Date:	11/04/09 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: progress this way and it feels great

Disadvantages: you'll need to buy a few guitars

First up, I make no apologies for this review being a guide to those wanting to start off in guitars. Yes, there are some generalizations here, but I think the points are valid.

Having played the guitar for five or six years now, I am always devastated to see beginners go out and buy really expensive ones, and thought I could share a bit of advice here for those interested in buying a guitar.

Playing the guitar is hard. Sure, you can pick up the basics easily, but they'll soon bore you and you'll be on to bar chords and finger picking before you know it. There is a huge drop out rate, and as a result millions of unloved guitars are sat gathering dust around the world.

More than pretty much any other product I can think of, guitars are an area where you get what you pay for. My big advice is to buy a cheap guitar for your first one. Expect to pay no more than £50 on ebay for a new acoustic or electric guitar, and you'll be buying a serviceable but basic model. There are two reasons I say this;

1) There is a high probability you will not go very far with it, so why waste lots of money.

2) If you do go far with it, you then buy yourself a nicer one in the future, and it's a real joy to play. This is because of the action (which is basically how close the strings are to the fret-board). The closer they are, the easier it is to play, as the lighter you have to press the strings. So, if you buy your £50 guitar and after 6 months are quite good at it, then you progress to your £200 guitar and you'll find a nicer sound, PLUS it will be much easier to play. If you do it this way round, you'll be enthused about playing.

If you (like so many of my friends) start expensive, then you never learn to appreciate the quality of the guitar (it's all you've ever known), and you can never upgrade to anything nicer.

Now, there are lots of nice guitars out there for a couple of hundred pounds. On the whole, avoid ones that LOOK flashy (weird colours, pearl fretboards etc), as in the £200 price-range you're just paying for the look. Avoid Argos, and go for ebay. Look at a model, and then google it and read a review, making sure to check out what it says about the action (the lower the better).

If you can afford it, your second guitar could be your final guitar, and here I would recommend around £350 for a lovely looking, playing and sounding guitar. The Yamaha range are really nice, as are Fender and Gibson.

Finally, after many years, you splash out (or maybe your partner does) on the elite -a £1500 guitar from Fender or Gibson. These (in general) are the most sublime things to play, and by now you've earnt the right (and developed the skills) to make the most of it.

So remember - you get what you pay for. If it seems too good to be true it probably is. This is particularly important with imported electric guitars, such as Les Paul copies that look mind-blowing on ebay for £160, but when they arrive are crap!

Summary: do it