Choosing a Guitar

*Obviously I am Joking when I say buy a Telecaster (well half Joking anyway).

When it comes to choosing your first guitar, you should buy whichever one most like the look of. The quality of cheap guitars these days is absolutely off the charts and if you can afford to spend £150 – £200 the world is your oyster and I really wouldn’t spend more than that on your first guitar unless you really want to and can afford it.

If you can get someone to lend you one or give you one of their old ones … Do that.

It doesn’t matter how amazing your first guitar is, if you stick with it long enough, at some point you are going to start getting curious about other guitars. Every guitar feels and sounds slightly different and when you start to feel like you are stuck in a rut or a bit uninspired, a new guitar with a different pickups, construction or feel can really help reinvigorate your playing.

There are a few basic pieces of advice I would give you when choosing your first guitar which I will impart on you now but ultimately you should do whatever you want … Don’t let strangers on the internet tell you what to do.

Don’t buy an Acoustic !

Unless you really love the sound and style of that kind of instrument and associated music (In which case, absolutely buy an acoustic). But if you are thinking about getting one because it feels like that’s where you should start or like it is a simpler, all in one solution to learn on … don’t do it to yourself.

Acoustics are hard work when you are just starting out. The strings are like telephone cables and really hard going on your virgin finger tips. The action (how far the strings are from the fretboard) is likely to really high compared to an electric, and much harder to adjust yourself (if not impossible for an absolute noob).

You will also have so spend a lot more to get an equivalent level of quality as cheap electric (acoustics take a lot of work to build) and as ridiculous as this is gonna sound … THEY ARE WAY TOO LOUD.

When you first start learning, you are gonna be making a lot of mistakes and whatever you play will sound pretty terrible … This is just a fact. The last thing you need is for the entire house to be able to hear your terrible playing (think child learning violin). A full size acoustic guitar is surprisingly loud and there is no way to turn the volume down.

An electric guitar on the other hand is way easier to play, will have much thinner and easier to press down strings. The action is designed to be adjustable by the user and you will even be supplied with the allen keys to do it and best of all, they can be played completely unplugged at a volume more than loud enough to practice with or can be plugged into a headphone amp for some proper low volume electric guitar tones … and then when everyone finally does leave the house you can plug into an amp, crank the volume and do your best Pete Townsend impression without fear of judgment and scorn.

If all you want to play is Metal … Buy something with a Humbucker in the Bride

If all you want to play is Jazz … Buy a Semi hollowbody

If all you want to play is Jimi Hendrix or Funk … get a Strat with single coils

For everyone else … Seriously, Just buy a Telecaster.

Why do I say that ?