Acoustic Guitar For Beginners
Friday, July 17th, 2009Beginning guitarists sometimes experienced a lot of problems in their guitar journey and decided to quit. Some gave up because they never produced good musical tones with their guitar while others complained they could not take the pain.
Some people think that a budget acoustic guitar is good enough for beginners because if they decide to quit they don’t lose much money. This maybe half true but sometimes people forget that beginning guitarists often stop playing because they feel they can’t take the pain anymore without realizing that they picked up the wrong axes.
Cheap guitars are OK as long as they meet the condition below:
The first thing to check is the guitar neck. Don’t buy a guitar with bowed neck. To check this you can press the sixth string at both first and 12th frets. It should leave a tiny gap only between the string and the frets.
The second thing to check is playability. If a guitar has a good playability you can play any chords on its fretboard at different position without problems or finger pains. You should feel comfortable playing all over the fretboard.
To find out an acoustic guitar with good playability you should measure the action. Take a measurement from the bottom of the thickest string to the top of the 12th fret. Ideally 3mm to 4mm distance is needed. For beginners this action setting will help a lot because it decreases the strings tension.
The other important thing to check is intonation. Good intonation means you will get any note at any place on the fretboard tuned right. Have you experienced out of tuned notes when you press your fretboard but when played open chords the pitch is perfectly fine? This is a good example of bad intonation. If you can’t tell the difference between good and bad tuning you can always use a guitar tuner.
It is quite difficult to find cheap guitars that can meet those criteria, especially for beginners. Get an experienced friend to guide you in the guitar store and let him/her recommend some guitars for you to try. Choose one that feels right in your hand and don’t pay attention too much on the guitar appearance. You don’t need a fancy good looking guitar. It may fool you easily.
With a limited budget you are still able to get a relatively good guitar as long as you know how to make the selection. Just follow this guideline to prevent spending money on something you can’t play.
