Buying Your First Guitar

Intro

This article is based around the advice that I give to students who are looking to buy their first guitar. There are a couple of important factors to keep in mind when making your purchase:

Comfort

This is probably the most important thing to consider when looking for your first guitar. You have to be comfortable sitting with it, as with regular practice and lessons, you will spend hours in this position. Good posture is also so important, to ensure you're not unknowingly causing yourself a long term injury.

Sound

This isn't initially as important as how comfortable it is, though it won't be much good if you don't like the sound of your instrument...! If you find a few that all meet your comfort requirements, then make a decision based on the one that you prefer the sound of.

Recommendation

I always recommend to go to a large shop that has plenty of guitars and trying out as many as you can. Take the time to sit down with each one and get a feel for a range of guitars. This will give you more clarity on the aspects of the instrument that you like and which feel most comfortable to you. Even if you are just strumming the open strings, you have something that you can play on each guitar you try and so can use that to compare.

Buying for a child

If you are unsure of whether your child will be committed to learning the guitar and opt to buy a cheap one to start with, please bear in mind that this can actually make it more difficult to play. The build quality on some cheaper guitars isn't great, and they can have a higher than normal nut (plastic bar underneath the strings where the neck meets the headstock). This requires more pressure to fret the notes around the nut end of the fretboard.

As your child's fingers get stronger through practice, however, this shouldn't be such a problem. Every child is different though, so this issue might not even affect your child at all.