Young Adult / The Ideal Guitar
The Ideal Guitar
For fifteen years I worked in guitar stores helping a seemingly endless stream of guitarists and wannabe rock stars to find their ideal guitar. Here are some tips you may find useful.
Guitars fall into three main categories, acoustic, classical and electric.
Acoustic guitars are strung with strings made of bronze and steel. They are used by folk musicians such as Simon and Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan and modern artists like James Blunt. The various designs on sale today date back to the early 20th Century and the big names such as Martin, Guild and Gibson. They come in three main sizes. Folk, Dreadnought and Jumbo. (Small, medium and large!) The only significant development in the last 40 years has been the introduction of the Ovation resin bowl back design.
When choosing your weapon, you should ask yourself this question, “Who am I playing for?” The larger the guitar, the louder it will be. So if you have a quiet voice, a small folk instrument is best. If you are expecting thirty kids to sing along a Jesus then the Jumbo is the guitar for you. The dreadnought is of course the safe choice, a good all rounder and by far the most common.
If you perform acoustically for others then consider the Ovation style bowl backs, they project to the audience very well. Do however try them both seated and using a guitar strap as they can disconcertingly slip off the knee and perch uncomfortably on a pot belly!
Summing up, the acoustic guitar is the jack of all trades with its main strength being in its role for vocal accompaniment.
Classical guitars have one thing in common, they all look more or less the same. The reason is historical. Back near the end of the 19th Century a Spanish luthier (guitar maker) named Ramirez created the perfect guitar and everyone has been slavishly copying it ever since. They are strung nowadays with nylon strings as opposed to the cat gut of old. Tonally they have a rounded, less abrasive sound than their acoustic cousins. The body size is equivalent to the small folk acoustics but do not let this fool you. Most classical guitars can drown out an acoustic any day. The nylon strings require less tension to reach concert pitch so the table or front of a classical is thinner and more responsive than the steel strung acoustics. It also makes holding the strings less painful for beginners.
They are ideal for making beautiful instrumental music whether it be Villa Lobos, Bach or Beatles. They can also be used for jazz and come into their own for accompanying traditional folk music.
The down side is the width of the neck. Generally it is about 6mm or 1/4 of an inch wider than an acoustic guitar. While this may not sound like much it really does make quite a difference. Chords are harder to stretch and when strumming, it takes just so much longer to get across all the strings. The plus side is that you are less likely to foul the string by touching its neighbour. Classical guitars come in full size, 3/4 size and 1/2 size. Most guitar stores either only stock a few or do not carry them at all. The reason is that they sell more slowly than acoustics which itself may tell us something.
From an operational view point their main drawback is string breakages. I have seen a good guitarist break an acoustics’ string during the first verse of a song and have a new string in place and tuned up before I reached the last verse. The congregation loved it! A broken nylon string takes ten minutes to change and will not settle in tune that day or the next!
Electric guitars get a bad reputation because of the nasty noise / macho sound associated with heavy metal. In all this the guitar itself is completely innocent. Guitars never distort, it is the amplifier and speaker that do that!
While the acoustic guitar needs heavy strings to produce its sound, the electric uses much lighter and therefore more comfortable strings. The string tension on an acoustic with “Light” gauge strings is about 120kg. The electric guitar can have as little as 80 or 90kg so playing them is a real treat.
The most popular models are now 50 years old. The Stratocaster, Telecaster, Les Paul and SG. All of these are solid bodied instruments and of course require an amplifier to create the sound. Amps are not just boring black boxes which cost a lot but they are responsible for 60-70% of the overall sound. Buying a guitar at $300 and an amp at $50 is a bad idea. Better to spend $175 on each.
Back to the guitars. If you want to play Heavy metal, then the Les Paul and SG styles are the way to go. While the Les Paul style is arguably the best, it costs more than the SG and it weighs a ton! If you are only on stage for twenty minutes then fair enough but if it is a three hour gig in a bar then hand me an SG. (And as for double necks, just forget it.)
If your music requires only subtle distortion or even clean sounds then the Stratocaster and Telecaster are best. The cheaper models do however have an annoying hum that can be intrusive. This comes from the single coil pickups and is, I am afraid, just something you have to live with unless you can afford to go up market.
The Stratocaster style has a moving bridge and a tremolo arm. This can be used to drop the pitch of the strings but is possibly not the best idea when it comes to trying to keep your instrument in tune. The Telecaster has a fixed bridge and sounds great when complemented by a bass guitar but very thin sounding on its own.
For the greatest tonal quality the electric semi-acoustic is easily the best. These are either hollow or semi-solid guitars and are ideal for playing at low volumes in small clubs, bars, churches etc. This type is identifiable by the violin like f holes on the front. The Gibson 335 is the most commonly copied model. For my money this style is the best although they are not suitable for loud metal bands as they will give uncontrollable feedback at high volume.
What do I get for my money?
While the cheaper acoustic and classical guitars have tops made from ply wood, their more expensive counterparts have solid or one piece tops. Solid top guitars will eventually sound better than their plywood cousins, although their may not be much difference at first. The less expensive solid top guitar will also sound much the same as its up market brother while both are being played quietly. Give it some hard strumming and the difference will become obvious.
Guitars mature with age. The rule of thumb is that, provided they are played regularly, they get better for the first two years. Then for the next ten they hold their tone before the wood starts to dry out and the treble begins to disappear. Their is a myth, perpetuated by guitar salesmen everywhere, that the older the guitar is then the better it sounds. Folk who spend a fortune on a 1960’s whatever are probably wasting their money although there will be the odd exception.
Solid electric guitars will tend to keep their tone longer than their more sensitive acoustic cousins but pick ups, like everything else, do deteriorate over the years.
Whatever instrument you go for then as you go up market, the materials used will be of better quality.
A case study.
A friend decided to buy a quality semi acoustic. For £500 a well known make beginning with E gave him 7 seconds of sustain. Pretty good but for £1000 an even better known make beginning with G gave him 14 seconds! Both guitars were beautifully finished and great to play but if you want top performance you have to hand over lots of cash.
Conclusion.
If you are just starting out then, money permitting, electric guitar is the easiest on which to learn. My second choice would be the classical for, as I mentioned earlier, the strings do not hurt so much in the early stages and it does not cost nearly as much!
Above all however is the question, “Whose music inspires me?” Try to get a guitar as close to your hero’s as possible and give him a run for his money!
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This is very, very good advice. I wish to get on my knees and thank you for it, because I have been wanting to learn how to play the guitar (one of those things I want to do before I die) and have been looking to find the perfect one for me. Your words, I hope, will help me when I go to pick up a guitar next week. (I’m going to have a copy of this in my wallet.)
Anyway,I thank you for your very helpful words. Buying the right guitar can be very stressful, can’t it? I hope I have enough moonet to get a good one though.
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