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Post by absy84 on Aug 29, 2015 20:36:18 GMT
Hi,
I'm a complete newbie. 1 of my bucket list items was to learn a musical instrument and I have chosen the guitar - acoustic guitar to be precise.
I've got a budget of £200 - which I assume is sufficient.
Can you please provide me some guidance on whether I should purchase an acoustic or electro acoustic? Also, what brand should I go for?
Also any recommendation on the tuner would be great.
Any advise you can give me would be great.
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Post by j45aarron on Aug 29, 2015 20:53:41 GMT
I have a yamaha ll6 for sale on ebay for 250, perfect guitar to start of with as it's also an electro acoustic if not then look up acoustic guitar shops and put your budget in and check reviews.
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Post by earwighoney on Aug 29, 2015 21:36:33 GMT
Hi, I'm a complete newbie. 1 of my bucket list items was to learn a musical instrument and I have chosen the guitar - acoustic guitar to be precise. I've got a budget of £200 - which I assume is sufficient. Can you please provide me some guidance on whether I should purchase an acoustic or electro acoustic? Also, what brand should I go for? Also any recommendation on the tuner would be great. Any advise you can give me would be great. Welcome to the forum. To answer your questions one by one... Yes, £200 should be sufficient to buy a guitar. For the budget, I would recommend buying a guitar with no electronics (ie not an electro acoustic). For the tuner, a lot of people have favourable results using a clip on Snark, but in the era of Phone App's, there are someone decent Tuner Apps for a few quid if not free. I've been using Pitchlab Tuner or something which is excellent. When it comes to picking a guitar it's a bit more tricky. Acoustic guitars come in a variety of different shapes and sizes, much the same as people and it's about finding the one that suits your hands and physique the best. I'd recommend trying to make your way to a guitar shop if possible and trying a few different shapes and sizes and find the one which suits you. For brands, Yamaha, Vintage, Epiphone to name a few make excellent guitars for beginners in a variety of different shapes and sizes under your budget (within your budget you should be able to include a tuner, a string winder, a few extra strings, and a guitar case/gig bag)
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Post by ocarolan on Aug 29, 2015 22:20:23 GMT
Hello absy84 and welcome to the Forum. It would be a good idea to look for suitable shops in your area where you can get firsthand face-to-face advice. You'll probably notice quite a difference in how different shops react to you as a potential customer, but hopefully you'll find at least one helpful shop with a variety of instruments in your price range. What general area is accessible to you? Someone here may be able to recommend a particular localish shop to you. Keith
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Post by allthumbs on Sept 6, 2015 9:34:44 GMT
Try before you buy!!!
I recently bought my daughter a Vintage V300. We went in to the local music shop for something completely different as it happens. I think we paid £160 but it can be had elsewhere for example £130 from Amazon. It's slightly smaller than a dreadnought and nice to look at. You should be able to get one, with a case and a strap for £200 from a local dealer.
I was impressed by the build quality of the guitar. It had reasonable strings on, had a medium to slightly low action, nice frets and good intonation. The binding was nicely done too. More importantly, my junior school daughter liked it. She found it nice and easy to play, liked the size and liked the sound.
I absolutely would never buy a mail/internet order guitar without seeing it and playing it in person. I once had a bad experience with a top of the range 'imported' ukulele from a well established brand that I purchased online and vowed never to buy 'blind' again (with the exception of a luthier hand built instrument). A good local shop will really try to help you. If you feel they are rushing you to make your mind up, they are not such a good local shop.
Gav.
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Post by scorpiodog on Sept 7, 2015 10:48:25 GMT
Hi absy84 . Welcome to the forum. I'm sure you'll enjoy it here if you're as passionate about acoustic guitars as most of us are. Everything said above is true, and constitutes excellent advice. I'm another great supporter of the Vintage V300 as a starter instrument, though it does have one major drawback. The neck width at the tuner end (the nut) is quite narrow, and doesn't suit everybody. I've not found it a problem on any of the 3 of these that I have bought (I do like to encourage my young relatives to play the guitar!) but I do know that there are some players who find the neck restrictive. The advice given above to go and try your guitar before you buy it is good, but it strikes me that, if you've never played before, you may find this awkward or you may not know what exactly you are looking for which makes it potentially quite a difficult exercise, and fraught with the chances of buying an instrument that is deficient in some way. Do you have a friend who plays acoustic guitar? If so, I strongly suggest you ask them to come with you when you buy. There are two major reasons for this. The obvious one is that they can probably help you to avoid pitfalls when buying (cheaper guitars can sometimes be subject to quality control issues such as poor intonation [when you fret a note it plays something slightly out of tune], or poorly dressed frets [which leads to buzzing on certain notes]). The other one is that a guitar sounds different from the front (the audience side) that from the back (the player's side) and while, as a novice, you'd be sensible to concentrate mainly on whether the guitar is playable and an appropriate size for you, the way it sounds is what it's really about. I've done this for people from time to time, and they've found it quite valuable. It's not a chore. There aren't many people on this forum who don't go into guitar shops whenever possible! I've also taken friends to guitar shops when I'm buying a guitar, because I like to hear what the guitar sounds like from out front, and in some shops the assistants are too busy to do this (or, in certain very bad cases, too sneery - I'm afraid this still sometimes happens!). But before you go into a guitar shop, you have to ask yourself what style of guitar music you would like to play. You choice of guitars will be very different if you wish to play classical guitar from those more suitable to country music, for example. While it's true that virtually anything can be played on any guitar, it's also true that music played on the appropriate guitar will sound better and may well be easier to play, than if you choose an instrument designed for something else. I congratulate you on this particular element of your bucket list. The acoustic guitar is a rewarding instrument to play, portable and versatile. I wish you success in buying and learning this instrument that gives all of us on this forum so much joy. I hope you'll be a regular contributor to the forum. You'll find a lot of support and advice from the incredibly knowledgeable and encouraging people here.
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Post by pga25 on Sept 7, 2015 22:33:30 GMT
My advice would be.to ask what type of music you want to play. If you are at a certain age and want to play chords so you can sing songs then I would suggest you look at a ukelele. The chords are the same shape as the guitar and it is much easier to get started on. And unlike a guitar it is a very sociable instrument. Most towns have ukelele clubs which welcome beginners an
d i would suggest you contact them Regards Peter A guitarist and ukelele player
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Post by ocarolan on Sept 7, 2015 22:42:15 GMT
Hi Peter - welcome! Lots of uke love here, as well as a certain amount of (undeserved) derision from some quarters. Keith
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Post by kevmc1180 on Jan 6, 2016 13:46:06 GMT
My advice would be.to ask what type of music you want to play. If you are at a certain age and want to play chords so you can sing songs then I would suggest you look at a ukelele. The chords are the same shape as the guitar and it is much easier to get started on. And unlike a guitar it is a very sociable instrument. Most towns have ukelele clubs which welcome beginners an d i would suggest you contact them Regards Peter A guitarist and ukelele player I thought Ukelele chords and guitar chords were different shapes?
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Jan 6, 2016 14:42:02 GMT
My advice would be.to ask what type of music you want to play. If you are at a certain age and want to play chords so you can sing songs then I would suggest you look at a ukelele. The chords are the same shape as the guitar and it is much easier to get started on. And unlike a guitar it is a very sociable instrument. Most towns have ukelele clubs which welcome beginners an d i would suggest you contact them Regards Peter A guitarist and ukelele player I thought Ukelele chords and guitar chords were different shapes? Yes, and no! Uke shapes can be the same as the top four strings on guitar, but the name for a particular shape will be different as the uke is like a guitar with capo at fret 5. ie a guitar xx0232 is a D, but a uke 0232 is a G. Same shape, different resultant pitch/sound/chord. Hope that helps! keith
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Post by caineiscarter on Jan 6, 2016 16:10:07 GMT
I'd like to add something if I may - whichever guitar you buy, it will almost certainly have what could be described as a "high" action; this means there will be a relatively large gap between the strings and the fretboard. They are factory set up this way for a number of reasons, but having a high action can be a serious impediment to a new player. Try and budget for a proper setup by the guitar shop's luthier (techie person who fiddles around with guitars). It could make the difference between you giving up or persevering. FWIW, every guitar I've ever bought has benefited greatly from a setup, whether it cost £200 or £2000. As the luthier in my local shop pointed out, many players are unaware that their new guitar came with a high factory setup, and then they endured a hard and high action for 20 years before learning better and having it fixed Best of luck whatever you buy, and I wish you many years of musical pleasure.
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