subject: Choosing a guitar - the most important factor [print this page] The most important thing you need to check when choosing which guitar to buy is what they call "playability".
That is, is it easy to press the strings down onto the fretboard when you are playing chords and notes. As a beginner, forget about what the guitar looks like or what it sounds like. Playability is all you need to worry about, nothing else.
Many people try to learn the guitar and give up. They decide it's just too hard. It's true that it's not so easy to learn guitar, and if your guitar has poor playability the job just becomes harder. Impossible maybe.
I'm a guitar teacher and the best advice I can give to any beginner, regardless of age, is forget about what your new instrument looks like and sounds like. Get yourself a guitar that feels good when you hold it and which has the strings set low, close to the fretboard. That's all you need to worry about.
Your fingertips will be sore until the skin toughens up, but if your guitar has good playability the fingers themselves will remain pain-free. This means you won't be reluctant to pick the instrument up for your daily practice session.
A guitar with good playability helps you learn faster, and when you know how to play guitar it helps you play better. Regardless of how good a guitarist you are, a guitar with poor playability will always make playing of chords and note more difficult, and this is especially true if you are trying something fast.
Will you be buying an acoustic or an electric guitar? For a beginner an acoustic is usually the better choice. You don't have to buy an amplifier, so you save money there, and you don't have to set the amplifier up every time you want to practice. You also don't have to worry about the neighbors complaining about the noise. A beginner playing an amplified guitar is, to tell the truth, not something that any neighbor deserves.
When you've chosen the guitar that's right for you, be sure you also buy a guitar stand. With your guitar always sitting on its stand, looking at you as it were, you are unlikely to forget your daily practice session.
It's pretty hard the first two or three weeks. Your fingertips will be sore, and maybe you will be wondering what you have got yourself into. But you will remember, I hope, that you love guitar music and you are determined to be a guitarist.
Anything is hard to start with, and that includes guitar playing. The guitarists you admire most all started off like you, with no ability except ten fingers and a will to succeed.
You should make up your mind to practice half an hour a day, no matter what. Half an hour a day, every day, come rain or come shine. It will drive you nuts sometimes, sometimes you will hate the thought of picking up the damn guitar, and that's where your rule applies more than ever: half an hour a day, every day.
Then one, day, not too far away as it happens, you will find you are a guitarist and not just a beginner guitarist.
Some people learn faster than others. Don't compare yourself with anybody. Just focus on the journey and the destination. Why are you learning guitar? To be an accompanist or to play solo? A bit of both maybe?
Whatever your goal is, everyone starts at square one. Just keep playing away and for sure you will get where you are headed. But remember, a guitar with good playability will make the journey easier and shorter.
To make choosing a guitar easier there is actually a range of guitars, in the medium price range, which are customized by hand for maximum playability. They're not at your music store, they only come direct from the supplier, Zager Guitars in Lincoln, Nebraska.
What you can do is pick a guitar from the website and have it delivered. If it's not exactly what you want you just return it and get all your money back, including the shipping cost both ways. Zager Guitars are at www.zager-guitar.info.
Choosing a guitar with good playability is your first step on the road to becoming a guitarist. Don't put a foot wrong.
