Tomi on 12/11/2011 at 22:49

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... or thinking of buying one, anyway, and as I know that there are a lot of experienced musicians/guitarists here, I thought that someone might be able to give me some advice. Now, I don't even know what kind of a guitar I'd like to buy, I'm just looking for some ideas and the pros and cons of each.

I didn't have any experience with playing guitar when I bought my first one about a year and a half ago. And when I say that I didn't have any experience, I mean it - I didn't even know what a "classical guitar" is! I think I wanted to buy an acoustic guitar but ended up buying a classical guitar (Yamaha CG-111S) instead... And to be honest, I'm still not sure if there's a huge difference, but I have a feeling that an acoustic guitar would probably fit my own musical taste better.

I feel that I know the very basic stuff pretty well by now - I can switch between the basic chords and some slightly trickier ones quickly enough and without mistakes. However, there are some chords where I'm supposed to stretch my fingers over two or three frets, and even if I spend a minute placing my fingers correctly, I still can't play these chords. Also, most bar chords that I try to play often sound a bit shit - even if I hold down the strings as hard as I can, some strings still sound a bit muted.

Yes, I know that my playing technique isn't on the Hendrix-level just yet (I've never taken any guitar lessons, I learnt all by myself and by watching some tutorial videos at (www.justinguitar.com), which I would highly recommend to everyone!), but is a classical guitar even meant for this kind of playing? I remember reading somewhere that a classical guitar is a great choice for a beginning player, but most of the classical guitar videos online seem to be some fingerpicking stuff or something that's still far beyond my current skills.

So, would I be better off with a "proper" acoustic guitar if I just want to strum along to my favourite songs? Or should I go electric? Or... um... get one of those electric/acoustic guitars that I know absolutely nothing about? Or stick with my good old Yamaha CG-111S and play it until my fingers bleed and work on my playing technique? I mostly listen to rock/pop/indie... Beatles, Bowie, Elliott Smith, Blur... that sort of stuff.

An electric guitar sounds tempting to me, especially because my current guitar is "almost acoustic" and I'd like to try something different, but I've tried playing one before, and let's just say that it didn't sound as cool as I thought it would. I suppose I should adapt my own playing style a bit for the electric... Anyway, if I bought one, would some pedals and stuff be essential as well? I would love to learn to play an electric guitar properly, but so far I'm only familiar with strumming chords, and some cool guitar solos still seem like a distant dream to me. Oh well, maybe one day... :cool:

"Proper" acoustic guitars are a bit of a mystery to me as well, so I probably should go to the nearest music shop and ask if I can try playing one, but I thought I would bother you people with my questions first. :p What's the biggest difference between a classical and an acoustic guitar, and is there really a big difference in their sound?

I wouldn't like to spend more than 500€ at the moment (and I would be happy to get away with ~300€), so I suppose that that rules out the better guitars. But surely I should be able to get something decent for that price?

I know I'm not making this easy for you - I don't even know what I want myself - but any advice or tips are more than welcome! What kind of guitar(s) did you guys start playing with and what are you playing now?

ANTSHODAN on 12/11/2011 at 23:20

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As far as I understand it (but you've made me doubt myself), a classical guitar uses nylon strings, an acoustic uses steel strings. Different headstock designs (where the strings wind up) to suit, also.

It sounds to me like a good acoustic would do you fine. If you can play some major chords with reasonably quick changes, itll sound pretty good from the off. I wouldnt worry about more difficult chords, keep practising them and before you know it you'll be playing them from muscle memory very quickly, very naturally. Same goes for barre chords - that took me like, 4 years before I was satisfied how they sound. I'd recommend going to a music shop and just having a quick strum on both acoustic and classical to get an idea of the differences - very different sounds as far as I'm concerned, and indeed, typically very different ways of playing them. I can't really describe it easily - I'm tempted to say classical sounds 'softer', yet i've heard some pretty harsh (in a good way) classical guitar.

Electric guitar - well... They're ace. They really are. But having a degree of style on them takes equal levels of practise; as you observed, simply plugging in a guitar doesn't make it sound amazingly better. My advice would be to get better with the acoustic, begin to recognise its limitations in certain contexts that could be complimented by electric, and only then consider electric. I mainly use my electric the moment I want to play something a little more complicated than jsut strum some chords on my acoustic. They're also infinitely better for bending notes, which, incidentally, i'd say is your first step to making your electric playing sound slicker, more like the pros.

Effects pedals - dont bother yet. You're new to guitar, so I'm going to guess you don't know the kind of sounds you are aiming for quite yet. I'd maybe recommend buying a cheapish multi-fx unit and getting familiar with it. It will introduce you to the precise characteristics of a phaser or a flanger, the difference between delay and echo, the difference between overdrive and distortion, whether or not you even want a wah pedal, and why you could never live without a chorus pedal (hint: you can fuckin chorus pedals making everything sound shit). You get my drift hopefully - before buying a fucktonne of effects, you need to understand what you're wanting your guitar to sound like. When I got my first electric guitar, I had an amp that had reverb (most amps have that anyway) and a cool distortion sound. If you do decide to get electric, I'd recommend buying a basic amp with similar features. It's just a great way of introducing you to how your guitar can sound, and gives you a small level of customisability so you can get an idea of how you can shape that sound yourself. While more comprehensive than simple reverb and distortion, the Line 6 Spider range of amps are pretty good for basic effects - might even save you the bother of having that 'my first multi-fx' I mentioned earlier.

As for recommendations - well, I'm not going to give you any, and I'd advise you to be wary of others who do so. We all love to say "X is great, so much better than Y", and it's usually because we're a proud owner of X. It goes for instruments ("lawl gibson is sooo much better than fender"), consoles ("lol xbox? Fuck you, RROD-fancyer!"), cars, wines, processor manufacturers... you get the idea. The best thing to do is try them. Before buying my acoustic, I went to music shops in 3 different cities to find the one I liked best (and it was £150 below my budget too!). By all means, read reviews or listen to opinions to get an idea of the general playing field, but ultimately, you just gotta try a whole load of them and say "yup, that one feels good, I like how it sounds, i want it, oh shit thats expensive"

I'm sorry if half of this doesn't make sense, I really cant be bothered proof-reading it back. I do however, hope there might be some small bit of useful advice in my ramblings.

Edit: I forgot to say, electro acoustics (thanks demagogue). They're also ace. A lot of fun to put though effects too, and with a bit of overdrive here, a bit of delay there, you can play it almost like an electric. However its important to understand that an electro-acoustic does not replace an electric. Definitely different beasts. Maaaybe worth considering getting one just for the versatility it would bring you (you can get familiar with effects and playing through an amp).

PigLick on 13/11/2011 at 00:54

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In a nutshell, a classical guitar uses nylon strings (as already mentioned), is contructed of different material to a steel-string acoustic, has a different shape and a wider flatter fretboard. It has a nice soft mellow tone, good for classical(obviously), latin, flamenco.
However if you want to get any kind of harder rock sounds then you will want a steel string, basically a classical and steel-string sound totally different.

gunsmoke on 13/11/2011 at 05:28

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Just man up and get a Bass guitar already. :P

PigLick on 13/11/2011 at 12:48

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dont discount an electric, although you may have to get sundry items like amp, leads etc, you may be more satisfied with an electric rather than acoustic
1 - easier to play due to a lighter string gauge being the norm for an elctric
2- easier to use with a pc or other digital interface
3- looks cool