Tips and Information for Beginners. Review on Musical Instruments in General

I am a guitar player for a few years now, I fell in love with this instrument for its sheer versatility. I would want to share my experience of my journey of learning the guitar(Which is still ongoing, will always be ongoing). I had faced some difficulties as a beginner, in understanding which guitar is good for me to start with or how much money should I invest in my first guitar(keeping in mind ones budget as well as the level of interest / Passion one has towards learning the instrument), should I go for an acoustic or an electric guitar.

I ended up buying a cheap acoustic guitar, which was made of some wood, and had a really bad sound(Which you will realize only after a few years of playing, even I did learn about it very late), when I went to the store to buy my first guitar, I paid attention only to its looks.Didn't give a damn to the tone, or the quality as such.

So my first piece of advise to all you beginners out there, Make sure that your guitar sounds good to your ears, and do not go for colors, the first priority has to be good tone, and most importantly, the play-ability. Now you may say how do I check playability, when I do not even know how to play the guitar.Well, I must say that's a great question. Here is how you can check that

Google some chords, Such as A Major, D Major, and E Major.These are very simple beginner chords. Once you memorize the finger positioning of these chords. Try them at the guitar store, DON'T BE SHY to play at the store, even if you see some people around you in the store playing stuff much better than you, and maybe looking at you to make you feel you are an idiot or something. JUST IGNORE IT

I could have told you to take a friend of yours go along and play the guitar, but that will not give you an idea if you are comfortable playing that particular guitar, your friend may be fine with it, but you may not be necessarily. So Feel the guitar, See how comfortable you are with playing these simple chords. if you are fine, your fingers dont hurt much, then the 1st test is done.

2nd test, Check if there is too much gap between the strings and the neck of the guitar(Neck is where you keep your left hand(or Right Hand in case you are a lefty) and press down the strings to play it). This should be as less as possible, it would make it realz easy to play, and at the same it, you need to ensure that you DO NOT hear any strings. If you hear any buzz, leave that guitar and try another.

Ok so now that we know a few things on how to get a guitar, now its the turn to check what kind of wood does the guitar has.Most acoustic beginners guitars in the 3k to 5k range or even higher priced guitars come with laminated tops, By laminated tops I mean the area which faces the audience or the part which has a soundhole in the center of the guitar, Its called a sound hole. It is made of layers of thin sheet or wood, most very expensive guitars come with one solid piece of wood on the top, which sounds amazing.however as we are looking at inexpensive guitars here, We need to find a good one, which would most likely have a laminated top(Layered sheet of wood). It should still sound round and good. Should have a warm tone to it. You can easily make out if one has that tone, By looking out for harshness in the tone, have the guitar store guy play it for you and you be the tone judge.This is an important test. So once we are done with this step.we need to look for Strings.

Ask the store guy to tell you what strings are used in the guitar that you are planning to buy, Most new guitars with good strings on them would have a tag on it with the String name, such as D'Addario or Martin.I personally feel D'Addarios are AWESOME.And its almost always a good idea to change the strings on the guitar as soon as you purchase one.That dramatically changes the tone of the guitar, even if the guitar is a laminated one. Go for a new set of strings, D'Addario hardly costs 300 Rupees. Go for lighter strings, they can be played with very less effort.

Now that you have decided on your guitar, look out for a tuner, Do Not go for a fork tuner(these are ones that look like a fork and when you hit them onto a solid surface a pitch is heard and using that pitch you tune one string of the guitar, and based on that tuned string, you tune the other 5 strings, huh.sounds like a daunting task isn't), go for an electronic tuner, that would help you tune your guitar easily.You may ask the dealer to throw a tuner free for you.

So that sums up this article of mine about purchasing your first guitar(Acoustic).Will post more soon.