Buying Equipment

Buying Equipment

Do you know how many guitars were sold last year in the UK? Well believe it or not, the government publish the statistics - it's about 550,000 acoustic guitars and 350,000 electrics.  Wow!  No wonder guitar teachers are so busy.

Let's start with a statement of the blindingly obvious - there's a lot of guitars out there.  That's a good thing and a bad thing.  It's good that there is a lot of competition that want your custom and as a result there are few really horrible guitars out there.  Lots of brands and styles though is not necessary a good thing when it gets down to choosing what a student REALLY needs.  When faced with perhaps a 100 electric guitars in a shop, which is the one you need rather than the one you want? 

So what do you really need.  Well it has to play easily and it has to motivate you to want to pick it up and practise.  Most guitars now play pretty well and generally the more you pay the better they play and sound.  It's the sound that usually gets compromised when the manufacturer cuts costs.

So here's the dictatorial part.  I think you need a guitar that

1. plays easily
2. can be tuned easily
3. has the basics you really need before you get to be an advanced player 
4. that means a guitar without a tremolo arm
5. good machine heads (tuners)
6. stable construction.

I'll put a whole lot of links and recommendations here soon (7th November 2009)