Shopping for Your First Guitar
What does it all mean? Let’s clear it up, so you can shop with confidence and get on to learning to play like the pros do!
Guitars have been around for hundreds of years, and have evolved, though they still are essentially unchanged in many ways. All guitars, for instance, have basically the same construction- they all have a neck, fingerboard, body, bridge, and tuning machines (or simply “tuners”). Generally, they are all made of some type of wood, but some companies have had success with guitars made of steel or aluminum!
Probably the most unchanged design is the classical guitar. This design is sometimes called a “nylon-string” and is commonly played by classical style players, although when a song calls for a certain sound, players of all styles will grab their nylon-string guitar for just that right sound. The body is a little smaller and the neck chunkier than steel string acoustic or electric models. Classical guitars are “acoustic” guitars meaning they have a soundhole and rely on their construction and the vibration of the wood to project the sound of the guitar into the room. The strings are thicker than steel strings, and are made of nylon. A notable visual difference is on the peghead (or “headstock”)- the buttons of the tuning machines point back toward the player, rather than straight out to the side as they do on other acoustic designs.
A more modern variation of the classical guitar is the folk guitar, or steel string guitar. They look similar to the classical guitar with some differences. The body is bigger and the neck skinnier, and as I pointed out before, the tuning machines point out to the sides rather than straight back. The tone is much brighter, thanks to the steel strings, which put a lot more tension on the neck when tuned to standard pitch. To compensate for the more playable neck and the extra tension from the strings, steel string guitars have a reinforcement rod (called a truss rod) inside the neck glued in under the fingerboard. This allows the neck to be adjusted to allow for heavier or lighter strings so the guitar can be adjusted perfectly for any players hands!
The third type, electric guitars, are a much newer invention in comparison, and are actually one half of a team, with their partner being the amplifier. There are many different types of electric guitars and just as many amplifiers, but again, they all have several characteristics in common. Electric guitars do not vibrate as freely as acoustic guitars do, and thus rely on a device called a pickup to change the vibrations of the steel strings into a sound signal which is then fed into an amplifier, which makes the sound loud enough to hear. They use steel strings, and like the steel string acoustic guitar, have a truss rod which allows the neck to be adjusted for heavier or lighter strings. More than this, the bridge (opposite from the tuning machines) can be adjusted on each string so that each one plays perfectly in tune with all the others!
Because of the nature of electric guitar construction, guitar builders can be extremely creative with the shape of the body, length of the neck, and even the number of strings! 7 string electric guitars have become quite popular in recent times with players wanting to reach lower notes without completely retuning their instruments. The differences in tone on an electric has as much to do with the pickup construction as it does with the amplifier the guitar is plugged into! Essentially, they are either single- or double-coil models and most times, one instrument will have at least two pickups of one kind or the other which can then be mixed for even more tonal possibilities!
This article could go on for pages and pages, but this is information to use when shopping for your first intrument. As with many things, the fit is important, and just let your ears be the judge. Once you have some idea what you’re looking for, go to your local music store and try out different models, new and used- you never know, you may find a classic that fits you like a glove on the sale rack, or something brand new that you hadn’t even considered before!
