Whether you’ve just decided to learn for the first time or you have rekindled your love for music, the guitar is a wonderful creative outlet with which you may express yourself. One of the many benefits of the guitar is that being able to play it opens up many opportunities for challenging your mind, relaxing, and even expanding your social horizons. Keep at it, and you may even open up a new income stream. Before you dive in, consider the following three points to choosing the right guitar.
Type of Guitar
Before you even pick out an instrument, decide on what type of music you will want to play on it. If you play the type of music you enjoy the most, you will find it easier and more fun to practice. You will stay engaged and energized, and thus more motivated to advance.
The type of music you desire to learn will lead you to the type of guitar you will want to purchase. If you fancy yourself a singer/songwriter who enjoys folk music, then you might consider a nylon-string acoustic. This would be a good choice if you are interested in learning classical music, as well. If your taste leans more towards blues or jazz – perhaps even country or rock – then an electric guitar is more your speed.
Electric guitar for an adult
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Size of Guitar
Guitars come in sizes? Yes, they do! People come in all sizes, so why shouldn’t instruments? You should be able to comfortably reach over your guitar and reach all of the frets. A typical adult is comfortable on a full size 40” Concert guitar, while a taller person might do better with a 41” Dreadnought acoustic. There are other sizes, so if you are very small in stature, shop around.
Dreadnought guitar
San Diego guitar lessons 619-306-3664
Electric guitars come in various sizes and styles, and tend to be smaller. Enjoy the process of ‘trying them on for size’ and keep looking until you find one that fits you.
Shopping Responsibly
Did you give up playing “way back when” because you found your guitar was too hard to play? Perhaps you understood the technique and worked on the fingering, but you just couldn’t seem to get your guitar to make the right sounds – or it was actually physically painful. It may not have been you at all! It may very well have been that the guitar you attempted to play was not properly adjusted.
There are several ways that a guitar may be improperly set up. For instance, the strings may be seated too high above the freeboard, which means that you must exert extra pressure to hold them against the frets. This particular issue is a very common problem with out-of-the-box guitars, and it causes players to lose interest because it’s just too hard to play.
Trying to learn on a maladjusted instrument sends conflicting signals to both your brain and the muscles you are trying to train. It causes jerky and difficult playing, which in turn destroys any pleasure you might get out of learning how to play.
Whether you are buying used or new, take the time an effort to ensure that you are buying a guitar that has been both inspected and adjusted for playability. Not only will you find it easier to play, but you will find yourself learning quicker than ever before!