Infact if anyone could suggest one for a complete beginner, then if i get any good i can buy a decent one, cheers.

_________________
I butter my own toast.

hayezy wrote:

Infact if anyone could suggest one for a complete beginner, then if i get any good i can buy a decent one, cheers.

Well there are starter packs you can buy. I paid $220 for a guitar with a small amp pack. The amp died after a couple of years.
Do you have a price limit?

_________________

Rock 'n' Roll Star! wrote:

hayezy wrote: Infact if anyone could suggest one for a complete beginner, then if i get any good i can buy a decent one, cheers. Well there are starter packs you can buy. I paid $220 for a guitar with a small amp pack. The amp died after a couple of years. Do you have a price limit?

Not really but i wouldnt want to spend too much anyway incase as i said before i was crap at it, and btw i meant acoustic

_________________
I butter my own toast.

Congrats for the great decision of starting to learn the guitar!

In my opinion, you should get a good enough guitar from the very beginning, because a crap one will kill your enthusiasm very soon. My acoustic cost about 250 e when I started 5 yers ago and I still have it. It's a Yamaha fx-310 and it's a good guitar for beginners. I think about 150 e would be a absolute minimum to spend on the guitar, because any less than that is gonna be more or less crap. And if we talk about electrics, it's more, because cheap electrics are even bigger motivation killers than cheap acoustics, imo.

The first thing you should learn about the guitar is how to tune it properly, because when you play with a guitar that's out of tune, it doesn't matter how well you play, cos you'll sound shit anyway and that's obviously very unmotivating. Buy an electronic tuner, if you already don't have one. It only costs about 20 e.

Another thing you have to understand is that the playing will hurt your fingertips like hell at first (a few weeks), especially if you play steel string acoustic, but it's only normal. It gets easier after you've "built" calluses (not sure about the word) on your fingertips and they come with time as you keep playing and after that your playing gets much easier. You also need to be patient. Set yourself small enough goals that are not too hard to achieve, rather than deciding to learn to play the guitar in the next few weeks or so. Don't start learning too difficult stuff at first, cos you'll only end up thinking you're crap and then give up. This happened to my friend who liked Dire Straits at the time he started. He hasn't been playing for years anymore. The truth is, you know, that there are no short cuts of learning to play. You have to start from the very basics and proceed with small steps. It's gonna be a long process(neverending), but don't think about that, cos the journey is gonna be very rewarding.

So, where should you start then and what would be the right order of learning things? Well, I'm still trying to figure that one out myself, as I'm also only half way through there, obviously, but a good thing to start from, like somebody already mentioned, is to learn some basics major and minor open chords and after you're familiar with some of them, you can start learning to change between them over some simple strumming. Remember to start slowly and simply and as you get better, you can increase the speed and use a bit more complex strumming. Then you can start using those skills by starting to practice some simple songs. Oasis and the beatles are good choices for instance. As you learn more and more songs, your chord vocabulary will grow along the way.

Buying a book about guitar playing is a good idea and the internet also has much information. Check out Justin Sandercoe or David Taub from youtube, they are good instructors and they also have their own sites.

Good luck and keep asking, there are no stupid questions.

Cheers, very helpful

_________________
I butter my own toast.

hayezy wrote:

Cheers, very helpful

Thanks, you're welcome!

Oh another thing, if i did ge tone that didnt sound too great couldn't you just replace the strings and make it sound good or are not all guitars able to do that?

_________________
I butter my own toast.

hayezy wrote:

Oh another thing, if i did ge tone that didnt sound too great couldn't you just replace the strings and make it sound good or are not all guitars able to do that?

I'm not sure what you mean by "are not all guitars able to do that?", but you can change the strings to every guitar if that's what you mean. Changing strings is something you have to do regularly, as they're getting looser and dirty and thus lose their sound quality. I change mine about every three months I guess. Some pros may change them every other week, dunno, it depends how much you play, but by changing them you keep the sound nice and fresh. You can't however make a crappy sounding guitar to sound much better by changing strings. It's the body that's more important in producing the sound and if the guitar sounds bad to begin with, there's not much you can do. But talking about cheap guitars, the most important thing to look at isn't the sound, but the other things like poor playability, possibly warped neck, uneven frets that are buzzing no matter what you do (notice, good guitars may buzz too, if the settings are off), poor intonation, you can't get it properly tuned etc. So, by saving a little you can save yourself from a lot of unwanted trouble. 150-200 euros should be enough for a decent guitar. Check from the net a list of things to consider when buying a guitar, things to look at, although when I bought my Yamaha 5 years ago I new nothing about guitars, I just went to a guitar store and said something like "one acoustic guitar for me, please." Also, I recommend buying a steelstring acoustic, as they sound more rock'n'roll than the nylon string classical guitars and their neck is also thinner and more comfortable.

Jarvis1 wrote:

hayezy wrote: Oh another thing, if i did ge tone that didnt sound too great couldn't you just replace the strings and make it sound good or are not all guitars able to do that? I'm not sure what you mean by "are not all guitars able to do that?", but you can change the strings to every guitar if that's what you mean. Changing strings is something you have to do regularly, as they're getting looser and dirty and thus lose their sound quality. I change mine about every three months I guess. Some pros may change them every other week, dunno, it depends how much you play, but by changing them you keep the sound nice and fresh. You can't however make a crappy sounding guitar to sound much better by changing strings. It's the body that's more important in producing the sound and if the guitar sounds bad to begin with, there's not much you can do. But talking about cheap guitars, the most important thing to look at isn't the sound, but the other things like poor playability, possibly warped neck, uneven frets that are buzzing no matter what you do (notice, good guitars may buzz too, if the settings are off), poor intonation, you can't get it properly tuned etc. So, by saving a little you can save yourself from a lot of unwanted trouble. 150-200 euros should be enough for a decent guitar. Check from the net a list of things to consider when buying a guitar, things to look at, although when I bought my Yamaha 5 years ago I new nothing about guitars, I just went to a guitar store and said something like "one acoustic guitar for me, please." Also, I recommend buying a steelstring acoustic, as they sound more rock'n'roll than the nylon string classical guitars and their neck is also thinner and more comfortable.

Very helpful again cheers

_________________
I butter my own toast.