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Guitar For Beginners - Electric vs. Acoustic Starter Guitars

guitar for beginnersI've played tons of terrible guitars over the years and just because they have a huge price tag doesn't mean they're any good! Finding the right guitar for beginners is important because when you’re first starting to play, you may not know what to look for in a quality instrument. There are a couple of things you have to take into consideration when looking for a beginner guitar, or your very first guitar. Let’s take a look!

What Kind of Music Do You Want to Play?

This should be the first question you think of when deciding on buying your first guitar. It’s important to think about your endgame. What type of music do you want to play? For me, I really wanted to play classic stuff like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin so my first guitar was an electric. 

If you’re interested in playing metal, or punk rock, then you should probably find an electric guitar to start with. You’ll need distortion and you’ll want to mess around with amp settings to, you know, really get the "led" out. You simply cannot thrash on an acoustic. I mean, you can, but it would be awkward. Yes, you can grab an acoustic pickup but let’s not complicate things, just go with an electric guitar if you want to play anything distorted. 

If you mostly want to learn guitar so you can play songs around a campfire, or maybe your favorite artist is Johnny Cash, then by all means grab an acoustic as your starter. 

 

Acoustic or Electric?

Acoustic guitars are great because you don’t need anything to play them. Acoustic guitars create sound via the the sound hole so there is no need for an amp, power supply or cables. Acoustic guitars are also a bit lighter in weight. 

The downsides about picking up an acoustic guitar as your first guitar is that they may be a bit more difficult to play. Strings on an acoustic guitar are a bit thicker, for a fuller sound, but this means there will be more tension. When you’re first learning how to play guitar, your fingers will be in some pain, and learning on an acoustic guitar can make it even more painful. But hey, no pain, no gain! Don’t worry if you feel some pain because in due time your fingertips will develop calluses. And remember, electric guitars will give you a little pain as well. 

Electric guitars are great because there is less tension on the strings, and you’ll notice that the action, or the space between the strings and the fretboard is lower. Lower action means it will take less pressure for you to hold a string. Low action means less stress on your fingers. 

Electric guitars are also really versatile. Most electrics come with two or three pickups, which transmits the vibrations of your guitar into the amp. You can switch between the pickups and you’ll notice that each pickup slightly changes the guitar’s tone. Some electric guitars also feature whammy bars so you can alter your sound even more. Add this on top of the fact that you’ll have the ability to play with or without distortion and then you’ll realize electric guitars give you quite a bit of options, at least, sonically. 

The downside to electric guitars is that you need a lot of stuff to make it work. You need an amplifier, a cable and a power source. If you’re mostly a bedroom guitarist, then this is perfectly fine but it’s something to think about.

 

Our Acoustic Picks:

Taylor Academy 10 ($499)

This is it. The Taylor Academy Series acoustic guitar will last you a lifetime. They don’t come with any built-in electronics like a tuner, and you certainly can’t plug it into an amp, but if you need a quality acoustic instrument at a solid price, this will do the job. It has body contours for comfortability, decent tuners, and a solid pieces of real wood! 

Save a buck: Breedlove Discovery Dreadnought ($299)

Solid sitka spruce top, satin-finished neck. This was the second acoustic guitar I ever bought, and it is honestly one of the best sounding and feeling guitars I’ve ever played. For the price, you can’t beat it. 

 

Our Electric Picks:

Epiphone Les Paul SL Player Pack ($179-$209)

There are a lot of guitar for beginners bundles out there and this one is hard to beat. A number of electric guitar bundles will have the guitar, a guitar strap, the amp, and a cable, but what sets this one apart is that it’s a lot cheaper than the others at $179. It comes with a gig bag, picks, and a tuner as well. Plus, there are a ton of really fun colors. 

Alternative: Squier Bundle ($199-$299)

These are just as great as the Epiphones but be prepared to pay about $50 more for about the same thing. But if you really want a stratocaster-type guitar, this is a great choice, too. 

 

Should I Know Anything Else?

Get some new strings with your new guitar. When you purchase a guitar, whether it’s online and straight from the factory, or in a local shop, you need to change the strings. Strings can get dull from sitting around in a warehouse, or sitting on a rack in a store for days or weeks or months. This is especially true if you grab a used or demo guitar from a store, in which case, the guitar was most likely played by countless hands already. Change the strings. 

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