Picking the right guitar for a beginner student may be the deciding factor that helps a budding musician make it through the first few months of learning. Some guitars are cumbersome to play and others are either too heavy or look horrible. A new student should feel comfortable and love the look of their first instrument. We have found that if a student likes their new instrument they are more motivated to practice and will become better players in a shorter time.
We asked two of our expert teachers what guitars they choose for themselves and their students. Here’s what they had to say:
For a student model, I recommend the Yamaha Pacifica bundle. Its a great guitar and comes with lots of fun accessories and is well priced. Kids need to love their guitar because when they do, it helps encourage them to practice. Electric guitars are the better choice for beginning guitar players because they are easier to play, there are more styles of music that can be applied to them, and they inspire the student to practice.
For other choices or if the student wants more, I’m partial to Les Paul body style instruments. There are many out there and they are more playable, meaning they fit your body better and afford more progress when learning. My Burr Johnson Model guitar (made by Hagstrom) is based on the Les Paul/336 body style and is a dream to play. The Epiphone Les Paul is also good.
For Jazz and Blues, another great choice is the Gibson 335/347/336 models. They are a larger body size and have “F” hole designs. They are semi hollow body guitars and get a very nice round full sound.
1993 USA Epiphone Riviera – This guitar was built in Nashville as part of a limited USA-made edition of 250 Rivieras and 250 Sheratons in 1993. The production was made very carefully, paying much attention to the Epiphone legacy including the original ‘mini-humbucker’ pickups. This guitar was advertised by Lenny Kravitz when it was first released and also regularly played by – me. 😉
Nashguitar T-Model – The T-model is basically Nashguitar’s version of the Fender Telecaster. I don’t know much detail about it but when I compared an original early 1960s Fender Telecaster to this one I was amazed how much better this one sounded. Brilliant manufacturing and amazing, bright, and powerful Telecaster sound!
Fender Jazzmaster – It seems like there is a revival of this guitar going on for a while now and it’s legitimate: it’s a very versatile guitar with its unique, vast combination possibilities of its single coil pickups and its tone knobs. Just listen to Wilco’s Nels Cline!
Gibson SG – This is AC/DC’s signature sound with its thick and dirty sound – but also the sound of early Cream during Eric Clapton’s very creative musical period. Now combine a normal set of strings on one fretboard with a set of 12-strings on another and you’ll have the famous Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page double neck guitar!
At this point I would have to mention the Fender Stratocaster or the Gibson Les Paul, but those need no description as any serious or beginning guitar lover already knows. There are also some rare but possible-to-find great vintage hollow bodies out there from companies like Gretsch, Epiphone, Guild etc. that sound amazing and are also affordable. Keep an open eye to those ones if you enter a guitar shop if you like some beautiful vintage guitar sounds!
All images courtesy of Dan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
The guitar comes in three types, classical with nylon strings, acoustic with steel strings and electric with steel strings and pickups to electrify the sound. Within that, there are literally thousands of options of styles and colors. And they come in all shapes and sizes. From Jimmy Page’s double neck, Jerry Garcia’s Tiger, BB King’s beloved Lucille and Willie Nelson’s Trigger, there are plenty of guitars out there to satisfy your musical appetite.
But what about that six year old who’s thinking about starting lessons? I don’t think you’re running out to buy The Flying V just yet. So where do you start? Let the pros at Music to Your Home be your guide. Our first piece of advice is don’t go out and buy the most expensive guitar on the rack. It’s not necessary at this point. As the student progresses, you’ll know when it’s time to make a bigger investment, but for now you can get a decent set up for under $200.00.
For beginners there are generally three sizes of guitars to choose from, full size, ¾ size, and half size. Here’s a breakdown but remember, the only true way to get the right fit is to head to a store and try one in person.
The half size guitar is great for kids ages 3-6. The ¾ should work well for 6-10 year olds. Finally, the full size should cover you after that, but be aware that there are variations of regular size guitars, so once again, hold one and see how it feels!
Now that you have an idea of size, let’s discuss string type. Nylon strings are much easier to push down on and softer on little fingers and many of our teachers would suggest starting on those. If steel strings are preferred, go for it, but know that it will take a while to build up the calluses that all guitar players eventually develop.
Is your child a lefty? There are a couple of lefty guitars out there, however, like baseball mitts, the choices are much fewer. You can also learn to play right handed, or string a righty guitar upside down. Many lefties simply adapt, and learn to play righty.
Don’t forget the accessories too – stand, tuner, case, picks, and an amp for your little shredder if needed.
Whatever guitar your child ends up with, our instructors can teach them how to tune it, care for it and hopefully, one day, play your favorite song on it!
Image courtesy of Iamnee at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Playing the guitar should be fun right? If you’re the type of person we like to call a “strummer” and you’re not looking to rip a technical solo, then this list of songs is perfect for you. Most of these tunes use only 4 or 5 chords and are great for singing along to. This list is sure to impress your guests at your next BBQ.
Wish You Were Here- Pink Floyd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPL_SV3n7IU
This is one of my favorite songs to play especially on acoustic guitar. It has a very simple intro that can be learned by ear or the tabs can be found here http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/p/pink_floyd/wish_you_were_here_ver5_tab.htm . The rest of song uses C, D Am, G and Em. It’s a great song that everyone will like hearing, or you can just rock out alone in your bedroom…
Free Fallin’- Tom Petty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lWJXDG2i0A
This is such an iconic rock song. Practically everybody knows it. To play it in the same key as Tom Petty, put a capo on the 3rd fret and play D, A, G and you’ve got it. The entire song is basically just 3 chords! Singing it like Tom is another challenge and we’ll save that tip for another blog.
Redemption Song- Bob Marley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFGgbT_VasI
This is an extremely powerful song. It has a short and simple intro that can be found here: http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/b/bob_marley/redemption_song_tab.htm The chords are crafted in such a way to create an emotional atmosphere for anyone listening. The best part is any beginner can master this one. It’s also another great song to sing along to without worrying about complicated chord changes.
Strong Enough – Sheryl Crow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiYE5e8gXRY
Sheryl Crow is an incredible composer. This song uses a few basic chords. The verse and Chorus is D, G, Bm and A with a bridge using Em, Bm C and A. Not really a lot but another easy and fun song to play. If you’re not a girl, go find one to sing this with and you’ll be in business.
Wonderwall- Oasis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hzrDeceEKc
Here is a song that is known internationally. Everyone has their opinions about Oasis but no matter what they are, there is no disputing the popularity of this song. The acoustic guitar strumming the intro is so recognizable but easy to play. Throw a capo on the 2nd fret and play Em, G, D, and A and that’s basically it. The chorus uses C, D and Em. There are some extensions to these chords, but for a beginner the basic forms will work nicely. This is a song that everyone will love to sing along to.
People with perfect, or absolute, pitch are one in 10,000, which is pretty rare considering lefthanded people are about one in ten and you don’t see them everyday. Much like those with lefthandedness, people with absolute pitch are not smarter than those without; however, they do have a propensity to be more gifted in certain areas. Let’s put it this way: perfect pitch is not necessary to be a musical genius or to even excel in the piano, though it can certainly help being able to recreate a note without a tonal reference. Research shows that those with perfect pitch are better at transcribing music than those without, but those without are better at recognizing musical intervals. Mozart had it, which helped him compose, and some experts argue that Beethoven had it too, but it’s hard to know with certainty.
How to improve your pitch
Perfect pitch may be nice to have for those lucky few, but the rest of us have to content ourselves with humming, singing and dancing. When you’re doing any of these three activities, it’s basically impossible to be sad. Granted, if you’re blue, it can be hard to just get up out of your chair and start to dance or start singing pop standards, but if you warm up by humming, you’ll find that not only will your mood improve, you’ll also warm up your singing voice.
Start by humming high, and move lower once you feel like your pitch is right. Most people start humming too low, and wind up causing unnecessary tension in their vocal chords. Once you’ve identified your pitch with a hum, it’s much easier to start doing vocal exercises that help you focus on enunciation and phrasing. Throw in a little do-re-mi-fa-sol-fa-mi-re-do and in a few weeks your pitch may not be perfect, but it will definitely be a lot better than before. Who doesn’t want a beautiful singing voice to pair with their piano or guitar?
When starting to learn something new, especially when it’s violin or guitar, it can be hard to stay dedicated, to want to overcome the barrier that prevents most emerging musicians from keeping with guitar or violin and becoming good at that instrument. But think—it only takes about sixty hours of violin or guitar lessons before you become good enough to feel comfortable playing, knowing that if you keep up at this rate you’ll be able to play pretty much anything within a few more months of dedicated practice.
Guitar inspiration
It’s before this point of sixty hours that you have to find yourself inspired somehow, and that’s where listening to other music comes in. It can be hard to be inspired by violin music if you’re unfamiliar with classical in general, or to find pleasure in guitar if you don’t really like the blues. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn to like the kind of music you’re learning to play. The key to excelling at at the guitar is to think about how you’re spending your time, and to recognize that you’re learning, and that it takes time to get good, even if it is difficult. But once you get over that initial barrier, that first hurdle, you can play better and more widely. So if nothing else, just counting down your sixty hours of practice can be motivation enough when starting out. That’s roughly four months of practice at half an hour a day.
Music lessons as a noble practice
Above all, remember that the way you’re spending your time, learning guitar or violin, is a noble effort. When you have a great teacher from the Manhattan, someone who’s practiced for years and performed onstage, you can rest assured that what you’re doing will pay off; even if you aren’t a natural. Because experiencing difficulty in learning something new makes you a stronger, better person, especially if you stick with it and get to the point where you can play pretty much anything you want.
When I was a kid I took lessons in NYC. I learned all the basics and I wasn’t half bad. I would play for my parents, who would watch me move from the songs I was learning to a freestyle, bow-rubbing frenzy. Honestly I didn’t practice enough, but I did get used to my violin for about twenty minutes a day.
I liked violin well enough, and my violin lesson instructor was very skilled. She knew how to get me excited about going home to practice, but something was off. I didn’t love playing violin.
By the end of the year I told her I wanted to switch instruments, to something louder and more vivacious. I wanted a brass or a woodwind instrument. I decided on clarinet. My teacher protested, saying that if I quit now for another instrument I’d never come back. She gave me an old LP that describes the tragedy of a young girl switching instruments for louder better, more interesting instruments. The girl moved through the entire orchestra, only to give up entirely on playing music.
Sure enough, the wet reeds and the honky blow of clarinet disappointed me too. By the end of the following year I had dropped it too. It wasn’t until years later that I picked music back up. I realized that what I had really wanted the entire time was to play guitar. I took guitar lessons and found that because I was able to play songs I recognized that weren’t just nursery rhyme songs like ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,’ I could get excited about practicing every day.
Seven years later I still take guitar lessons in NYC. I only wished I had started playing guitar when I was younger by being honest with myself, and thinking more about what kind of music I liked, rather than the kind of music I was supposed to play.
Violin wasn’t right for me, but that’s not to say that it isn’t right for others. Playing Bach or Vivaldi on violin requires more skill than strumming three chords on guitar, and for that reason, I imagine it to be much more rewarding. The advice I want to give is: Be honest with yourself when deciding what instrument you want to play. You’re going to have to stick with it for a while.
The best and hardest-to-stomach teaching you will learn from guitar lessons is that practice is the best way to get good at guitar. But while scales and chords are all well and good, we wondered if there were any quick guitar hacks to make you a better player, or at least impress your teacher during your next guitar lesson.
Guitar Hacks
Here’s a video that shows some cool tricks, like tuning your guitar to an open chord, and sharpening picks on a rug.
If you feel like some of those tips were above your head, keep reading. The best thing to do to start your practice routine is to start with scales. By getting them out of the way first, you can reward yourself by playing a song after. It’s crucial to play with a beat, even when you’re picking scales. Make sure to alternate the direction of your pluck. Plucking down makes a different sound from plucking up, and if you only pluck in one direction, you will have trouble going the other way in the future.
Getting Guitar Fundamentals Right
Perhaps the most important scale to practice for your guitar lessons is the pentatonic. Once you learn that, you can isolate pieces of it to solo. Try to learn it in different keys, and move it up and down the fretboard to familiarize yourself with the different sounds you can make.
When learning songs, play the recorded version of the song you’re learnign while you strum to listen to how it’s played. You may hear certain melodies you hadn’t before. Also check to see if there are video performances on Youtube of that song. Watching how your favorite guitar player can help you learn certain tricks.
It may be tempting to speed through a new chord progression or scale while you learn it, but it’s much more effective to slow down and make sure you nail what’s giving you trouble. If you still have difficulty, ask your teacher for extra tips at your next guitar lesson.
When it comes to playing guitar solos, it helps if you know your way up and down the fretboard. But that doesn’t mean a beginner can’t learn these classic solos, through a lot of practice and training.
And even if you can’t play the entire solos, learning the structure of how they work and isolating some of the scales used can be great practice for beginners. If you really like the song, ask your guitar teacher to go over it with you in your next guitar lesson. You may be able to learn the chords, and play it on your own in a more simplified version.
The best solos of all time can be pretty subjective, but there are some that cap any list. Here are our personal favorites. Feel free to comment below if you agree or disagree!
7. Truckin’, Grateful Dead:
Jerry Garcia could shred, and this is living proof. Even if you can’t get the solo down, the opening bass line is a fun lick to learn.
6. November Rain, Guns ‘n’ Roses:
This solo immortalized Slash. It takes the song to another level.
5. Comfortably Numb, Pink Floyd:
This Floyd track is classic. It certainly isn’t the most difficult to play on the list, but it’s unforgettable nonetheless.
http://youtu.be/nwfbdUpKVG8
4. Fade to Black, Metallica:
This solo is super gnarly, and pretty difficult. But if you’re dedicated enough, you can at least pick up the intro. And man, if you learn just one song to make you a bada** guitar player, use your guitar lessons for this.
3. Crossroads, Cream:
Based on the old blues song by Robert Johnson, Clapton’s solo does the original justice and then some. Definitely one of the tougher solos on this list, but overall, an amazing one to learn if you can get the hang of it.
2. Pride and Joy, Stevie Ray Vaughan:
Stevie’s tragic end cemented his legacy as one of the best guitar players of all time. This song isn’t his most difficult to play (you’ll thank me for that), but it is one of his most enduring and popular. Take a stab at it and appreciate Texas-style blues.
1. All Along The Watchtower, Jimi Hendrix
What would a list of the best solos of all time be without homage to the late, great Jimi? The best guitar player of all time, no one has ever played like him since. That said, the difficulty of trying to play like Jimi has its own rewards which will make you a better guitar player in the long run.
When I first started professional guitar classes, I chose a teacher who I had heard was really cool. My friend told me that he was the kind of guy who’d let you play what you wanted, and who wouldn’t get really upset if you hadn’t practiced so much during the week. And since I was just starting guitar lessons, I didn’t want a teacher to make my lessons a chore; I wanted to learn guitar for myself.
My first lesson
At my first guitar lesson, I found out my new guitar teacher was a Texan with long salt-and-pepper hair and a glazed look in his eyes. Man, could he play. Best of all, I could tell that we were going to be friends. At first I was just going through the basics, trying to read music, learning the scales and chords. But within a few weeks I was ready to play songs. He asked me what I liked to play. At that time of my life I was just getting into Bob Dylan. He asked me if I ever listened to Nashville Skyline. I had never heard of it; he said it was Bob’s first foray into country music. “You know the song ‘Lay Lady Lay’?” “Of course,” I said. “That was on Nashville Skyline.”
http://youtu.be/N6ODMKSWzT4
Guitar lessons improving my life
I went home and listened to that song and fell in love with it. The syncopation, the lyrics, everything about it epitomized the romantic notion of guitar playing that had made me want to start taking lessons in the first place. My learning of the song coincided with my falling in love with a friend, and when things wound up not working out, I had to tell my guitar teacher. “Don’t sweat it man,” he said. “How old are you?” “Twenty-one,” I responded. “Twenty-one? You’re free to live the rest of your life! Now pick up your guitar and let’s get playing.” The chords I played attenuated my sorrow, making me feel better about everything, like a songbird singing before a new dawn.
I stayed with my guitar teacher for a year, until he decided to move back to Texas and get back into playing with bands. We still keep in touch and he asks me about my playing, but I’m so busy I don’t play nearly as much as I used to. And I don’t find a different teacher because something wouldn’t feel quite right, as though I were being unfaithful to my first guitar teacher. Which just goes to show how important choosing the right guitar one for your lessons can be.
When starting out with guitar lessons, it’s important to have a guitar of one’s own. While you may be reluctant to invest too much in a beautiful instrument, there are good reasons to splurge, especially if you imagine playing guitar for the rest of your life. Guitars are pieces of art which can be hung on a wall, and unlike cars, boats, and motorcycles, fine guitars appreciate in value as time passes, though you shouldn’t buy a guitar with the intention to sell.
Bargain Options
There are lots of guitars for under $500, perfect for beginners just starting in lessons. One of the best options is the Hagstrom Swede, rated so by users on MusicRadar.com. But also at the top of the list are cheaper alternatives made by classic guitar companies such as the Epiphone Les Paul Standard, made by Gibson, and the Squier Classic ’50s Vibe Telecaster, by Fender.
Telecasters vs. Stratocasters
If you know you want to take guitar lessons for many years to come, you’d do well to examine those made by Fender. Long has the debate raged between Telecasters and Stratocasters, but what’s the real difference between these two guitars?
Both have alder bodies and maple necks and are the same size, although the Strat has a headstock a bit heavier. As far as the pickups go, the Strat has a 5-way pickup selector switch, while the Tele has a 3-way, which means that there are more available options for tones on a Strat. And because the Strat has 3 single-coil pickups and the Tele has a Broadcaster pickup at the bridge and a custom one in the neck, the overall sound is different. Telecasters can be classified as twangier, while Strats are what you think of when you think serious shredding. Ultimately it comes down to which sound you prefer when you play them at the guitar store before you buy. You may be more into getting country guitar lessons, but if you like the sound of a Strat, go with it.
No matter what you choose, as you take more guitar lessons you’ll come to love your guitar and appreciate the beautiful music it makes.