Tips for buying a guitar for beginners and children
In my article, make an old guitar playable again? from 27.06.2016 it was about how to revive an old guitar baby. For all those who would like to start playing the guitar but do not have an instrument, the following questions arise: Which guitar is suitable for the beginning and how I differentiate quality from junk? As with many other things, a high price does not automatically make a good choice. Sometimes you pay more for the name of a product than for what you actually hold in your hands after you buy it. Therefore, I have listed below some points to consider when buying a guitar.
Which guitar type is suitable for beginners?
Basically, there are three different types of guitars:
- The Classical guitar, also called classical guitar, has a broad fingerboard and is covered with soft (finger-friendly) nylon strings.
- The Acoustic guitar or steel string guitar has a narrower fingerboard and steel strings, which can be very painful especially for beginners (without calluses on the fingers).
- The electric guitarbetter known as electric guitar, has no sound box and can only be played in conjunction with an amplifier. Ergo: No power without music. It has the narrowest fingerboard of all guitar types and is also equipped with (relatively thin) steel strings.
Theoretically, it is of course possible to play any kind of music on any type of guitar. In practice, however, it quickly becomes apparent that certain guitars are predestined for special music styles. That sounds like "Smoke on the Water"? on a concert guitar just as strange as Bach's Bourree in E minor? on an electric guitar.
Over the past thirty years, I've been a part-time guitar teacher and helped many beginners get over the first hurdles. If my advice was needed when buying a guitar, I always recommended a concert guitar to get started. Why? First, the guitar neck is quite wide. This means a wider fingerboard with more space between the strings and more space for the fingers. This additional range of motion promotes long-term grip accuracy and thus a clean game and just such a sound. Secondly, nylon strings are softer and protect the fingers. The absolute beginner will hurt at the beginning even on nylon strings fingers, but not nearly as much as on steel strings (keyword: blood bubbles on the fingertips). The subsequent switch to a Western or electric guitar is usually easy.
Special guitars for children
Small children's hands are overwhelmed with a full-size guitar (4/4). Therefore, many guitar manufacturers offer high quality instruments in smaller versions. This does not mean the mini guitars from the toy trade, because these are really only toys and are not suitable for learning guitar. Here is an overview of the age of which guitar size is appropriate. Of course, these are just guidelines, so a guitar should always be tried on before you buy it. become. In the well-stocked guitar shop you usually get a knowledgeable advice on the question of what size fits ?? receive.
| guitar size | designation | height | Older |
| 1/4 | children guitar | up to 1.10 m | about 4-7 years |
| 1/2 | children guitar | approx. 1.10 to 1.30 m | about 6-9 years |
| 3/4 | student guitar | approx. 1.20 to 1.40 m | about 8-11 years |
| 7/8 | youth model | approx. 1.30 to 1.50 m | about 10-13 years |
Quality has its price
While teaching, an old guitar wisdom has been confirmed time and again: even the most talented student loses the fun on a bad guitar very quickly. The widespread mistake? Oh, for the beginning even a cheap guitar from the mail order company? is exactly that: a mistake. A well-playable guitar with a beautiful sound has its price, but is characterized by clean processing and the use of high-quality woods. Similar to household appliances, the Bosch or Miele brands generally stand for good quality, but there are also two manufacturers of concert guitars that you can not get past: Höfner and Yamaha. In these two guitar forges reliable and solid guitars are produced with a fabulous price-performance ratio. I myself started learning at the age of eleven on my mother's Höfner guitar and today, almost four decades later, the good piece is still in the best shape (the mother, by the way).
Online versus retailers
Here I can be refreshingly brief: Never order a guitar on the Internet. If you want to take advantage of the online retailer's take back offer, you can order a dozen guitars and hope that one will fit. and return eleven pieces. That would be too stressful for me personally, as well as it always smells so good in guitar shops?
The only exception to this (personal) rule is: If you're one hundred percent sure which guitar you want to buy (because you've already tried it on friends, at the music school, or at the guitar teacher, for example), then you can buy it online. But as I said: The smell in the guitar business is really unique?
