Some Advice on choosing your first guitar

In choosing a beginners first guitar, one may be a bit intimidated by all of the options. In the universe of guitars there are electrics and acoustic guitars that produce all kinds of tones, sounds, and opportunities to develop musical ability.

In choosing between electric and acoustics for a first guitar, I contend that the wiser choice would be the acoustic because it lays an excellent foundation for finger strength, ear training, and all types of music.

The strings on an acoustic guitar are, usually, much thicker than those that are on an electric, and in playing thicker strings, a student will develop much more strength than he or she would playing the thin strings of an electric. After developing such finger strength, the player is free to venture where he or she wants within the instrumental world. With proper finger strength, a student can move on to work on an electric guitar and have a much easier time than they would have switching to an acoustic from an electric.

Volume is also a subtle, yet important attribute of acoustic guitars. If one were to purchase an electric guitar, proper volume would necessitate \ the investment for an amplifier and not only are they rather expensive, but extracting a decent tone from an amplifier often is sometimes tedious and difficult. With the volume produced by an acoustic guitar, the ear of the student will become much more developed and sensitive which are both imperative qualities of the good musician.

Finally, the possibilities of the acoustic guitar are quite endless. Classical players have always used acoustic guitars, blues first started with the acoustic guitar, and modern rock musicians of today often take ventures into the acoustic realm. The electric guitar, on the other hand, may limit a beginning students repertoire to basic chords and patterns that would otherwise be part of the vast array of techniques that can be used on the acoustic guitar.