Essay: What Should I Look For When Shopping For A Guitar?

Many of my students come to see me having already bought a guitar. As they progress, many of them decide they want a more expensive guitar, or a guitar made specially for the kind of music they like to play. Some of the students are switching from electric guitar to acoustic, or vice versa. Most of them ask me for advice, so I came up with a few pointers.

These tips assume that you're shopping for the general kind of guitar that suits you: a classical guitar for classical players, an electric guitar for rock players, etc.

Pointer #1: Get a guitar that fits.

This is seldom an issue for electric guitars, because electric guitars are smaller and well suited to children because they are not bulky. There are very few "children's" electric guitars on the market, and for the most part I don't recommend them except for students under the age of ten, many of whom can play a full-sized electric with a capo bar anyway.

For the acoustic guitar, it's a bit more complicated. Classical guitars come in a standard size, but acoustic guitars range from the tiny "parlor" guitars all the way up to huge dreadnoughts that are too big for some adults. There are three-quarter size and half-size acoustic guitars available for children. A half-size guitar is generally practical for children under 10, but will be too small for most adolescents. Get a guitar you can comfortably sit with. The following pointers will help.

• Neck thickness: On all guitars except the classical, go to the thickest part of the neck, and grasp it as though you were grabbing a baseball bat. Can you at least touch your thumb to the tip of your middle finger? If not, the neck is too thick. Children and people with small hands should avoid thick-necked guitars such as some BC Rich models. People with extremely large hands should avoid the thin-necked guitars such as most Ibanez models. Most of the most popular electric guitar manufacturers (Fender, Gibson, PRS) make average-sized necks that are accessible to almost everyone. Many of the popular electric guitar manufacturers also make acoustic guitars.
• Body width: Can you easily wrap your arms around the narrowest part of the guitar body and still see over or around it? If not, the guitar is too broad. The widest part of the guitar should not be too much thicker than the widest part of your body. When you sit to play, you should be able to see over the guitar well enough to look at the strings. If you can't see the frets without turning the guitar almost at a 45-degree angle, the guitar is too big.
• Body and neck length: From a seated position, can you reach all the frets and still be able to wrap your hand completely around the neck?

Pointer #2: Check for a physically sound guitar.

A guitar that has loose parts in the showroom, where it has hardly been handled at all, will have loose parts when you play it. A problem in the showroom often cannot be corrected by a luthier. Here are the problems I see most often:

• Loose neck joint: there is enough space between the neck and the body of the guitar to insert a fingernail or a guitar pick. Such a guitar will not stay in tune because the neck joint will shift. The tone will also be mediocre.
• Loose or sloppy tuning pegs: a tuning peg that slips will never improve and will have to be replaced, which isn't the end of the world but it is a pain in the neck
• Fret sprout: if you run your hand down the neck of the guitar, you'll feel sharp edges where the frets are sticking out a little bit beyond the fretboard. This guitar has been kept too long in a dry environment, such that the wooden fretboard has shrunk and the metal is exposed. It's possible to file the frets back but it's time consuming and it's also easy to damage your guitar in the process.
• Irregularities in the neck: if you look down the neck, you can see little wiggles and wobbles in the fret board. Some guitars get this way over time, others start out with cheap wood and warp a lot faster. If you're buying a used guitar, you may notice that some of the frets are worn down. Reject a guitar with frets so badly worn that the instrument can't be played with a low action.
• Loose electronics: If you're buying an electric guitar, you shouldn't be able to wiggle the pickups with your hands alone. Pickups should ideally be mounted individually into the wood of the guitar so as to absorb as much of the instrument's resonance as possible. The second-best option is to "float" them in a "swimming pool" cavity and anchor them to the front face of the guitar, controlling the height of the pickups using a screw assembly. The worst option is to anchor a pick guard cover to the guitar itself, while kind of shoving the pickups in without anchoring screws of any kind. These pickups will not produce a regular tone, they will be prone to broken wires and mechanical failures, and they are a nasty, cheap shortcut on the part of the manufacturer. Look also at the jack where the cable goes. If it's loose enough for you to move it by hand, you'll never improve it once you get it home, and it will fall apart consistently.
• Stripped adjustment screws: Look carefully at all the little screws used to adjust the bridge saddles, the tuning, and everything else. They should not be stripped on the sides or the top, and you should be able to turn them.
• Broken truss rod: This is never an issue on new instruments, and it doesn't apply to classical guitars since they don't have truss rods, but many used electrics have a break in the rod that runs down the center of the neck. The neck bows unevenly in some cases. The best way to tell whether the truss rod is broken is to attempt to adjust it. Take off the cover which on the head of the guitar, and try to adjust the truss rod with a screwdriver by turning it a quarter-turn at a time in each direction. If it spins easily, the rod is broken. Don't just crank on a truss rod or turn it a full turn at a time as though you were driving in a screw, or you'll break it yourself and have to buy the guitar.

Pointer #3: Get only the bells and whistles you plan to use.

Most beginners don't need a Buzz Feiten tuning system, gold hardware, locking tuners, or a Floyd Rose locking tremolo. They don't even need a locking nut to keep their tuning in place. They do, however, need basic tuning pegs. They also need a bridge that doesn't fall apart or blow the setup every time they change strings. If the guitar comes with a tremolo bar or "whammy" bar, check to make sure that it's included, and do a few chords with the whammy bar in place. Do a few whammy bar dips to make sure the tuning comes back to where it's supposed to be.

You also don't need to buy umpteen pedals, cables, books, instructional DVDs, and other add-ons. Let your teacher assign you a method book or books to use, because as a beginner you're not yet equipped to assess the quality or usefulness of the equipment or materials and are very likely to just waste your money.

For a list of appropriate things to buy as a beginning guitarist, check out my suggested shopping list here.

Pointer #4: If you will be playing electric guitar, get a basic practice amplifier.

A practice amplifier is usually 8 to 15 watts, and is no more than 20 watts. It has an input jack, a volume knob, a few control knobs, and a speaker. The larger the speaker, the better your lows will sound. The portable, battery powered micro-amps are cute and they're good for travel, but the sound isn't great and you won't get a clear idea of your sound.

Make sure your practice amplifier has an output for your headphones. That way you can practice at night or when other people do not want to be disturbed, without compromising your playing technique.

Resist the urge to get a gigantic amplifier and speaker set. For the first few years, you're not going to be performing in public, and even when you do, a basic 30-watt amplifier is more than large enough for most bars, clubs, restaurants, and anything up to and including a school gymnasium. Most touring professionals don't need rack amplifiers or separate speakers either, unless they're playing in huge arenas. If and when you're signed as a side player for an international act, consider buying a rack rig and a double stack. Otherwise, save your money. Amplifiers, like computers, seldom hold their value in the long term, unless they are tube amps in which case they might hold their value or even increase in value, provided you maintain them properly. Most people do not.

I see a lot of battery operated "pocket" amplifiers but I don't recommend them for beginner students unless it's in addition to a regular amplifier. I do own a pocket amplifier designed to be used with a head set, and I use it when I travel, but when I practice it's best for me to be able to hear the sound coming out of the amp. The goal is to get as close to performance conditions as is practical. I firmly believe that making an electric guitar sound, and enjoying that sound, is a critical emotional part of playing the guitar. I've had students who have no amplifier, and who practice only with a head-set. They tend to have trouble sustaining their interest in the guitar, and these students also tend to be in situations that aren't conducive to playing or learning the guitar, so in a way the deck is stacked against them.