If you’re looking around to purchase your first guitar, upgrade your current guitar or just adding to your collection, it’s a good idea to do your research first to make sure you find a quality instrument that you’ll be happy to own. It’s not a good idea to rush the process and wind up hating the guitar you buy because you won’t play it, be angry with yourself that you wasted the money and you may end up losing money in the end if you go to re-sell it.
Most will tell you to go down to your local music shop and try what they have and we will get to that point but there is some fun and easy legwork you need to do before you ever set foot in a music store especially if it’s one of the one’s crawling with commissioned sales people. So please check out these quick tips for buying a new guitar.
You’ll need to narrow down what type of guitar it is you’re looking for. The two basics types of guitars are acoustic (hollow body) and electric (solid body). After you’ve picked the basic type you also need to consider what you want the guitar to look like. While this makes absolutely no difference in what the instrument will sound like, you’re going to have it for a long time and you want to be proud of it. What the guitar looks like is an extension of your personality so don’t be ashamed to make the look of an instrument a priority.
Guitar magazines can be great sources of information as they usually have monthly reviews of guitars and equipment. Be careful with these though. While most guitar magazines will give honest and unbiased reviews of instruments if you flip through the magazine you will also notice that the magazine has full page ads for most of the top companies. The companies pay the magazines big bucks to run those ads so obviously saying their instruments are junk in a review wouldnít be good for business would it? The relieving this is that most companies now make entry level guitars and many levels above so a magazine is not likely going to bother reviewing guitars that are likely to be terrible.
Next you’ll want to check out the web. Go to www.google.com and type in forum:guitar and you will get a whole list of forums that are based on guitars. Of course this will cover all aspects of guitar playing, guitar lessons, and even guitar players but it will give you a starting point to find forums that contain honest user reviews.
After you’ve checked out the forums and found some reviews you should be narrowing down the choices and reading up on a few models. Before you head to the music shop to try them out, check out what your favorite guitarists are playing. Many have signature models which generally cost more but they have customized them based on years of experience and trial and error.
Once you’ve completed your research, you should be able to make a very informed decision and be able to find a guitar that you’ll be proud to own and be happy with for years to come!
