Lauren Bateman breaks down electric vs acoustic guitars for beginners. Acoustics build finger strength faster but cost more ($250-300 minimum); electrics are easier on the hands and cheaper ($125). Pick based on what you want to play: acoustic for singer-songwriter, electric for rock and blues.
June 24, 2017.
About $125 (mentions Fender Squier ~ $125).
At least $250–$300.
What we're going to talk about is a common question that most beginner students ask me is, should I buy an electric guitar or should I buy an acoustic guitar? So if you already have a guitar, then that's great. Use that when you're learning how to play. But I'll make some recommendations, and I'll kind of go over the pros and cons of both. So right now, in my lap, I have an acoustic guitar. And the great thing about acoustic guitars is they're hollow, so they're already pretty loud for playing, which means you don't have to get an amp. Now, an electric guitar, if you get a solid body, you're still going to hear noise. It just won't be as loud as an acoustic. So it's better if you get a practice amp to be able to hear yourself better. Now, the pro of having an electric guitar is that it tends to be easier to play than an acoustic because the strings are much thinner. So it's a little easier to press the strings, so the playability is easier, especially with a cheap guitar. Like, you can get a decent electric guitar for like, $125. That's actually pretty good. But an acoustic guitar, if you're spending 100 bucks on an acoustic guitar, they're really. They're really kind of crappy. So I usually recommend with acoustic guitars to spend at least 250, $300 on a guitar because the playability is going to be much better. The strings are going to it closer to the fretboard here, which makes it easier to play. And also, you'll have a little bit more variety in the width of the guitar. A lot of times, I get a lot of beginner students, particularly my female students, who get one of these beginner guitars. And they're so big and they're so wide that they feel like they have to, like, hulk and climb over the guitar just to play it. So if you're feeling like that, the guitar might be a little bit too big for you. And that's the benefit of an electric guitar. If you see this white kind of telecaster over here, you'll see the profile of that is very thin, and that can be easier to get your. Your arms around. So if you're on a budget, then I would recommend getting an electric guitar because they're made pretty well, they'll play fairly well, and it would be much better than spending like 100, 125 bucks on an acoustic guitar. Definitely. Now, the other benefits of an acoustic guitar versus an electric is that you'll build hand strength, your calluses on your fingers, faster on an acoustic guitar. Again, just because the things are stricter, the strings are thicker and they're a little bit harder to play. Plus they're a little bit rougher, they're round wound, and they'll build the calluses on your fingers, which means you'll actually be able to play much faster. In the beginning, a lot of students, they don't have calluses yet on their fingertips, and it makes pressing down on the strings very hard and can be painful, which is why in the beginning, most students really practice more than 10 minutes at a time because they haven't developed the calluses yet. So that is a pro to an acoustic. The acoustic guitar over the electric. Now, those are kind of the things that you can think about. But usually with students, I would recommend going with the type of music you want to play. So, for example, if you're more into singer songwriters or country, or just kind of like strumming along and singing Kumbaya, then we're not going to do Kumbaya. But then I would recommend an acoustic guitar. If you're more into rock and roll, more into blues, want to play guitar solos and lead guitar, then I recommend getting an electric guitar because it's just going to be more in line with the type of music you want to play. So that can be the first question you ask yourself, what is the music I want to play? And then you can determine acoustic or electric, and then you can go based on budget. So if you really want to play singer songwriter, but your budget's like $80, you should go with an electric guitar and don't spend 80, spend at least a hundred. I think the Fender Squires are around like 125 or so, and those are pretty decent guitars that you can get. So I would recommend getting that. So if you're really on a budget, go with the electric guitar. Because if you have an acoustic guitar, I really, really would recommend getting something of better quality. It's definitely much easier to play, and we want it to be comfortable because if you're sitting there and you're feeling like you're hulking over this guitar, it's not going to be comfortable and you're not going to want to play it. You're not going to want to practice. So by going up in price range, you'll actually have a variety in the thickness of the guitars. This guitar, the width of the body is a little bit thinner than a large body acoustic, so it's a little bit thinner, and there's ones that are thinner than this, so. So that's something that you can play around with when you get into those higher price ranges. Usually at the lower price ranges, they're just all a bunch of boat oars that you have to climb over. If you're a guy, because you have a bigger frame, you might be able to get away with that. But a lot of women have difficulties with the big body acoustic guitars. So I do recommend trying to get to that $300 price range just so that you have a few more options and can sit down with some guitars and feel comfortable. So go to a guitar store and sit down with a bunch of different guitars. Put your. Learn how to hold the guitar. I'll show you how to do that. And then go sit down and just put your arm around it. Whatever feels most comfortable to you, that's what you want. Because if you're comfortable, you're going to want to sit with the guitar more and you're going to want to practice more. So that is the key, making sure the guitar is comfortable. So hopefully you either already have a guitar or this will help you go out and pick a guitar so that you can get started with your guitar lessons.
