First acoustic guitar. Choosing a guitar. Choosing an acoustic guitar. How to buy your first guitar.

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Video Script:
This lesson is for anyone preparing to buy their first guitar, who has already made the decision that this first guitar should be an acoustic as opposed to electric guitar.

If you have already begun your research into which acoustic guitar to buy, you may be forgiven for feeling pretty confused and perhaps a little overwhelmed by the wealth of information and advice on offer about this subject. So in this mini-series of short videos I am going to give you some simple guidelines to follow when deciding which acoustic guitar to buy.

Acoustic guitars come in two broad categories: steel-strung or nylon strung ...and here you can see that the Nylon strung or Spanish guitars come in two basic types, classical and flamenco, but that the western or steel strung guitar comes in many different forms.

As a beginner, I strongly advise against starting out with anything other than either a nylon-strung classical guitar or an ordinary western steel-strung, 6-string guitar.

All the other guitars shown here have their specialist uses which may interest you once you have learnt the basics of guitar playing. But it will be easiest to start learning on one of the two types I have circled here in red.

As to whether to go for nylon or steel, I have a simple question for you to answer. Do you want to focus specifically on learning classical or flamenco music? If so, choose a nylon strung classical guitar. For all other styles including rock, blues, country, jazz, folk - all popular styles of music - you are really better off going for a steel-strung guitar. Nylon strung guitars are great for classical or flamenco, but for other types of music they are both harder to play and likely to produce less than satisfying results.

So, having decided on either nylon or steel-strung guitar lets discuss the one piece of advice that actually makes or breaks guitarists when it comes to choosing their first guitar. And that is my advice to choose a guitar that fits you!

Imagine buying a new pair of shoes and saying to the sales assistant something like: 'I want them in best Spanish Leather, a nice grey-blue colour to go with my favourite pair of socks, with those new carbon-fibre soles that never wear out and I have a budget of £300...

The sales assistant asks '...and what size would you like those in sir?' and you say 'Oh size? I don't care what size they are! As long as they're made of best Spanish leather, they go with my socks and the soles are made from that hi-tech stuff..

That would be nuts right? But that is exactly how most people go about buying their first guitar.

In fact, through no fault of their own, most first time buyers aren't even aware that guitars come in a very wide range of sizes and shapes.

And yet, having taught tens of thousands of people how to play guitar I can tell you with absolute certainty that the number one reason people give up guitar in the first few months of trying to learn to play, is that they have bought a guitar that simply doesn't fit their body shape.

Here's the logic behind my advice: When you listen to a guitar being played, the actual quality of the sound you are hearing is down to three factors.

One factor is the acoustics of the space the guitar is being played in. An empty space with bare walls made of hard material will reflect and amplify the sound. Whereas a space with padded walls and soft furnishings will absorb and dampen sound. I'd say that this factor makes up about 15% of the quality of the sound you hear.

The second factor is the quality of the instrument being played. This is the factor the guitar manufacturers would love you to believe is the most important. However, I rate this factor no higher than about 5%

The other 80% is made up of the third factor which is simply the playing ability of the guitarist. You can take my actual percentages with a pinch of salt, but there is no doubt in my mind that the ability of the guitarist is far and away the most significant factor in determining the sound quality.

And for you as a beginner, what will determine that ability level above and beyond everything else is simply the number of hours you put into playing guitar.

And what determines the number of hours you put in is undoubtedly influenced by how physically easy and comfortable you find your guitar to play.

So in the next lesson I will go over in fine detail exactly how to try on a guitar in the same way as you would try on a pair of shoes in a shoe shop.

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