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Articles
Why not to buy a cheap guitar
By Victor Johnson Author of Guitar For Parents
Your first guitar will most likely make or break your experience
with learning how to play guitar. It is very important to choose
an instrument that will help rather than hurt your desire to play.
All too often I see people want to learn to play guitar try and buy
a $39 guitar off the internet or Wal-Mart or even worse something
from a thrift store.
In any situation where someone is learning how to do something new,
there is a window of time where there is no knowledge but lots of
hope, desire and excitement. It is extremely important to have the
student find success in this precious time frame. It doesn't matter
if you are learning an instrument, a sport or anything else, very
few people have the ability to stick with something if they fail
over and over. It is very important to have a decent instrument when
first learning guitar. Not fancy or even nice but not one of the
ones mentioned above that won’t even tune up. One time I tried
for 20 minutes to tune up this hunk of junk called a Mach 4 or something.
It said right on the box “great for beginners”. I couldn’t
believe they would write such a terrible lie and get away with it!
If a person starts on a crummy instrument, many times, the student
believes that they, not the instrument is the problem. The guitar
may not even be playable but a beginning student won’t know
this. The hopeful aspiring musician becomes frustrated believing
they don’t have it in them and quit. Then it’s one more
potential Chet Atkins, Jimi Hendrix or Bonnie Raitt lost.
The key to getting any student to continue is for the student to
have as much success as possible as early as possible. In my book
Guitar For Parents, I get people playing songs right away so they
know they can do it. Once they have a little confidence under their
belt, they can go as far as they like.
It is pretty amazing what they can build and sell guitars for these
days. I bought my daughter (who was 5) a Samick nylon string kids
guitar for about $90 and it is a great little guitar. There seem
to be full size steel string guitars available for around $200 that
are pretty decent. There is a company called Art and Lutherie that
has a model called the Ami for around $250. It is a great parlor
sized guitar and is made in North America. I can appreciate not wanting
to spend to much on something that you or your child may not stick
with but if you go too cheap you may as well forget it.
My first guitar came from a place called Red’s Trading Post.
It was a Pan steel string guitar with the strings about and inch
of the neck. For me it didn’t matter, I was too determined.
Once I got my hands on an easy playing nylon string folk guitar I
really started to advance quickly. Some people will and can learn
on anything but I would relate it like this. I would give someone
a 1 in 10 chance of learning on a cheap crummy instrument and I would
give a person a 7 in 10 chance with a easy playing guitar that will
tune up correctly and some determination.
Another option my hometown music store offers is a guitar rental
program. Three months rental of a good beginner guitar for $60. $20
a month is an amount almost anyone can afford and at this store you
can apply your rental fee towards the purchase of a new one if you
decide to continue.
Go to your local music store and talk to the people. When it comes
to guitars, “try before you buy.” If you don’t
have a reputable music store in your area, take a drive. Guitars
are instruments not paper clips, everyone is different. If there
are no music stores around email me. I’ll get you in touch
with a good shop that will take care of you through the mail if need
be. Good Luck.
Are you a teacher?
By Victor Johnson - Author of Guitar For Parents
There are also many technical reasons why Guitar For Parents is
a great book. Things that beginning guitar students would not understand.
If you are a teacher, how many students understand why a five chord
is a 7? How many times have you heard statements similar to these? “What
does the seven mean? I thought we were using letters, now we are
using numbers too?” I don’t think I am smart enough for
this music stuff.
I don’t believe a beginning music brain can even tell the
difference between a D chord and a D 7 chord. Another thing that
the popular “how to play guitar” music books don’t
seem to grasp is how necessary it is to put a root tone at the bottom
of a chord. A new music student with an untrained ear needs a nice
solid root tone to relate to. When I play a C chord with a G in the
bass to a new music student, they hear a G chord. If I play a D chord
with an A in the bass or root, they hear an A chord.
I would compare developing an ear to developing taste for wines.
A new wine drinker usually has a taste that is not very developed,
they like the pink stuff. After they can differentiate different
nuances of taste they move to more advanced tastes and wines. Tonally,
inexperienced ears like the root. They can go right to it and know
what it is. As they are able to differentiate tones they will many
times like inversions and substitutions. These are just two of the
theories I’ve veered from found in most guitar books today. “See
Jane go, see Spot run” just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Guitar For Parents takes all reasonable shortcuts to get students
playing right away and removes the majority of the confusion that
is found in other “learn to play” guitar books.
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