Dos and Don'ts of Buying a Beginner Acoustic Guitar

So you're interested in buying a guitar to learn on, or perhaps for a family member who wants to pick up the guitar. But where to start? It can be a bit overwhelming when you actually start looking at all the options!

Hopefully, the Dos and Don'ts provided below will help demystify the process for you, and give you some guidance to ensure you find the guitar that is the right fit for you. I'll start with the "don'ts," because in my opinion, avoiding some common mistakes will help immensely, even if you don't read far enough to get to all of the "dos."

DON'TS:

• Don't buy a "toy" guitar.
  
  I'm starting here and spending a lot of time on this one, because it's extremely important! What do I mean by a "toy" guitar? Essentially, a guitar that's aimed at beginners who don't know anything about musical instruments, isn't made by a reputable musical instrument manufacturer, and many times can actually be purchased in a store that sells actual toys. Or the kind of store that carries everything from clothing, to toys, to groceries and home goods.
  
  Some of the brands that come to mind here include First Act, Lyon and Rogue. There are others on par with these, but they're all pretty much the same thing. And to put it nicely, that "thing" they all are, is a toy guitar.
  
  OK...so why is that so bad?! If it's just for getting your feet wet, it doesn't have to be that nice, does it?! No, you don't need a nice guitar when you first start out. It certainly doesn't hurt, but it's not necessary by any means. However, you should start out with a playable guitar! What you'll find with the kind of "toy" guitars I mentioned is that, due to extremely cheap and poor construction, the string action (how high the strings sit off the fretboard) is either way too high, or so low the strings rub against the frets. And unlike a true musical instrument, there's not really anything you can do about it.
  
  Strings that are too high are extremely difficult to press down, and result in a guitar that's next to impossible to properly tune. Strings that are too low will give you buzzing sounds and notes that are just flat-out wrong, so that it always sounds like you're playing something wrong, even when you aren't.
  
  Either way, the end result is a guitar that sounds awful, and is probably much harder to play than a guitar should be. This becomes rather discouraging, because no matter how much you practice or how proper and correct your technique is, you'll never get anything that sounds musical out of that instrument. You'll get something that sounds like a cheap toy. And there are plenty of aspiring guitarists who have given up, thinking they just can't play well, when in reality the poor quality of their guitar was to blame.
  
  
• Don't buy a guitar just because you recognize the brand name.
  Sometimes people will see a name like "Fender" or "Yamaha" and think, 'This must be a good guitar, everybody knows this brand!' While you may well find a gem from any well-known brand, there are a lot of factors that might make a great guitar the wrong instrument for you!
  
  I'll elaborate more on those factors in the "Do" section below. But don't think that a guitar is a guitar, as long as it's made by a decent manufacturer. There are a lot of variations, and they're not just for looks! So consider each of them in order to find a guitar that's not just good, but good for you.
  
  
• Don't start with a nylon-string guitar because someone said they're easier on your fingers.
  
  This happens a lot. A big part of the reason it's bad advice is what I mentioned above: the different variations between guitars and the purposes for those variations. I'll get into that more in the "Do" section. But first let me just say, both steel and nylon strings are going to hurt your fingers, at first. Nylon might be slightly less painful, but not enough to sway your decision. And since the pain is very temporary, it really shouldn't be a factor at all.
  
  
• Don't buy a guitar alone, if you have the option to bring someone with you.
  The first real (non-toy) guitar I got sounded phenomenal for its price. But as a relatively new player, I couldn't push it to its limits and hear what it was capable of. Thankfully, the sales associate I dealt with was willing to play some of the guitars I was interested in, and let me hear them. She played some things that were a little complex, but also played them at the level I could reasonably expect to myself.
  
  Hearing someone else play each guitar helped me hear the differences, even when my ear wasn't as experienced as it is today. Not only did I understand how good those guitars could sound when I progressed in my playing, but I got a sense of what others would hear when I played. Being behind the guitar is an entirely different experience from being in front of it.
  
  I was fortunate. I went to a "mom-and-pop" music shop where the sales associate was happy to demo guitars for me. That isn't always the case! So what I recommend is to take a friend or family member along who is a more experienced guitarist, and have them demo the guitars you're considering -- or even suggest some and demo them for you as well. Don't worry about inconveniencing them...most of us love guitar shopping, and helping share some knowledge with others!

DOS:

• Do buy a guitar with a solid top.
  Just like I did with the "Don'ts," I'm starting with what I consider to be the most important piece of advice! The top of your acoustic guitar is where most of your sound comes from. And having it be a solid piece of wood will make a difference in more ways than one! A couple of those ways are:
• The ability to actually vibrate like wood. Non-solid tops are called "laminate," which is similar in construction to plywood. It's very strong, but simply cannot vibrate the way a single piece of wood does. And the tone of your guitar ultimately comes from leveraging the tension in the strings to get the wood top moving. The more it moves, the better it sounds. The good news is, a solid-top doesn't necessarily mean an expensive guitar! You can find them in most any price range, other than the "toy" guitar range.
  
  
• The ability to keep you satisfied with your instrument. Solid wood tops actually improve with age! All that vibrating, along with the natural aging and drying of the wood, allows the wood to vibrate even more with a combination of time and use. You'll often hear this referred to as the wood "opening up." So any solid-top guitar -- and only a solid-top guitar -- has the capacity to improve and grow with you as your playing progresses.
  
  
• Do experiment with the variations you see in different guitars.
  Acoustic guitars come in a lot of shapes, sizes, and materials. None of those factors are without a specific purpose! Here are a few of the most important variations, and why they are a factor:
• Size.
  
  
  
  This is important for a couple of reasons. The most obvious would be for the comfort and playability of the person holding it. A ten year old, for example, will usually have a tough time handling a large-bodied guitar like a dreadnought! Likewise, a 6'5" adult might feel that a small-bodied "parlor" guitar is just too little. But in-between those extremes are lots of other factors, from height, to reach length, to where your hands and arms will feel most comfortable.
  
  But the size of your guitar also matters in terms of its sound. And the distinctions in how different sizes sound also correlate with different playing styles. Smaller guitars have less volume, but also less bass. If your goal is to mainly be a finger-picker, this might suit you best, since all the notes from low to high will sound clear, without the low end overpowering anything. Conversely, if you see yourself as a strummer, a large guitar (think dreadnought or jumbo) would likely give you the kind of volume, power and presence you're after. Of course there are exceptions -- you'll find plenty of great fingerstyle players with large guitars, and strummers with small ones. But generally speaking, most of us prefer smaller guitars for fingerstyle and larger for strumming.
  
  There are also some in-between sizes, which go by different names depending on the manufacturer, that are a great choice if you plan on playing a blend of different styles.
  
  
• Steel strings or nylon strings.
  Nylon string guitars are actually made for specific styles -- so specific, in fact, that they're right in the names! The most popular type of nylon string guitar is called a Classical guitar, aimed at players who want to perform classical music. The strings are spaced more widely than a steel string guitar, intended to make room for fingers or finger picks. Other nylon string guitars are called Flamenco guitars, which feel similar to play but are made of different woods to give them the punchy, percussive sound you want for Flamenco music.
  
  Generally, if you don't want to play Classical pieces or Flamenco music as your primary style, you'll be happier with a steel string guitar. I emphasize the word "generally" because, yes, there are always exceptions. Willie Nelson famously plays country music with a nylon string guitar! Zac Brown uses one for a lot of his music as well. But the sound you associate with about 99% of popular acoustic guitar music, comes from a steel string guitar.
  
  Something that needs to be mentioned here: sometimes people get the idea that they'll buy one style of guitar, and switch to the other type of strings. Don't do it! Steel strings create much more tension than nylon. If you put them on a Classical or Flamenco guitar, you will break it! And if you go the other way, while it may not hurt anything, you won't get enough string tension to move the top and make good sound. Also, don't be surprised if the strings rub against the frets.
  
  
• Wood type.
  
  For a beginner guitar, this is usually a less important factor than it will be down the road, when you're upgrading to something really nice. Chances are, the body of your beginner guitar will be laminated wood, and the top will be solid. And for now, even if you spent the money to get an all-solid guitar, you might not be ready to appreciate the tonal distinctions between a body made of mahogany vs. rosewood, or any of the other tonewoods out there.
  
  But there are a few different top woods you may see. By far, the most common is Sitka spruce. Other types of spruce come into play on more expensive guitars. Spruce gives you plenty of balance, power, and tone that will be familiar since it's on the vast majority of acoustics.
  
  You may also see cedar tops, especially on Seagull guitars (which, by the way,  make fantastic beginner guitars). Cedar is warmer and more mellow. It gives you full, even tone whether you play lightly or a little more aggressively. However, it does have a ceiling in terms of how aggressively you play. If you're a very heavy strummer, at a certain point it will "top out" and stop giving you volume. You may even find the sound distorts a little if you play really hard. For me, this isn't a limitation as much as it is a tool to help you learn not to overplay.
  
  Finally, you might see some mahogany or sapele tops. I'm lumping these together because they're similar -- so similar that some manufacturers call sapele "African mahogany." That's not entirely accurate...but the two tree species are related so it works for marketing purposes. Both are well balanced, but perhaps a bit more midrangey than spruce or cedar.
  
  
• Do buy your guitar based on what your ears and hands tell you, not what all this information tells you.
  Blog posts and YouTube videos are great resources to help you approach guitar shopping from an informed position. But at the end of the day, everything you've read here might give you some preconceived notion that you should only test out, say, small-bodied guitars with mahogany tops, when in reality the guitar that will "speak to you" is a much bigger one with a spruce top, that you don't end up trying at all.
  
  There's no better guidance to help you pick the right instrument than what you hear and how it feels when you play it. I recommend keeping this post in mind, then going out and trying a ton of different solid-top, reputable-brand guitars in all shapes and sizes. Rather than the information here telling you which guitars to try, trying all different types of guitars will most likely help you understand this information in a more practical way.
  
  
• Last, but certainly not least: DO HAVE FUN!
  Don't let guitar shopping be about a bunch of details and worry over choosing the wrong one. Enjoy it! Have a good time! There are a lot of ways to get it right, but in my opinion, the only way to do it wrong is to not have fun.