How to Buy the Best Beginning Electric or Acoustic Guitar this Christmas

Catfish's Recommended Electric Beginning Guitars and Guitar Packages For Christmas

Catfish's Recommended Acoustic Beginning Guitars and Guitar Packages For Christmas

Hello. My name is Catfish. Thank you for visiting my page about how to buy a guitar for Christmas for the beginner. Having sold guitars for years at Guitar Trader in San Diego and also having worked at Guitar Center (7 years total in music retail), I have made number of observations that I would like to share with you about buying a beginning guitar for that special musician in your life. You want to set your new guitarist up to succeed and it all starts with what you buy this Christmas.

The reason I say that is the number one mistake I see parents make when it comes to buying a guitar for Christmas is the mistaken belief that you NEED to learn guitar on an acoustic or classical guitar. This is definately not the case and it violates the #1 Catfish rule of thumb with regard to how to buy a Christmas guitar for a beginner which is: Always get them what they want. It's their dream not yours. Listen, when you first get a guitar, you are all jazzed up and ready to rock. Problem is, your quite a ways away from being able to do so. And learning to play guitar is a frustrating (althoug incredibly rewarding) task. So in order to keep a beginner interested in the guitar during the early years, its vital to give them an instrument that allows them to express themselves muscially. And if your child or significant other or whoever is into heavy metal, buying them an acoustic guitar that will never sound like they want it to, is guaranteed to result in that guitar sitting in the closet within three weeks. Your much better of buying a $200 electric guitar and even though the learning curve is the same with either instrument, they will be able to more quickly emulate the music they love and therefore keep playing longer. Believe me, I have seen it hundreds of times on both sides.

So, if your looking to buy an electric or acoustic guitar for a beginner, which guitar should you buy. Obviously price range is an issue for a lot of people and you can get a guitar for less than $150 now a days but if you really want an instrument that is going to provide a solid foundation for learning, I would budget around $250 for an acoustic and around $300 for an electric set up.

For an acoustic guitar, there are a number of cool packages listed to the right. Everything in the right column is recommended for this Christmas 2007. But, if you wanna know what I would do, it's easy cause I just did it myself. My drummer has been playing guitar for a little while now but he needed a beginning instrument that would be capable of helping him grow. So I got him the Fender CD60CE Acoustic Guitar. It's black which is always cool although it is available in natural and sunburst too. It's a cutaway which allows him access to the upper frets to play lead, and it has a built in pickup so he can plug it into an amp if he needs to. I ordered it from MusiciansFriend and I got it within a week. Of coarse the coolest part is that it sounds good (for a guitar in this price range). It lacks a little in the way of optimal bass response but I used to play a Martin so it's hard to compare. But overall the feature set for the price is really good. And he loves it. If that's a little out of your price range, check out some of the beginning packages on the left. If you are looking to get something a little nicer, here is my general recommendation for price ranges:

$100 to $400 - Fender or Yamaha acoustic guitars.
$400 to $1000 - Ovation, Takamine acoustic guitars.
$1000+ Gibson, Martin or Taylor guitars .

There are always exceptions but in my opinion these ranges reflect the best values I have seen over the years including the reslae value of the guitar.

For the electric guitarist, the biggest thing to remember for most is to buy a guitar with at least one "humbucker" pickup in it. The humbucker is the pickup that has two coils instead of one (single coil pickup) and they tend to be more commonly used in modern rock music and they are much less noisy than a single coil. They also have a much deeper sound to them. So, if you are buying a Fender Stratocaster for example for a beginning guitarist, unless that person gravitates towards music that is primarly played with single coil pickups (Hendrix, Clapton, Stevie Ray, maybe some Tom Petty or a lot of southern rock) I would recommend getting a "fat strat" which somes stock with a humbucker.

But, since I play a Les Paul, my recommendation is gonna be to get an Epiphone Les Paul starter package for the average beginner. First off, most people play Guitar Hero nowadays and since Slash is the face of that game now, most people are familiar with a Les Paul and identify it with rock music and being cool (which is important if we are talking about a child or your 22 year old boyfriend...lol). Second, they sound better than most of the other guitars in this price range (if not all). And third, it gets you used to the feel of a Les Paul which is somewhat unique, early so that later when you figure out that in fact the Les Paul is the best guitar on the planet, you won't have to make the adjustment then.

If your beginner is really into heavy metal, then I would recommend an Ibanez or an ESP or any other guitar that is symbolic of their music heros. Remember that in the beginning, that attraction is going to help them overcome a lot of tedious practicing...lol. If you want to Epiphone package so they can play a Les Paul like Slash or even an SG:

Epiphone LP Special II or
Epiphone SG Special
Epiphone All Access Amp Pack

Fortunately these packages come with an electronic tuner which is vital to success, trust me. Headphones are another life saver for those around the beginning guitarist. A metronome is another essential part of playing guitar although too many ignore that part of the equation. And get a book and an instuctional video to give some much needed direction. If your into rock music, the Wolf Marshall series is good and if your a little more advanced, Troy Stetina has some exceelent books including Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar Book/CD which is a MUST have for any guitarist. Seriously this book helped me more than any other I have ever read.

When buying online, I always recommend either be Musiciansfriend.com or Guitar Trader in San Diego. They both offer a 45 Day Satisfaction Guarantee and 45 Day Lowest Price Guarantee. Plus I have bought things from both stores and have had excellent experiences. And when you buy a guitar or guitar package from any of the links on this page, you support Dive Bomber and our upcoming CD release. Thanks for visiting and good luck buying your guitar this Christmas. I hope this helps.

Catfish's Recommended Electric Beginning Guitars and Guitar Packages For Christmas

Catfish's Recommended Acoustic Beginning Guitars and Guitar Packages For Christmas