The main thing you need to worry about when choosing a guitar is what they call "playability".
That is, how easy is it to hold the strings down on the fretboard when you are playing notes and chords. It doesn't matter how great the guitar looks, or how great it sounds. For a beginner, playability is the big one.
The main reason people give up learning the guitar is that they decide it's too hard. It's certainly not an easy instrument to learn, and a guitar with poor playability just makes it harder.
As a guitar teacher, I would say forget about what the guitar looks like or what it sounds like. Find a guitar that feels comfortable to hold, and with the strings set close to the fretboard. Your fingertips are still going to get sore before they toughen up, but the fingers themselves, and the left hand, should be stress-free and painless with a guitar that has good playability.
If you own a guitar with good playability, you will always be a better guitarist than if you own one with poor playability. A guitar with inadequate or poor playability will always make it more difficult for you to play chords and to play notes fast.
Are you going to choose an acoustic or an electric guitar? For a beginner an acoustic is usually better because:
1. You don't have to buy an amplifier
2. Every day you can just grab it and practice it, you don't have to set up an amp as well
3. The neighbors won't kill you. A beginner practicing on an amplified guitar is not, to be honest, the most wonderful of sounds for a neighbor to listen to.
When you've chosen a guitar you'd be very smart to buy a guitar stand as well. This means you never have to put your guitar away, it is always there in the stand, watching you, waiting for the next practice session.
The first two or three weeks are the hardest. Your fingers will hate it and probably you will hate it too. But you got yourself into this because you love the guitar and guitar music, right? Tough times at the start go with the territory. The best guitarists in the world all started off as beginners like you.
You should commit to practicing half an hour a day. No matter what happens, half an hour a day, seven days a week without fail. It will feel like torture sometimes, some days guitar practice is the last thing you want to do, so that's where the rule you accept for yourself helps you get where you want to go: half an hour a day, every day.
Then one day, not too far away, you will find that you're not a beginner any more, you are a guitarist.
Everybody learns at a different rate, but whether you are fast or slow there is nothing stopping you becoming a good guitarist. Remember to focus on what you are seeking to achieve. Are you learning guitar to accompany singing, or is your aim to become a solo player? Keep your dream in mind.
Whatever you goal is, everyone has to learn the basics. If you just hang in there you will get where you are going, and a guitar with good playability will make it so much easier.
About this Author
You might like to check out Zager EZ-Play guitars. these are medium-priced guitars which have been customized for maximum playability. You won't find them at the music store, they're only sold by the suppliers themselves, Zager Guitars of Lincoln, Nebraska.
Have a look at their website. You can buy one of their guitars, check it out, and if for any reason at all you don't want it just send it back and get a full refund. The refund includes shipping both ways, so it's not costing you anything. They're at [http://www.zager-guitar.info]
Choosing a guitar, the right guitar, is your first step to becoming a guitarist. So choose carefully, and good picking.
Mike Edgar is a guitarist and guitar teacher.
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