Help me write a guitar article

dennisg
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Sat Mar 24, 2012 9:58 am

Encouraged by the success of my first article, I thought I'd push my luck by trying it again, and I'd love to get some help from you good folks. Here are two simple questions I need answers to:

1. Regarding your very first guitar, what factors led you to decide to buy that specific guitar?

2. If you've since bought a second guitar, what did you learn from owning and playing your first one that made you better prepared to buy a new one?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.


Craig
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Sat Mar 24, 2012 10:20 am

Dennis,
Good luck with your next venture...
My first guitar had to be solid wood and I went with the one that looked prettiest to me. Pure looks.
Since then, with my second purchase, I've learned that playability coupled with the tone that fits your style of play is most important. I've also learned that it's an extremely individulal thing. Anyone who asks, "what kind of guitar should I buy?" will get a 100 different snswers and they are all correct!

Craig


willem
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Sat Mar 24, 2012 12:48 pm

My own first guitar (there was an classical in the house that I bought for my son,he was learning for teacher,,he never used it and there's were i began to play)was an steelstring with a cut away and I felt for the sound,,the only thing I knowed was a bout an spruce top,,,then after a while I missed something and that was a more full sound(i was used to the sound of the classical) so i sell it and bought the same brand without a cut away(more sound) I thuoght i was happy with it and for some songs its good enough,,but then we get more knowledge on woods etc...and i did know that mucisans are away's looking for diffrent kinda sounds for a certain goal or just that sound for a song or diffrent tunings(now I know why they have sometimes so many guitars on stage),,now On this moment i am happyest with my Tanglewood with rosewood,,,I don't think i get some GAS 'cos I am aware of how far I would get in the music but I never say NO..

Willem


Max
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Sat Mar 24, 2012 1:52 pm

My first guitar was totally based on cost, it was a Guild that I bought used from a newspaper ad (way before Craig's List or the internet).
It was fine for a first guitar all wood fairly easy to play and sounded good to me at the time.
Then life happened, and I stopped playing for about 20 years.

I then decided to try my hand at it again, dug out the old guitar and tried to play it. The neck seemed to have warped, I tried the truss rod adjustment, it helped but it wasn't the easiest guitar to play.
Went to my local guitar shop, Gryphon Stringed instruments, in Palo Alto, CA and after repeated visits, bought a Taylor 614ce.
It was a beautifully full sounding, easy playing guitar with a Sitka Spruce top, Maple back and sides.

After a few months of living and playing the Taylor, my right arm started to feel uncomfortable every time I sat down to practice (I'm right handed).
Turns out, I think it was just way to big of a guitar for me.

This led to more repeated visits to Gryphon, until one day they had a used custom Taylor 912ce for sale.
It sounded great, was incredibly beautiful, super easy to play, and very comfortable for my right arm.
So, I traded in my 614ce and my Guild (They said they would just use it for training their young apprentices).
I also had to give them a pile of money too, but I've been thrilled with my purchase every day that I pick it up and play.

Good luck with your research, Max


Chasplaya
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Sat Mar 24, 2012 3:12 pm

My first guitar was a Vox Teardrop bought purely on impulse and because it was white the same as Brian Jones , whom I particularly liked at the time, cost 34 pounds sterling! I had no inkling about how to play whatsoever.

Since then I've learned to curb the pure impulse (almost) But I got bitten with the Vox as it had an unrepairable twisted neck and lost a bit of cash on resale; wish I'd kept it though as it is rare being the exact same as Brian Jones with the 3 pickups. I also learned that electric guitars are not really the best entry into learning to play and hey you actually need to invest in amps , cords and pedals meaning more cash I didn't have! So I learned to check the build of any second hand guitar more thoroughly before purchase.


beaker
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Sat Mar 24, 2012 6:59 pm

Dennis, My first guitar was a black Gibson Les Paul copy that I had to have because it was just like the one Pete Townsend played. I was a huge Who fan at the time. I had another electric guitar after that, but what I really learned took me three guitars to figure out. My third guitar was an acoustic guitar. When I got that, I realized that distortion, delay, reverb and other electric guitar effects had been a major distraction and I should have just been playing acoustic all along. Beaker.


sws626
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Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:50 pm

Hi Dennis,

Glad to help. I have two answers to this -- one from my youth and then, after a long absence, another as an adult.

My first guitar happened to be sitting in my parents house. It was a Spanish guitar my father had bought for my mother and she had rarely played. Impossibly wide concave fretboard. That's what I remember most. I was about 12 years old and longed for an electric guitar. Saved up my money and bought a big heavy Peavy, based entirely on its looks. I traded this in about a year later for a Takamine acoustic, which is still in the family.

Fast forward 30 years. I happened to be hanging out wtih my brother at guitar shop in Fremont (Seattle). They had a good collection of Martins. We played. I wondered why I'd given up. The Martin 000-28 got under my skin and a couple of weeks later, when I was back home in the UK, I bought one. We are still in love. I then got a hankering for an electric guitar and bought a Gibson ES-335. I think I thought I would start playing with a band. Then I thought I would record some music with acoustic and electric parts. More and more I realize that I don't have a good reason to keep the electric guitar.

If I were going to buy another guitar today, I would play many more of the same model. I got lucky with my Martin; but I've since played a lot of "identical" models in music stores and none of them feels or sounds quite like the one I have at home. The other thing I would do is immediately take it to a luthier. It took me almost a year to get around to this with the two guitars I have now. I shouldn't have waited.

-Stuart


Catman
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Tue Mar 27, 2012 5:53 am

Dennis, I didn't buy my very first guitar. Does it still count? It was a classical guitar that I picked out of a pile of refuse that was waiting to be cleared away in the kibbutz. I was 12 at the time. Part of the top was missing, and one of the tuning buttons was broken. I patched the top with a piece of plywood, made a new button out of dental plastic (my father was a dentist), and taught myself to play from books. The action was ridiculously high, but I didn't know that at the time. I don't have it any more.

I bought my second guitar in London when I was 17. It was also a classical guitar, but this time new, and with a hard case. I chose it due to the tone and playability. Looking back, I can say that I knew very little about either :( I had that guitar with me during my military service (except boot camp) and at university. I still have it today.

Fast forward about 25 years...

My first acoustic steel-string guitar was an Applause (by Ovation) AE147. This is the made-in-china Ovation. It's the guitar in my avatar. I bought this with much more care and knowledge and comparisons, but I must admit that I was heavily influenced by its looks. It has nice tone (with Elixir Nanowebs), reasonable action, and is just about indestructible. At the time I was not yet playing fingerstyle guitar, so the narrow neck was OK.

About 5 years later (during which I joined TG) I bought my second acoustic steel guitar, which is my Taylor 814. This time I did it properly, following advice from TG members and from the acoustic guitar forum. This time playability and tone were by far the main considerations. I auditioned and compared plenty of Martins and Takamines, a few Gibsons before I tried a Taylor. I tried to listen to all the guitars without consideration for price. This wasn't easy as the sales associates second question is usually "what is your price range?", and it was difficult to get them to stop telling me the price of a guitar as they handed it to me. I usually gave a low range at first, expecting them to try to up-sell which they usually did. Another problem was that in my location (Israel) it is impossible to find mid-range to high-end models from different makers in the same shop. Oh! the trials and tribulations...

-David


dennisg
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Thu Mar 29, 2012 9:17 am

A big thanks to everyone (including Tony and Michele who contacted me in email) who responded to my request for help on this. I've already begun writing the article, and it's going well so far.


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