What you'll need for lessons at LGS

What you'll need for lessons.

Not a great deal is the short answer. To learn the guitar there are only a few essentials but here is some advice on what to get and where to get it.

Guitar

This one's kind of obvious. You can come for a lesson before you purchase a guitar and borrow one of ours so that you can get a feel for the instrument before splashing out the cash for one of your own. I can advise you also on what to get as part of the lesson as well as tips on stringing and tuning the instrument. However here is some advice concerning buying a good instrument.

Acoustics

Steel Strung: The most popular choice for people playing pop/rock/folk/blues based styles. In recent years there has been a proliferation of good quality budget instruments around the £100 - £200 mark. Anything below £100 is generally to be avoided. It'll be much harder to play and tune and will ultimately prove to be a false economy. Brands such as Stagg, Tanglewood, Samick, Aria all produce good instruments and new brands are coming along all the time. Shops take what's currently the best value at any given time. Keep an open mind and do some research on the net prior to going to look. Alternatively have a look at the reviews in Guitarist magazine and see if anything there is recommended. Also get an instrument with a cutaway - that is a guitar with a bit missing near the upper frets. The way I teach you'll be playing all over the neck more or less straight away and as you advance the limitation will annoy the hell out of you.

Classical or nylon strung: Really only appropriate for playing "Classical" or Flamenco style guitar involving the exclusive use of the right hand nails and a specific repertoire. Not really what I teach. They're not terribly good for strumming chords either as the string tension's so low.

Electric

There are two main paradigms: The Strat and the Les Paul

OK - Polemic time. Look away if you're a Les Paul player.

I'm increasingly coming out in favor of the strat particularly for learners. The Les Paul has several fundamental design problems that make it harder for beginners. Very few Les Pauls' balance correctly and this tends make the student adopt bad posture habits by way of compensation. Any instrument should balance by itself and no real effort should be required by the player to maintain a comfortable and effective position. Les Pauls are nearly always body heavy. It's notable that many players end up with these instruments slung down around their knees which basically signals that they've given up on the idea of ever bring able to play really well. The other problem with LPs is the tunematic bridge which tends to raise the strings too far off the face of the instrument making it near impossible for most people to get the correct picking arm/wrist/hand position. This is a major problem and one which can easily be solved by countersinking the bridge into the body. Carvin do this but for some reason Gibson don't. It's also interesting to note that NONE of the worlds leading players use Les Pauls anymore. I think it inevitable that as the instrument develops towards maturity the Les Paul will die a slow death. Ironic considering that Les Paul was/is a performing musician by profession and that Leo Fender was a radio engineer by training and didn't play himself. This guy here seems to agree with me on this and talks a lot of common sense.

Pointy/Odd shape Guitars.

OK. They may look cool whlist posing in the mirror (hey, you could have saved your money and used a tennis racket for that) or making your first video but once again they can seriously hamper your early development. Save them until you can play a bit.

Strat styles: Any Mexican made Strat, any new squier strat. Yamaha Pacifica's. Stagg do good copies to.

Les Paul: Epiphones, Stagg,

Practice Amp

If you're buying a small practice amp there is only one choice at the moment. The Roland Cube series. Fantastic amps. Check them out. They sell themselves.

General Advice

Check every fret on every string. Listen for rattles or buzzes. Many things can cause this. It may just be a badly made instrument or possibly a perfectly good instrument that hasn't been set up properly. Look at the neck. It should slightly concave with no warping across the surface of the fretboard. Also check the frets. How neatly have they been put in? The ends should be smooth so that when you run your hand along the edge of the neck you don't feel any rough edges. The electric's should be quiet. Are the any clicks or scratching noises as you turn the control knobs? Does the whole instrument feel solid and well put together? Certain instruments have a "rightness" about them - trust your instincts.

Offer cash and see if you can blag some extras. See if they'll throw in a gig bag (you'll need something to carry it around in right?) or a guitar cable. If the strings on the instrument seem particularly old and cruddy see if they put a new set on for you. The shop only pays a couple of quid for a set so they'll probably sweeten the deal for you if you ask. Remember: any guitar is only as good as it's strings. Replace them regularly.

Other essentials

A Metronome - an invaluable tool for developing your timing - an absolute must have. Here's an online one - COOL !

A USB pen/MP3 player - very useful. Allow us to transfer files without wasting CD's. No point burning a 700mb CD for a 10mb audio file when we can just pop it onto a little USB pen and transfer it direct to your computer.

A Electronic Tuner, pitch pipes or tuning fork - good in you don't want to snap strings or annoy those of us with perfect pitch.

Picks, Plectrums or Plectra ! - For beginners I recommend the blue 1mm Jim Dunlop Tortex. Very forgiving! Beware though, make sure you buy a straight one. This material has memory and if manufactured wonky it remains wonky. Not good. Picks should be dead flat and have no rough edges.

A ring binder with plastic envelopes - To put all the lovely looking worksheets I give you into.