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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | boltonb - 2012-10-22 10:05 AM
darkbarguitar - 2012-10-22 11:10 AM I was once called a "troll" on the AGF for questioning why guys that couldn't play very well were routinely buying $5000 to $10,000 guitars. While I personally think this is an interesting question, I can also understand why those to whom it might apply may find it somewhat offensive, even if that was never the intent of the questioner. Some people might very well read into the question an underlying bias that somebody who cannot play very well is not entitled to spend $5,000 to $10,000 on a guitar. The reason for the bias is likely rooted in the definition of value. For the non-player, value is probably based on rarity, collector appeal, or the like. I would be willing to bet that the majority of Ferrari owners possess skills nowhere close to those required to operate these vehicles at the upper limit of their capabilities. I'm sure it applies to many other things as well. Look at all the soccer moms driving big Jeep SUVs. Most of these vehicles have never seen a dirt road, let alone a rocky streambed where their off-road capabilities really shine. If a willing buyer has the money to buy a $10,000 guitar, more power to them. I hope I run into one if and when I should ever be so lucky as to be selling a guitar in that range. This is one of benefits of a free market economy.
This is an interesting aspect... maybe worthy of a new thread... so here it is...
I used to believe in the "start from the bottom" method. I did in fact with guitar. Many years later, at least 20 I think, I got to play a real high-quality guitar and it changed my perspective.
I tell people now that they should start with the best they can afford. I know I would be at least a 10 times better player today had I NOT cut my teeth on "entry level" cheap guitars. My Medallion was the first decent guitar I owned and I thought it was fantastic because I never did get to play an Adamas until many years later, but it was so much better than what I started with. One of the reasons I modified my Viper so much was because I was looking for better playability when in fact if I knew what "quality" felt like, I would have just had it set up properly.
It's the same with bands. Somehow I missed the memo about "working the dives"... I started out doing big gigs in bands and frankly I don't recall ever playing in any dives with the exception of dives that paid well. And oh yeah.... "play for free until you make it big".... sorry never got that memo. I have played for free, but it's been my choice because I wanted to play the venue and it was my idea, or it was charity or something like that.
I still have my 1st guitar bought with S&H Green Stamps and it's a reminder that if you start at the bottom, that's likely where you will stay unless you are lucky. And especially with learning an instrument, you should learn with the BEST instrument you can find. Frankly I am envious of those who are able to start out on an Adamas or Martin or even a Vintage strat or Les Paul or BC Rich etc...
I know this isn't everyone's approach. There is an entire market group of instruments called "entry level." In my opinion, those should be the BEST a guitar maker can offer, NOT the cheapest.
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Location: Flahdaw | I learned on a real piece of crap. When I finally got my hands on a friend's "good" guitar (a $250 Takamine, Ha!) it was like a new day. The action was good, the sound was 10X better than my 5 and dime guitar, and it looked just like a Martin. So I saved up and bought myself one and played it for 20 years, until I bought a new Ovation.
But, there's really no right or wrong way. The day I posted my question on AGF there was a guy that also posted a video of himself playing his new, custom made, boutique guitar. He didn't say how much it cost him, but the maker's website listed VERY expensive guitars. Anyway, he really sucked and it got me wondering why he didn't just learn to play on a Takamine first. Hell, even a new Martin D-18 was 1/4th the price of the guitars that were on the website. Maybe I should have minded my own business, but I was curious what went thru peoples minds.
Anyway, I got LOTS of very constructive responses..........
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Location: Northwest Arkansas | I don't criticize. But, however, I used to play a Yamaha classical. That was my first guitar. I paid $125 for it in 1980. I played that thing till my hands fell off. Almost every guitar player I knew laughed at me for playing it. I play Chet Atkins now, in part because of that guitar. I still don't play lead like a lot of guys do. I can fake it good enough that nobody points and laughs. Your first guitar should be way above your skill set. You can work into it and not have anything to blame but yourself. Please buy a guitar that costs way more than you can afford. #1. You'll play it because you don't want to waste the money. #2. It will be much easier to learn chords on. #3. I'll bet you $20 bucks there are a lot of good players that would be great, if only they had a great guitar. There used to be a dive a few miles from where I live. When we would put a new band together, we'd play there. I think we got $25 a man and free beer. Plus lot of naked fat women. WE would play there until we had a "real" band and then we'd go play at the big clubs. We called that little bar Sh**'* and Giggles. The really funny stuff happened there. I wouldn't give the experience of playing in that little place for anything. To this day, everyone who used to go there tells me how much better we were than all the other bands. That's not why you play. I still like the compliments, though.
Edited by AdamasW597 2012-10-23 8:52 AM
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Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | +1 start better than you can afford.
Though I wish I still had my cheap Japanese electric with all the mojo switches and built in speaker. |
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Location: Jet City | I started with the best electric guitar on the planet, a UKII. It inspired me to play every time I looked at. It wasn't $5-10k, but $700 wasn't much different for a 15yo kid doing odd jobs to pay for it. |
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | My first guitar was a $25 pawn shop Christmas present. My next guitar was a 10 year loaner from a neighbor. The first guitar I actually bought was a 1973 Legend. I totally agree with Miles with an asterisk. New players should learn on the best guitar they can obtain, but not go so overboard on expense that if they decide guitar playing is not for them, they won't lose a lot of money if they want to unload it (unless, of course, they have so much money that they don't care about the loss). A keyboardist friend decided to take guitar lessons a few years ago. I loaned him my 1567 Legend SSB while he was first learning. I think it made all the difference in the world. He's now been playing for three years and owns a custom Collings. |
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Location: Hot Springs, S.D. | I think people should start on a PLAYABLE guitar. Doesn't matter what it looks like, and to some extent, doesn't matter what it sounds like. If it's playable, YOU will sound good.
One day back in Moosup, Marcel Dadi came to the factory to pick up a guitar. He put on a concert for us. He started by playing an aluminum necked Applause. He made that guitar sound so good I think if every aspiring kid in America had heard him, they would have bought an Applause. Sure, the tonal quality wasn't as good as a Legend or an Adamas, but the guitar was highly PLAYABLE, and so he made it sound great.
I have had many many students who started on Applause or Celebrities. When they can afford it they upgrade. I have had some who started on Jasmines, and when you buy a Jasmine it is a crapshoot. Some of them need a neck reset right out of the box. Every one of these kids who had one of THOSE Jasmines gave up. And every one who got one of the good ones stuck with it and eventually upgraded.
Playability above all else. The rest will take care of itself. |
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Location: Fort Worth, TX | My first guitar was a brand new Gibson Melody Maker electric and small amp for Christmas when I was 10 years old. I'll never forget the day I told my dad I needed a double pickup guitar to be able to progress any further with my playing. That night, he brought home Roger Miller's guitarist. He took my Melody Maker and played an instrumental of a tv commercial at the time, "take time out, for Old Milwaukee, it's got that taste you want in beer, have one, have another...". I recognized the tune right off. He went on to dazzle me thusly for quite some time. Point taken dad. Still tho, on my next birthday my dad got me the arch top f hole Martin double pickup electric. I guess since he forgot a better amp that was the reason I didn't progress exponentially. His fault. |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | It would be a great idea if it worked, but starting out with good equipment just doesn't work for most people. I totally agree that giving a beginner a guitar with high action or one that won't stay in tune is a recipe for failure. That's the way I started and look where I am. My brother took lessons on a child size guitar and soon stopped. I used it to figure out an intro that a friend was playing incorrectly and then bought a Univox from another friend. I did my first neck reset on that guitar because the action was so high. Then I bought an acoustic someone built that was hard to play even for the cowboy chords. We went out looking for a decent guitar for my first big gig--our wedding--and found an Ovation Matrix. It played as easily as the Univox and I loved everything about the high tech design, especially the sound. $250 was a huge amount of money for us then and I had to sell both the other guitars to help pay for it. My first gig was the best, though. |
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Location: Texas | "Playability above all else. The rest will take care of itself." Tremendous point. My parents bought me a 25 buck harmony, that was a B to play. I played the heck out of it, but it just wasnt as easy to play as my friends guitars. So when my son wanted to learn how to play, I bought him a fender strat. At 20, he is lightyears from where I was at his age. It also takes interest and a willingness to learn and improve, but if the guitar isn't getting in your way when you are just learning, that is one less discouraging factor that is ever present.
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Location: Connersville, Indiana | My First Guitar was an Asian electric with all the mojo switches. My neighbor I use to babysit for was a performer, He had a strat and an Ovation. Thats what really got me to wanting one. I have always enjoyed being differnt than everyone else. And my neighbor Jeff taught me some songs and I played that electric until my fingers started to bleed then I would put band aids on them and keep playing. Then a kid at school sold me his dads old guitar that was left in the attac for $50.00. The case was real old but had the name FENDER on it, so I knew if wanted this guitar. It was an early 60's Fender acoustic. Played like gold and travled with me all over the world when I was a soldier. I ended up loosing the guitar in my devorce, Go Figure, and I saved so I could buy my first Ovation. I was not sure how much it would cost so I eneded up saving $1000.00 for just in case. I went to the Music Center in Des Moines and i bought an Ovation Ultra. This is in 1990 and I ended up paying $800 with an Ovation case. When I started to play that guitar music just seemed to come to me all at once. The Playability, the sound the look, I was hooked on Ovation guitars. Now it has taken me years to gather the ones I have now. Being a Law Enforcemnt Officer does not pay the best but I didn't do the job for the money, so It has taken me a long time to obtain the Ovations I have for my music. I ended up buying my two sons New Indiana guitars, that looked just like an Ovation, except for the headstock. The strings were so high off the neck I had to have them fixed at MOM and POP guitar store in Richmond Indiana. Once they were set up correctly and played nice, I gave them each one for Chrismas. The both still have them and the both play real nice. Not a top end guitar but the only ones I could afford. Plus the had a 10 year warranty that came with them. I agree that for a new player they really should have a guitar that is a good quality guitar. Other wise they just end up in the corner of a room somewhere. Here is the pic of my first Ovation. 
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Very well said, Alison. Playability is key. I guess I just associate playability with quality, and quality with expense, although I know this is not always the case. |
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Location: Flahdaw | I learned House of the Rising Sun and Wipeout on my 1st P.O.S. when I was 10 and all my friends thought that I was real cool. Even my friends parents were impressed. That was all the "push" I needed. |
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Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | I started Late in Life... I start to seriously learn to play in 2005.
In the 70's I could play Leaving on a Jet Plane and House of the Rising Sun, so I knew how to form a coupla chords incorrectly (still do). I even owned a beater Guild for a bit.
Once I got "clean" I needed a new hobby, so in 2005 I bought a Lyon Stratocopy starter kit for $97. Not the greatest guitar, hard to make bar-F chords on, but I still have it. I would not recommend this model guitar to anyone, but if I go dig-it-out it will still be in tune! 
One of these days I will give this to someone who needs a guitar, but I have had it for seven years, and sometimes I dig-it-out just to remind myself of where I started.
As to Starting-off Small... I am still a beginner and sometimes I feel weird going-out to play with my Adamas. Here is a guitar that is way above my skill-set. But I calm myself with the knowledge that 95% of my listeners have No Idea what an Adamas is. 
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Location: Flahdaw | darkbarguitar - 2012-10-23 12:12 PM
I learned House of the Rising Sun and Wipeout on my 1st P.O.S. when I was 10 and all my friends thought that I was real cool. Even my friends parents were impressed. That was all the "push" I needed.
I realize, after a belly full of dinner, that I didn't make my point.
After getting positive reinforcement from playing, I didn't want a better guitar, I just wanted to learn more songs. |
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| In 1966 I was 10 years old and I was given $20 classical guitar from Woolworth's at Christmas. I got a Mel Bay guitar book which I hated because it had a yellow and red sunburst rig on the cover that looked a bit like an ES 335. To this day I still hate the sight of a yellow and red sunburst guitar. I learned to read notes from that book and would take the guitar to school and play the songs from our grade 6 music book while others sang the words. Someone taught me to play House of the Rising Sun and the chords and picking from that song is enough to get you started on making up your own songs. My first guitar was playable being nylon stringed and all - I used to take it around in a green garbage bag and never thought about whether it was a good guitar or not but I had a lot of fun with that guitar and don't think an expensive guitar would have made any difference at that time in my life when I was laying down the groundwork for what I still do to this day. |
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Location: Hot Springs, S.D. | Yeah, my first guitar was a Sears guitar that my Dad got used, but it was highly playable. It was my only guitar for the first five years. When I felt I DESERVED a better guitar, I was proud to buy myself a Sigma dreadnought when they had just come out. There is something to be said for earning a better guitar - not just earning the money, but the skills. |
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Should you start off small ? (parts taken from another thread).
