How many guitarists do we lose to high action cheapos

[Chordite]

I just read an ad for a guitar. "Suit beginner" it said, as many of them do.

Can't help wondering why there is an assumption that a beginner will be happy with something cheap and nasty. They probably won't, they will be put off and after a month of high action, carp intonation and jagged frets will give up for life. We will never know what they might have become with a decent guitar.

Possibly we need to reconsider the "start with a cheapo and if you don't like it you haven't lost much ... " advice and replace it with

"Start with something half decent and if you don't like it you can always sell it for what you paid"

I'm sure we would increase the retention rate.

[thatsbunk]

I think a lot less than there used to be. Even the cheapo guitars out there nowadays are a lot more playable than when I first started playing in the 70's. I was in GC yesterday to pick up some strings & for grins grabbed an epiphone les paul junior to monkey around with for a few minutes. Not a terrible sounding or playing guitar for the $...

[Freeman Keller]

I always cringe when I hear the recommendation for a beginner to get a used guitar. Usually a guitar is being sold because it is hard to play (or the player is giving up trying) and often older guitars, especially acoustics have very high action or other problems.

 

Whether used or new, cheap or expensive, I think a beginner should take a playing friend with them when shopping for a starter guitar - someone who can judge the guitar and advise on its suitability.

[Steve2112]

I always cringe when I hear the recommendation for a beginner to get a used guitar. Usually a guitar is being sold because it is hard to play (or the player is giving up trying) and often older guitars, especially acoustics have very high action or other problems.

 

Whether used or new, cheap or expensive, I think a beginner should take a playing friend with them when shopping for a starter guitar - someone who can judge the guitar and advise on its suitability.

 

REALLY? You REALLY think a guitar is "usually sold because it is hard to play". You have GOT to be kidding.

 

I advise "beginners" with a budget to purchase a nice used instrument. Despite what you seem to think, you can get a very playable instrument AND your money back if it's not for you.

[knotty]

 

REALLY? You REALLY think a guitar is "usually sold because it is hard to play". You have GOT to be kidding.

 

I advise "beginners" with a budget to purchase a nice used instrument. Despite what you seem to think, you can get a very playable instrument AND your money back if it's not for you.

 

 

I think the point is that a beginner would not know a nice used instrument if it came up and bit them.

They need independent advice on buying and set up.

 

[Temple of Light]

Like we need another guitar player ?

Really?

Not everyone should pick up a guitar, you either have it, want it, and need it, or you dont.

There is really very little doubt about it and should you question about whether or not you should,

go, and for god's sake leave it the fvck alone.

Millions upon millions sold, and what does the world already do or want with 10 million angry guitar players who don't

know how to play and want to be rich and famous and tour have places to play?

What about, we want everyone who wants to be a musician, can be; and the way to go about it is to start with real equipment.

[knotty]

understand sorry don't you.

[onelife]

I got serious about playing guitar in the mid sixties and was trying to learn Beatle songs on an old archtop with high action and no cutaway. It was tough and slow going.

 

A friend of mine from school, the son of a working musician, was given a goldtop Les Paul by his father when he was nine years old.

 

For me the struggle with the guitar was indeed limiting but my friend was able to develop subtleties in his playing because he was not limited by the instrument. When we were in junior high school, he had a three piece band and was playing songs from Abbey Road at dances a week after the album came out. He also had a solid handle on the Hendrix stuff and was playing Led Zeppelin songs as they were being released.

 

My first really playable guitar was a 1972 strat that I bought new but by that time my friend (who was also blessed with natural talent) was writing and recording his own material.

 

 

One of the big problems with cheap guitars back then was the intonation. I always recommended Yamaha guitars in those days because the technology they used for putting the frets in the right places on their expensive guitars filtered down to the cheap ones.

 

I've noticed now that even the cheap guitars being built today have become very playable instruments and, although they are not goldtop Gibsons, they do offer the beginner an opportunity to develop their skills without the frustration I experienced when I started out.

 

[Temple of Light]

understand sorry don't you.

 

not in the context you'd prefer...

[Grant Harding]

I got hand me down acoustics with ridiculous action. Near impossible to play. It did nothing to slow down my infatuation with guitar. Once I played a decent one that got me on the track to making mine better and ultimately a newer decent one.

 

I can see how someone that's just sort of interested could get scared off by a lousy guitar.

[DeepEnd]

My first guitar was a no-name $19.99 Montgomery Ward special with action of about 1/4". Somehow I kept going. My first decent guitar was an Alvarez I bought in '72. My own recommendation is generally decent a used guitar and a setup. It does help if the person involved can take a relatively knowledgeable player along. If it's a forum poster, I usually ask the person if he/she is near me and volunteer to help. So far nobody has taken me up on it but you never know.

[knotty]

 

not in the context you'd prefer...

Too many random words. The last sentence is indecipherable. To me anyway.

[Temple of Light]

feel better now editor of lore?

[Bucksstudent]

This thread needs less bickering and more blueberry muffins.

 

[knotty]

feel better now editor of lore?

 

 

Problem no carry you on.

[knotty]

This thread needs less bickering and more blueberry muffins.

 

 

 

Thats not helping my diet bucks!

[onelife]

 

Thats not helping my diet bucks!

 

Just eat the blueberries.

[Virgman]

I had a bad time until I held my Johnson in my hands.

 

Then I knew.

[WRGKMC]

I'll agree back when I first started playing there was a huge gap between a budget beginners guitar and even a low end professional instrument. Some of the mail order stuff was awful. I worked in guitar shops part time in the 70's and you'd get people bringing in toy guitars and hoping you could make them playable as beginner instruments and it was pretty hopeless for many of them, especially the acoustics which only had nut and bridge heights you could take down or use lighter strings.

 

Today you can buy tons of great instruments for peanuts that would work well for beginners. Finding a good one is just a matter of shopping for one and getting good advice from someone who knows. A kid wanting to take lessons can easily get advice from a music shop or music instructor. He doesn't have to settle with some junk his fried is trying to get rid of or some parent who is completely unknowledgeable.

 

If you buy used you just have to have a pro look at them and get them in playable condition. Even new something like an Affinity Telecaster is a thousand times better then what was available when you adjust for inflation. With a little setup work and new strings it will play as well as a high end guitar. I'd even recommend using a heavier gauged set of strings with a wrapped 3rd for awhile so their fingers build up more quickly, at least till they learn all their basic chords and begin to learn scales and play lead.

[Bucksstudent]

So, muffins it is?

[Dega500]

"How many guitarists do we lose to high action cheapos"

 

I've always wondered how many were lost to broken strings or even perfectly good guitars that were out tune guitars.

[gdsmithtx]

If the stuff I generally run across in pawnshops is any indication, lots.

[6down1togo]

How many guitarists? None.

 

How many beginners, a lot. As a parent, you try to provide your kid the best instrument you can afford. For a first guitar, my parents bought me a Silvertone that only a slide player could love. In those days, there were a lot of bad guitars. Today, even the cheap guitars are decent players.

 

I look at it this way, If you really want to play you don't give up because the guitar has high action. A bad guitar had a way of flushing out a kid who tries a lot of things and never sticks with anything.

 

I played the ass off that Silvertone as a beginner and was just happy to be playing a guitar. My parents moved me up to a bit better guitar once they saw I really wanted to play. From there I took over and earned the cash to buy a used Gretsch Nashville that I played for years.

[GAS Man]

It damn near lost me.

 

My first 2 guitars had high action, but both could have been better with a good setup, but there was no one around to show me how and I didn't enven realize the damn things were adjustable. My first acoustic guitar actually had screws on the bridge which would raise the comb bridge, but I thought they were just there to secure the bridge. But even with the bridge lowered, that guitar has the skinniest frets in the world, still making it a guitar better for articulate players than chord bangers. But after my first couple failed attempts in the mid 60's to early 70s, I finally circled back around (at the encouragement of a college buddy) and got a good electric guitar in '84 and haven't quit playing since.

 

To this day, I still cringe when people advise getting a youngster an acoustic guitar for a starter guitar. I don't care what anyone says, for the most part, I believe that recommendation is utter bull****************. If some kid wants to learn Sheryl Crow,. then fine, get them an acoustic, but if they want to learn AC/DC, then I hope they set that acoustic on fire and use its shards to light their bong. Electric guitars have more supple action, and the easier a guitar is to play, and the more it can make sounds like their guitar heroes, the more they'll pick it up. Just that simple. /rant

 

[mikesr1963]

My problem back in the early 70's wasn't the cheap guitar, it was not having a way to tune the thing and having instructions that sucked when trying to learn. Plus there was no where to get any lessons. When I picked it up again in my mid 30's I was learning on a late 50's arch top acoustic someone gave me with super worn frets and high action. Still, I couldn't believe how easy I picked it up. Within a year I learned to play lead all over the neck. So when it comes to learning guitar today, I don't see any excuses for stopping except being lazy as heck. Within two years I was doing all my own set-up work and rewiring and changing out pickups making my guitars play the way I want them too.