How many guitarists do we lose to high action cheapos

[thatsbunk]

back in high school in the mid 70's our garage band would spend half our time just trying to get in tune with each other... If there were electronic tuners back then none of us knew anything about them.

 

[Chordite]

We used the dreaded pitch pipe back then or the keyboard guy, though he complained he never got blown.

Sorry couldn't resist that one

[WRGKMC]

I think more beginners failed in the past because they never learned to tune by ear. That was a main requirement for playing in a band as well. If you couldn't tune up, you'd be lucky to get through the first song without the other players bailing out and asking you to sit the next song out. Being able to tune by ear was a demonstration if skill before you ever played a note. If some guy was spending 60 seconds or more and hadn't even gotten the string in the ball park he may as well have looser stamped on his forehead.

 

That really hasn't improved that much either. Tuners are handy in a band situation when things are noisy (especially drummers) They cant compensate for tempered tuning discrepancies inherent with stringed instruments and even with the best setups you often need to tweak a note or two to have most notes in a particular key play in tune.

 

[Chordite]

Of course sometimes it is just natural selection.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/electric-guitar-/161616014812?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item25a110addc

Not to mention the matching camera skills

oh and, er, it isn't a left handed guitar either

[GAS Man]

Indeed, "tuning" was also a hindrance for me. My dad had got me a pitch pipe to go along with my '66 Framus acoustic, but I really could not equate the sound of that pipe with the sound of the guitar. I'd ask my dad to help me out. He could tune me up, but he was never one of those "my pleasure!" kind of dads so my trips down that path were rare. But yet I've hung onto that old guitar ever since for sentimental reasons. Once I had that guitar in the hands of a player with bachelors in classical guitar performance. He made that guitar sound better than I ever dreamed imaginable.

[gardo]

Of course sometimes it is just natural selection.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/electric-guitar-/161616014812?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item25a110addc

Not to mention the matching camera skills

oh and, er, it isn't a left handed guitar either

 

I don't know about the guitar but the amp alone would make me want to quit

[DeepEnd]

Indeed' date=' "tuning" was also a hindrance for me. My dad had got me a pitch pipe to go along with my '66 Framus acoustic, but I really could not equate the sound of that pipe with the sound of the guitar. . . .[/quote']

I could never correlate the sound of a pitch pipe, which is a reed instrument, with the sound of a string. These days I use a Snark tuner and I have a "guitar tuner" ring tone on my phone for when I'm in music stores, pawn shops and the like. I can get a guitar in tune with itself like most folks but I don't have a good enough sense of pitch to get it in accurate tune.

[Dega500]

My first guitar tuner was my Boston album...."More Than A Feeling"...

[gardo]

I tried a pich pipe too. It was all I had so I did the best I could. Then my parents got a piano and tuning became much easier

[hellion_213]

It damn near lost me.

 

 

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

 

Agree with this 1000% maybe more. I have never understood the logic in 'buy an acoustic' advice to a beginning player wanting to play electric. There's a reason said beginner wants to play electric - the sound. Good analogy with the AcDc/Sheryl Crow thing. That pretty much sums it up.

My first guitar wasn't too bad - a mid-nineties Peavey Raptor. One Humbucker, one knob, if memory serves, and a whammy bar. Not a bad player. Frets weren't jagged, weight was good. Maple fretboard, trans red finish. And an early eighties Super Champ - 30w with spring reverb. Not a bad first setup. Bought them both for $200 in, I think, 1995 maybe. Ok, back to the topic.

You know what else can cause beginners to lose interest - Crappy cheese knife strings that leave your fingers bleeding and coated with oxidized residue. (Slinkys and the like) Cheap picks don't help either. Or the POS amps that most startup packages come with. Someone needs to come out with a medium priced, mid- range beginners setup - and market it as such. Like with a low-watt Modeler, 15w Vypyr maybe, and a JS Dinky, or F-Series ESP, a Decent cable instead of the POS ones, and Tortex or Pickboy picks. DR, Elixir, Markley,or Daddario strings, and a tube of Fast Fret for good measure. I bought one of my daughters a 'beginners package, thinking I could set it all up halfway decent, trust me, not worth the time. I threw half the crap it came with away, including the crappy amp.

Oh, I started with Slinky's, and while I stuck with it, they sucked for the whole 'building calluses' phase. I have swore to never use them again, and have only bought two sets to give them another shot in the last 20 years.

[hellion_213]

My dad also gave me a pitch pipe. I found it helpful occasionally. I took probably 9 years of piano prior to getting my first guitar, so tone was already learned.