Choosing Acoustic or Electric Guitar
Welcome to Introduction to Guitar, week one.
Some of you might be thinking, which guitar should I choose?
Should it be an acoustic guitar, like the one I'm playing, or
should it be an electric guitar, like this one?
Well here's some things to consider as you're making this choice.
First off I would say, for those of you who've been influenced and inspired
by an artist who plays the acoustic guitar, then that should be your choice.
That way you'll keep playing because you're emulating the artist so to speak.
For those of you who might have been influenced say by Jimi Hendrix, for
example, and your choice might be electric guitar.
Then maybe that might be your choice,
because it's the artist that inspires you to play the instrument,
that gives you that initiative to pick up the instrument and practice.
So, whatever keeps you practicing should be your choice.
There are some other things to consider.
For one, acoustic guitar, slightly physically harder to play.
So if you think that there are going to be some physical issues with you
holding the strings down for the most part because of the action.
Sometimes, the acoustic guitar can be physically harder to play.
Whereas, electric guitar, most of the time,
you can get really light gauge strings that make it physically easier to play.
Ultimately you choose the instrument that keeps you playing and
excited about practicing.
One other thing to consider is, and this is something where acoustic guitar
might have the advantage, is that an acoustic guitar is a complete package.
You can take it out of the case and you can start playing right away.
[MUSIC]
Electric guitar, on the other hand,
in order to play this instrument there's some additional things that you need.
For one, you're going to need some kind of guitar cable or chord, and
then you do need an amplifier, an electric guitar amplifier.
It doesn't have to be a custom amp, like the one I have.
But there are some companies like Fender who have some affordable
packages where you can buy the electric guitar and it comes with a cable,
a tuner, a strap, and all of the things that you need
at a competitive price to a comparable acoustic guitar.
Ultimately, you should choose the instrument that keeps you inspired
to play and practice.
Choosing the Right Guitar: Right-Handed vs Left-Handed
[MUSIC]
So, after you've made your choice as to whether you're going to play
acoustic guitar, or electric guitar.
How do you go about choosing an instrument?
There are a few things you might want to consider.
I would say for the most part, you should choose an instrument that is
at least at what we might call a professional standard of quality.
It should have good working parts.
It should be able to stay in tune.
A cheaper instrument might not sound as full and as rich as an instrument.
That might be a little bit more expensive.
My advice would be to sit down with the instrument.
I know these days you can buy a lot of things online.
My advice would be to try and get an instrument that you can sit down and
physically play.
And that you can actually tell to some degree.
Even if you are a beginner.
That it actually feels like a good instrument.
Now, [SOUND] you should of course love the instrument that you're going to play.
Above and beyond the fundamental sort of physical quality instrument.
The cosmetics, or the aesthetics are entirely up to you.
If you decide that you want to play a guitar that's green glow paisley.
And that's the instrument that actually inspires you to practice every day.
Then that should be your choice of instrument.
Just be careful not to sacrifice quality for the aesthetics.
My advice would be to be in the room, play the guitar, like it.
I would say maybe from the $150 to $250 price
range might be a good starting point.
You can certainly spend a lot more money.
But if your budget is an issue.
Then I would say you can find a decent instrument these days for
around $150 to $250.
Both in the electric guitar and the acoustic guitar arena.
One of the things to consider is whether or
not you are left-handed, or right-handed when it comes to playing guitar.
Usually, right-handed guitars are oriented in this way.
I fret with my left hand, and I pick the strings with my right hand,
fingers or with a pick.
If you're left-handed.
They do make left-handed guitars
that are positioned more like that.
Exactly the opposite.
And so maybe that's one thing you might want to consider in your choice of
instrument.
When it comes to electric guitars, depending on the guitar that you get.
The actual physical cut might be different.
So that's the consideration.
If you're a left handed guitar.
Usually for the electric guitar, you do need to get a left handed instrument.
Whereas with acoustic guitar, sometimes you can get the same instrument and
you can get it modified.
And you can get the strings changed around for your left-handed fingering and
fretting.
Essential Accessories for Acoustic Guitar
[MUSIC]
So let's talk about some essential accessories
that you might want to consider getting for your guitar.
I do recommend some kind of protective case.
I have a hard shell case,
which is good for traveling and checking in at the airport.
I recommend a similar kind of case to protect your instrument.
Adequate padding and nice soft fluffiness inside protect my instrument.
A strap is essential.
Some kind of guitar strap.
In this case I have a leather strap.
It attaches both ends, one end to the head stock of the guitar and
the other end to a pin that's attached to the bottom of the guitar.
Moving along, it's always a good idea to have some extra strings.
Strings break from time to time.
On average I change my strings maybe once or
twice a month, especially if I'm playing regularly,
maybe even more often, and so I keep maybe three or four packs handy.
And you just can't go wrong with that.
This is called a metronome.
I recommend this and then many different versions that you can get.
This one is a simple old fashioned digital metronome.
What a metronome does and we'll talk more about this later is it keeps time for
you so that you can practice whether it's a scale or
a strumming pattern, with accurate time, it's essential to have
some kind of metronome that you can use as a guide when you're practicing.
All it does is it keeps a beat, as we can see, and
there's some way to adjust the frequency of that beat.
Now there are many different types of metronomes.
You can buy a digital one like this, as cheap as $10 or something like that.
They even have some free online website metronomes that you can pick up.
These days, if you have an iPhone, there's many metronome,
free metronome apps that you can get.
The idea here is that you get one and you use it when you practice.
In my case, my acoustic guitar does not have a built in pick-up.
So what I have is a pick-up that I install into the sound hole of the guitar.
This goes right inside there under the strings and
then it allows me to plug it into either an amplifier or a PA.
As I mentioned before many acoustic guitars today come with
built in pick up so you can actually plug them in directly without having to use
an attachment such as this.
But this is a pretty old guitar and this is a pretty old pick up too.
Some kind of tuner,
there are many different kinds of tuners that you can get on the market today.
In this case this is one that you can actually plug directly into or
you can use it acoustically and when you play a note [SOUND] it actually guides you
towards the correct frequency, and you can tighten or you can loosen the tuning pegs,
and then that way you can keep your instrument in tune.
Again, today, you can buy a tuner for maybe five or
ten dollars, up to $20 or so.
But there are many tuners that are available if you have a smartphone.
There are many tuners that are available, free tuners,
along with various online free tuners that you can get your hands on.
Another essential and very inexpensive item.
This is called a string winder and it also has a built in,
what we call, bridge puller.
When you get to changing your strings, should you break a string.
Often times the string winder allows you to quickly wind up a string
to its required tension, you'd wrap it around a few times and then wind this.
Should you have to change a string there's a little corner of this,
which is called a bridgepin puller and you would get that underneath
the bridgepin pull it out.
Essential, and only a few cents.
Moving right along.
Most of you who owned acoustic guitars should get some kind of humidifier.
The weather does play tricks on you and your acoustic guitar.
Varying humidities, hot,
cold sometimes can cause the wood to do things that are not good.
I recommend a small humidifier such as this one.
This one actually installs in between the strings and stays in there.
What it does, it keeps a certain amount of humidity within the instrument so
that you don't get drying out or warping.
I highly recommended for anyone who plays acoustic guitar.
Moving right along, at a point later in the course,
we're going to talk about the use of a capo.
This is a capo, extensively what it is, is a moveable nut.
Now, this nut here allows me to play what we call open position cords.
We'll talk about open position cords later on.
What a capo does extensively is move that nut up to a required fret.
So if you're a singer, let's say, and you're used to playing, of if
you're accompanying a singer and you're used to playing a song in a certain key,
what this does is it allows you to transpose using the identical shapes.
As I said, we'll get into that as the course progresses,
and we'll talk about open-position chords.
But for now, all you need to know is this allows you to play open-position
chords anywhere on the fretboard.
Another thing that we have is yet
another tuner these have become popular of late.
These tuners actually attach to your headstock.
See if I can pop this on here.
And basically what it does is it gives you an affect what you get
when you have a built in tuner it attaches to your headstock and
then it allows you to tune your guitar.
[SOUND] It allows you to tune your guitar and make the adjustments accordingly.
And it attaches permanently to your headstock or temporarily.
You can take it off.
So that's another kind of tuner.
And that's it, for some essential accessories for your acoustic guitar.
Essential Accessories for Electric Guitar
[MUSIC]
So now let's talk about some essential electric guitar accessories.
First off, I recommend some kind of case.
I choose what we call a gig bag.
Now, a gig bag is a very padded protective case that
is soft and a lot of times it has straps that allows you to carry it on your back.
This one is professional quality, I recommend a gig bag for
an electric guitar, it's just a little easier to take around.
And most airlines do let you take gig bags into the cabin.
You have to have some kind of professional quality guitar cable.
The cable transmits the sound
from the strings through the pickup to your amplifier.
Over here we have basically an amplifier, you don't necessarily have to get a custom
Allston the way I have, but some kind of the electric guitar amplifier
is essential to create the sound as I mentioned before.
There are packages where you can buy the electric guitar along with
some of the accessories that we're talking about right now.
The importance of the cable can't be stressed enough.
A low quality cable will not transmit a good signal and
you'll think your guitar sounds bad.
And then you change a cable and all of a sudden, it sounds great.
Sometimes if you get a low quality cable, it'll sound crackly or it'll get shorts.
You know, a good quality cable and this one, I'll kid you not,
is about 15 years old so highly recommended, a good quality cable.
It's a good idea to have, as I mentioned before, with the acoustic guitar,
you should have some kind of strap.
The strap helps position the guitar in a comfortable way that you can sit and
play it properly.
Along with the straps, especially for an electric guitar, I recommend strap locks.
Now, there are many different brands you can buy,
I prefer this relatively inexpensive plastic ones.
Now, what is a strap lock?
A strap lock attaches basically to the strap, the other side of the pin.
And it stops your strap from accidentally coming off and
then your electric guitar, your wonderful investment, crashing to the ground.
So just for a few cents,
you can actually have something that prevents that from happening.
So I highly recommend some kind of strap lock.
They range from cents to even like, you know,
quite a few dollars, depending on the nature or the permanence of the strap.
I've been using these for 20 years, and they've never failed me.
As with acoustic guitar, I recommend, you've got to have extra strings.
You just never know when you're going to break a string and you have to change it.
And in order to change it.
Even though you won't be using the bridge pin pull section of your string winder,
oftentimes it's convenient to have this to be able to wind your new strings on.
As with acoustic guitar, some kind of tuner, either, and independent tuner,
or an iPhone tuner, or in this case, I do have on my electric guitar,
a head stock tuner that's relatively permanently attached.
And it allows me to stay in tune in between songs or as I'm practicing.
And last but not least, in fact, most importantly,
whether you play acoustic or electric guitar,
you really do need to have a really good metronome whether you buy a relatively
inexpensive digital one, like this one, or an iPhone metronome.
A lot of that stuff is available online, free websites.
And last, but by no means least, one of the most essential things that you will
have as a guitarist is what we call the guitar pick.
There are many different shapes, sizes, and choices that you make
around your pick will effect how you sound, it will effect how you play.
So, later on in the course, we're going to cover the picks in greater detail.
But, for now, you can go out and
get yourself a guitar pick that works for you and also try and buy one or
two of the same because eventually, we always end up losing these.
So, pick out yourself a few of these guitar picks and
keep some extra ones as backup.
And, so, those are some essential electric guitar accessories.
Congratulations! You passed!
TO PASS 75% or higher
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GRADE
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Essential Accessories
TOTAL POINTS 14
1.
Question 1
This is a device used by musicians to help keep a steady tempo as they play.
1 / 1 point
Pedals
Amplifier
Electronic Tuner
Metronome
Correct
Metronome is correct! The metronome is used by musicians to help keep a steady tempo as they
play, or to work on issues of irregular timing, or to help internalize a clear sense of timing and tempo.
2.
Question 2
What are the basic accessories needed to hear your electric guitar? Choose all that apply.
5 / 5 points
An Electronic Tuner
Metronome
A Guitar Cable
Correct
A guitar cable is correct! You will need to use a guitar cable to plug your electric guitar into an
amplifier.
A Humidifier
An Amplifier
Correct
An amplifier is correct! You will need to plug your electric guitar into an amplifier to hear it.
3.
Question 3
This very important guitar tool is found on smart phones, pedals, and handheld devices.
1 / 1 point
A Reverb Unit
An Amplifier
A Humidifier
Tuner
Correct
Tuner is correct! There are multiple tuning apps that can be downloaded for free on smart phones
and hand held devices. They can also be found on some pedals, and even some acoustic guitars.
4.
Question 4
What is this tool called?
4 / 4 points
A Headstock Tuner
String Winder
Metronome
A Tremolo Bar
Correct
String winder is correct! The picture above is a guitar string winder. It is used for tuning and winding
a loose string on the guitar guitar.
5.
Question 5
What tool can be used to transpose the guitar to a better key for a vocalist's range?
1 / 1 point
A Chord Block Diagram
A String Winder
A Capo
An Electric Tuner
Correct
A capo is correct! A capo is used to quickly transpose the guitar into a better key for a vocalist.
6.
Question 6
What is the recommended case for an acoustic guitar?
1 / 1 point
A Hard Shell Case
A Soft Shell case
A Gig Bag
Correct
A hard shell case is correct! A hard shell case will keep your acoustic guitar well-protected.
7.
Question 7
This important accessory prevents the body of your acoustic guitar from warping and cracking due to
the wood drying out.
1 / 1 point
A Guitar Humidifier
A Capo
A Guitar Tuner
Guitar Strings
Correct
A guitar humidifier is correct! Keeping a guitar humidifier in your case is always a good idea. It will
keep the humid level in your case stable and prevent the wood from cracking or warping.
Which of the following can you use to change the tone of an electric guitar? Choose all that apply.
(Scroll to view all options)
Pickup
Correct
Pickup is one of the ways you can change the tone of an electric guitar!
Pickup
is selected.This is correct.
Pickup is one of the ways you can change the tone of an electric guitar!
Tone Controls
Correct
Tone controls is one of the ways you can change the tone of an electric guitar!
Tone Controls
is selected.This is correct.
Tone controls is one of the ways you can change the tone of an electric guitar!
Cable
Un-selected is correct
Cable
is not selected.This is correct.
Pickup Selector Switch
This should be selected
Saddles is incorrect. Saddles are used to affect intonation.
Which of the following is used to adjust the bow in the neck of a guitar? (Scroll to view all options)
Saddles
The Truss Rod
Correct
The truss rod is correct!
The Truss Rod
is selected.This is correct.
The truss rod is correct!
Changing the String Height
The Tremolo Bar
Parts of the Guitar (Electric)
[MUSIC]
And now let's talk about the parts of the electric guitar.
I'm going to start with the basics.
These of course are the strings.
And the strings, we actually tune them with these, which are called tuners.
In this case, I have locking tuners, which actually allow me to cut off
the string completely and minimize the amount of
tuning irregularities, I just think they're a little more accurate.
So in this case, we have locking tuners.
Moving down the strings we actually come to the area, this is called the nut.
In this case, I have a graphite nut.
As we move down the neck these metal things,
they're called frets and they allow you to extensively shorten
the length of the string and placing your finger down in certain positions.
The shortening of the strings changes the pitch.
And that way you can actually combine and create melodies and
chords and create difference pitches and play them together or separately.
[SOUND] A lot of times frets have markers on them and
typically, you'll find them on the 3rd, 5th,
the 7th, the 9th, and the 12th fret.
As you can see, this guitar goes way up to something like 22 frets,
whereas most acoustic guitars will stop around 12, and
then it becomes a little more physically difficult to get higher.
Moving along, we're going to get down to this area here called the bridge.
And these are called saddles.
Now, these are sometimes adjusted to fine tune the instrument.
This is something you should probably get done when you first buy the instrument.
It's a process called intonation
which just basically fine tunes the tuning on your instrument.
In this case, on this guitar, we have something called a whammy bar or
more traditionally known as a tremolo.
And that allows you to [SOUND] add a little bit of tremolo to you chord or
whatever melody you might be playing.
[SOUND] Tremolo bar.
Here we have the input, which is where you plug your guitar cable or chord.
Moving along, here we have these little things, which we call pickups.
Now here we have what's called a pickup selector switch.
In this case, there are five different positions.
And each of these five different positions allows you to select a different
configuration of these, what we call pick-ups.
The result is that it's a different sound.
It goes from sort of darker, or a little fatter, when we're in this position,
to brighter, sort of a little twangier, in that position.
This first, position one, selects this pick-up,
position two selects both of these pick-ups,
position three just selects the middle one, position four selects these two, and
then the last pickup selector position selects this pickup.
So essentially this pickup selector allows you the range and tones
from dark and fat to bright and twangy.
Now we're going to talk a little bit about pickups.
In this case, the pickups that are on this guitar which is a Stratocaster
style guitar are called single coil.
Without getting into too many details the two options that you usually have
are either single coil as we have here, or if they look a little squarer,
sometimes you might have what is called a Humbucker.
Now the difference sonically is that humbuckers might sound a little louder,
a little fatter.
Single coil as we have here are sort of very thin,
with less output, a little twangier, a little brighter.
It's just a question of personal preference,
both are really great sounding pick-ups.
In addition, we have tone controls, and
again, you might find different configurations of tone controls and
volume controls, based on the instrument that you have.
In this case, I have two volume controls and one tone control.
Usually, there's a volume and two tone controls.
In my case, I had some custom work done.
Usually, just a volume and tone and tone would be the standard setting.
Now, if we take a look right here, we'll see a little hole at the top of the neck.
This is called the truss rod adjustment area.
Now, I would advise you when you first get your guitar to make sure that it's set up
correctly.
Usually the place at which you purchase your guitar will have a technician and
they'll set the action on your guitar.
Now by the action, I mean the height of the strings.
What the truss rod adjustment does is it controls the bow and
in effect, the height of the strings above the fret board.
That makes it physically easier to play.
A guitar with lower action will have low strings.
A guitar with higher action, well you'd have to press a little bit harder.
So the truss rod adjustment is used in combination with the saddle fine tuning
when you first get your guitar and your technician sets it up.
So I would recommend, if you can, a professional setup.
Now, usually on many of the Strat style guitars,
we call this style of guitar, it's a Fender Stratocaster.
Affectionately called a Strat.
You'll find what's called a pick guard.
Now the pick guard covers the wood, and again, protects it,
because sometimes when you're playing, often you hit, so
you'll find some pick guards that are pretty worn.
In the cases where there's no pick guard,
you'll find the wood quite worn from playing.
And that's it for the parts of the guitar.
Chord Block Diagrams and Fretboard Maps
[MUSIC]
So for those of you that are thinking, wait a minute, I don't read music.
Getting a little nervous.
Don't worry.
Later on in the course, we're going to give you the basics you need to get you to
understand a little bit about reading music, but for now, we're going to use
a couple of different formats to get the information off the page onto your guitar.
These two formats we call chord block diagrams and fretboard maps.
A chord block diagram is probably the most popular and
easiest way to translate information onto the net.
It's usually used for teaching chords, now, we'll cover chords a little later in
the course, but for now, a chord block diagram is usually a four or
five fret picture of a box, with horizontal lines representing the frets,
and vertical lines representing the strings.
Numbers representing the fingers of the left hand are positioned on the frets.
Sometimes the strings are numbered.
If you see a zero or an O above a string, it means open string,
which means no frets are being held?
If you see an X, it means that the string isn't played at all,
either simply by omission or by muting with the free fingers of the left hand.
If the chord is to be played on a higher fret on the fretboard,
a fret number is provided to let you know where exactly this is happening.
A fretboard map is similar to a chord block diagram, but
is a more complete view of the entire fretboard from the players point of view.
Fretboard map usually has the fret numbers of the frets where the dots are located on
either the side of the guitar fretboard, or
the top inlays on your guitar fretboard.
So it's basically a corresponding image.
The strings are usually labeled, and the numbers on the frets represent the left
hand fingers that are going to be used to fret the notes.
