Reply To: Buying a Guitar

[nafmeadmin]

Glen has excellent advice above about purchasing guitars and how to determine the quality and price you would like to pay. When it comes to a class set, you want acoustic. Nylon string (classical) or steel string will be your choice. Nylon string guitars work well for developing good posture and hand position. The strings are easier on new hands that haven’t developed calluses from playing. The size will also be more manageable if you have smaller students. Steel string guitars will have a skinnier neck and strings closer together. This can help if you are playing chords. I use both nylon string and steel string guitars with my students depending on what level of guitar they are taking.

The high school kids will sometimes turn their noses up at nylon string because they don’t find it relevant to the music they listen to. The easy way around that is simply to tell them that anything you teach them on a nylon string guitar will transfer to a steel string acoustic or an electric and it will make them better. I often have my rock band kids practice intricate licks on an acoustic to get them clean and then move them to electric.