When you beginning to play guitar all the options open to you can be a bit much. Should you play a bass guitar or play an acoustic guitar? If you are a beginner bass guitar player or a beginner acoustic guitar player both beginning guitar lessons are pretty much same. Like in most things in life there are two schools of thought learning on acoustic is the best and the other school of thought is learning on electric is the best way. It is not my place to tell you what way is the best way that will come down to you. I will give you my opinion. However this is just that an opinion. I feel bass guitar is the better of the two when you are first starting out. The reason for this belief is because of playability. Bass guitars most of the time will have a better action. This means the strings are closer to the neck which gives the guitar an easier feel. Also the string gauges or size is a bit smaller then on an acoustics. However now a days there are acoustic guitars for beginners that have great playability. The feeling that electric has better playability is a little more old school thinking.
So we are kind of back to where we started from. Is beginner bass guitar equipment or acoustic best for someone starting out? The more time you have playing that most answers are individualized to each person. What is good for me is not always good for you. We each find what is best for us. What is the best guitar what is the best sound and so on. So let’s assume that you have made your choice between bass guitar and acoustic. What type of equipment do you get? Meaning do you just pick up some old guitar that has been sitting under ones bed for years and try and learn on that? Or do you buy your best friend’s older sister’s guitar that was never put in a cased and he used to hang clothes on.
For me this is a no brainer and something I feel I can say with not much differing opinion from anyone who have been playing guitar for a few years. In no way should your first guitar be some old beat up unplayable instrument! In my opinion this would be a huge mistake. Why? Well sort of goes back to what I was talking about before. Playability! Grasping how to play guitar is not easy. I am not trying to scare anyone off but it takes time practice and work. If you really want to start playing you need to work at it. I if you have a guitar that is hard to play you am a lot more likely to stop playing. This happened to me when I first started. When I got my first guitar it was impossible to play. I couldn’t make a chord and get through a scale. I wanted to go all Pete Townshend on the guitar. So I gave up guitar playing for a while. Until I got a guitar I could play and I stuck with it from that day on and here I am over 20 years later. I was the exception mind you most people that stop never come back and I feel they are missing a great experience.
