How to Pick your First Guitar - A Beginner's Guide

If you’re starting to play guitar, it can be overwhelming to find a guitar to suit you. With a multitude of different styles, brands, and body shapes, there’s a lot to discover to find your perfect fit. As somewhat of a beginner myself, I feel incredibly qualified to talk about what guitars have suited me and why I feel they might be a good fit for you! 

So first of all, a few things are quite important for a beginner guitar player and have helped encourage me to pick up and play. For starters, what style of guitar is best to play? At risk of knowing I might start sounding like a broken record in this blog, this is a personal choice. If you have never picked up any type of guitar, finding something you can stick to playing for a long period is perhaps something you haven’t considered.

Electric guitars will be easier than bass or acoustic on your fingers as the strings are a lighter gauge (if you want to read my string gauges blog, click here), so they will tire you less when playing for longer periods. Bass guitar requires a slightly different technique to play than electric or acoustic, but typically has a lower bar for entry than either electric or acoustic. Acoustic is best to start with if you haven’t decided which route you want to take, that route may even be acoustic!

This leads me to my next point: decide what type of guitarist you want to be. This isn’t a commitment for life; our tastes change as we change, but if you’re like me and want to improve, then realise that you want to be excited to play your instrument. Pick something you want to pick up - no matter what that may be! Look at different guitarists from bands you like and try to unpick what they do, or what style they play, and maybe take a punt on that. If you like Hendrix, arguably one of the best guitarists in the world, then you’d naturally gravitate towards an electric, and a Stratocaster at that. If you like Red Hot Chili Peppers and some of those funky  Flea basslines, you might want to gravitate towards a Fender Jazz Bass. 

If you’re new, some of these terms will be unfamiliar, and for the most part aren’t the end of the world if you don’t understand them. What I would say to pay attention to is the weight. Precision Bass will be lighter than a Jazz Bass, and so be more ergonomic for playing for longer periods. The same idea is echoed in the guitar I am enjoying practicing on more at the moment: the Fender Jaguar. The Fender Jaguar is an offset guitar, in a similar vein to a Mustang or Jazzmaster. They are called ‘offset’ because they possess an asymmetrical curvy body shape, very comfortable for long playing sessions, and typically lighter than other models too. 

My overall recommendation for my favourite guitar right now is the Fender Player Jazzmaster in Polar White. Even from just an aesthetic standpoint, I really like this guitar, iit ticks a lot of boxes for me, being lightweight and a lower string gauge means I can play it for longer compared to the Fender Redondo that has also been fun to play (being honest give me anything, I’m just really enjoying playing right now!).