A Guide to Buying an Acoustic Guitar

Buying an acoustic guitar can be an intimidating, foreign and perplexing event for many people: mostly because it's a unique and rare purchase of a relatively unknown, specialized item that will be used in a highly personalized pursuit of technique and art. More simply put; it's beneficial to have some help from someone with experience when buying a new or used guitar.

I will, as very experienced guitar buyer assist in this adventure with 3 different price points: under $400, under $1,000, and over $1,000. We can also label think of these 3 as: beginner/starter guitar, intermediate/semi-pro guitar, and a professional/lifetime/investment guitar.

Buying a guitar under $400

Seagull S6

The main thing to look for in the starter guitar category is choosing a product from a widely know established manufacturer and company with a good warranty and a proven track-record for quality guitars at a reasonable price. Companies I would recommend in the beginner category are Yamaha, Fender, Seagull, Simon & Patrick, Cort, and Art & Lutherie.

Choose a guitar that looks good, feels comfortable and sounds warm and inviting to play. Ask a salesman to play one or more for you so you can judge the differences for yourself. At this level of quality, your main interest is in a serviceable, playable, and affordable guitar that will get you playing and learning without 'breaking the bank'. Most beginner guitars are manufactured from a plywood type of laminate would and will have a limited tone quality. Simon & Patrick, Seagull, and Art & Lutherie are exceptions to this and get my vote every time as the 'best for the least $$$'.

Buying a guitar under $1,000

Taylor 100 series

My wish as a guitar teacher would be that most students skip to this level from from the start. Learning and playing on a good instrument inspires and responds to the growth of player with each hill of technique and repertoire they climb.

Acoustics in this price range generally have solid wood tops and synthetic ivory bridge saddles and nuts which brings the quality of overall tone way up. The use of tone friendly woods in the construction usually adds to the warmth, clarity, and overall character of the sound. In this category, don't be fooled by the fancy paint jobs, flashy electronic pickups, and intricate inlays and binding that can make a lousy guitar tempting to purchase. Companies like Takamine, Dean, and Fender can be guilty of selling many '3's dressed up as a 9' in this price range.

Companies I would recommend for guitars between $400 and & $1,000 are Taylor, Seagull, Simon & Patrick, Godin, Yamaha, Larivee, and Martin. These companies, in my opinion, build with a traditional tone-first strategy, putting more resources into the tone rather than the bells and whistles.

Buying a guitar over $1,000 

Goodall Concert
Jumbo

Buying a guitar that is over a $1,000 should be seen as an investment;  not only in a item that will hold it's value, but in an instrument that will grow with you as time passes, that will inspire each time your fingers touch the strings, and will invite the guitarist to play just by looking at it. For example: my Goodall Concert Jumbo is very beautiful and inviting to look at, ultra-sensitive to every move of my fingers, generates fantastic tone from every atom and molecule it's made from, and it took me 4 years to save up enough to buy it. In my work as a professional guitarist and teacher I have a good excuse to spend on a quality, hand-built instrument but I would rather save and wait for quality over quantity in every area of my life. 


If you find joy in playing the guitar and see it as a part of your future, my challenge to you would be to invest some time in investigating and researching your options and all the benefits of purchasing an instrument of lasting quality and one that's built for performance and ease of playing while your learning and growing as a player.

I sometimes use this example: we will have no problem in dropping $1,000 - $1,500 on a computer that will be obsolete in 3 to 5 years but will choke at the prospect of spending the same on a guitar that will last a lifetime. Find a good fit for you from the 3 categories and choose wisely.

Keeping in TIME ( a gude to better strumming ) - Part 1

Rhythm is the most important part of music. It keeps the moves the music along , glues the musicians together, and touches the listening down in their souls. Guitarist are 1/3 of what'a called the 'Rhythm Section' in a band. Along with the drummer and bass player they play the role that is the foundation of contemporary western music.




Here's how it works  (generally)

The drummer is the chief 'time-keeper"and sets the tempo for the music. The bassist accents what's called the 'downbeat' (beat 1 along with beat 3 of a 4/4 bar) and the guitarist accents the back-beat (beat 2 and 4 of the 4/4 bar). All together this sets the 'groove' or 'pocket' of the rhythmic pulse of popular music, and a good 'rhythm section' will be tight and consistent in this effort.

The beginning rhythm guitarist

I will generally teach about 4 - 6 simple strum pattern to all my student. These patterns usually cover all the basic guitar rhythms for folk, country, pop, rock and funk styles and get the student playing faithfully along to the actual recorded versions of the songs. Once the student gains confidence and consistency with these patterns, I will encourage their creation of new patterns based on adding or subtracting strums to these basic existing patterns. The result is trying to get the most out of the least, and encouraging the creative talents of the individual student rather than the memorization of countless patterns. An example would be; remove one strum from the basic folk pattern and it turns into the "Mumford and Sons" pattern used by all the modern alternative folk-rock bands these days.

The 'Quest' continues ...

The next step in the process is to begin to become proficient in choosing what the best strum pattern for a given song will be. Most songs you print off the internet or get from anthologies won't have a strum pattern included with the chords and if your guitar teacher isn't there to write one in, the task is yours to decide. Also, if your playing in a band you will have to choose what will work and sound best with what the other players are doing on their instruments.

The process isn't unlike adding salt or pepper to season your food. You'll have to step out and try what you think will be the appropriate pattern and learn from a bit of trial and error. Most of the time there isn't really a right or wrong rhythm anyway because there are so many ways to approach a song in the area of rhythm. Foe example, I could play a funk song in a straight ahead rhythm or a rock song in a funky way or pop song in a folky way. There is a lot of variety and cross pollination within modern music so it's not difficult.

So until 'part 2' (coming soon!) work on customizing those few patterns you're comfortable with and experiment with trying to play along with mp3s and recordings of the atrists and bands.

iRig - Plugging your guitar into a iphone or ipad

The AmpliTude iRig is a mobile guitar amp with effects for your iphone or ipad. You can plug your guitar directly in and monitor the sound with headphones, powered speakers, or through a P.A. system. You'll have dozens of different amps to choose from and a crazy amount of guitar effect to add to the mix. For some guitarist this means being able to travel lightly and conveniently without the worries of wear and tear on your traditional guitar rig. For the beginner player this is an affordable and easy way to have great tone literally at your fingertips without having to navigate through the myriad of expensive guitar amp and effects. Check iRig out. It ultimately might not replace the real thing, but the sounds are good enough and used by many pro players.

The "ART" of Practice ( part 2 )

In the Art of Practice (Part 1) I mentioned that there was no art to the 'getting to' or the 'doing' of practice. It's just the plain fact that the only sure-fire way of consistent practice for most people is scheduled practice: just like sports or theatre.

I think I can give some advice on the Art of Practice once a regular and consistent practice of the guitar is taking place.

Slow down

We can take our cue on this part of the art of practice from the legendary Canadian pianist Glen Gould. He would often practice new songs at half-speed so he would never make a mistake or error in his playing of a song. He thought (and I think he's right) that mistake our 'videotaped' in our minds only to resurface or replay later in time. So, slow down and practice perfectly and don't get in the habit of practising a mistake. It will only return and replay during performance.

Relax

Learn to work and practice with a healthy amount of patience a let the the success in what you do be just a by-product of doing the work with enough repetition to perfect it. Just like the famous quote, "eat the elephant one bite at a time".

Stradegize

Have a plan on what you want to accomplish during practice. An example of this would be: I want to get a certain number of bars of music down; I want memorize a certain lick or passage of music; I want to understand the harmony behind the chords; or I want to get to know the scales or patterns needed to improvise in this son. So you will practice until that element or part of the work is done.

Conquer (gaining confidence)

Personally, I build my confidence in my abilities by conquering the task at hand. The secret is really simple; "in competing the task I learn to do the task." We just get caught up in too many of the particulars that we're setting ourselves up for defeat.

Play

A big part of practising is having enough play time to keep the joy and remind ourselves of the reason we started playing guitar in the first place. Have unscheduled, spontaneous, and unstructured times of making noise or jamming on your guitar where you just let go and let the fingers fly. I sometimes turn all the lights off in my studio and just jam to mp3 without a care in the world.

Pedalboards and Pedals - part 2

In continuing the theme of pedals and effects, I want to share some thoughts regarding choosing the right gear for your musical context and style with your overall budget in mind. I keep my pedal setup to a very small amount of carefully chosen pieces that work for the context and style of music that I general play. Here are some thoughts:

Think of each gear purchase as an Investment

Don't get caught up in the trap of filling up your room with a bunch of cheap guitars, hooked up to cheap gadgets, wired together with cheap cables, through a cheap amp that ends up sounding like a chain-smoking cat weezing on a furball. Save your pennies, be patient, and buy gear that will last and grow with your playing.

Quality over Quantity

Find out what kind of pedals and accessories your favourite guitarists and artists use and try to start with a few of those choice pieces. Remember they can probably afford the best gear so you can't go wrong in emulating their choices.

Style and Context

I tend to keep all my pedals loose and sitting on the floor and I generally take whatever pedals I need for the gig. If it's a jazz style gig I might take my Strymon reverb and an amp. If it's a rock show I'll bring all my overdrives like my vintage Ibanez Tube Screamer, Carl Martin Plexitone, Rockbox Boiling Point and my Xotic EP boost for solos. If it's a church event I make sure I take my Strymon Blue sky, T.C. Flashback delay and maybe just the Carl Martin plexitone. Sometimes I just bring everything incase I might need it.

Jazz guitarist tend toward the simple no-pedals/no-frills tone. Pop guitarist seem to take the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach and create giant pedalboards. Country players seem to need a good compressor pedal and an overdrive as essentials tools for tone. Blues player definitely go for the Uni-vibes, octave pedals, overdrives and boost pedals. Metal players tend to smaller pedalboards with boost and distortion pedals that take their already giant amp sounds over-the-edge.

Budget

Keep to the budget and add to your rig over time. Unless your heading out on a world tour and need an immediate world-class pedalboard, the time you need to save up for the next piece of gear can be well spent investigating and doing the homework of making the right choice. Watch demos on Youtube, demo the pedals at stores, read reviews on the internet, and ask other guitarist advice.

Guitar Pedals - A beginners guide to starting a Pedalboard

Building your sound as an electric guitarist can sometimes be as important as building your technique. Although I'm a firm believer that the finesse and touch of highly trained fingers create the best tone, adding guitar effect pedals to your basic guitar/amp sound will be like adding an extra dimension of sound dynamics to the music you play.

The place to start 
The place most guitarist start with is adding an overdrive or distortion type of pedal. This type of pedal adds more gain, sustain and power to your original sound and can enhance your crunchy rhythms and fatten and add presence your lead guitar work. Some popular choices would be an; Ibanez Tube Screamer, Xotic BB Preamp, Pual Cochrane Timmy Overdrive, Fulltone, Carl Martin Plexitone, Boss OD3, Suhr, and Wampler.

Next on the pedal list
The next pedal choice would be a delay and/or reverb. These pedals will give you the echo or reverberation of sound bouncing in stadium, cave or tunnel. This adds the spacial quality of the guitarist in bands like U2, Coldplay or Hillsongs. Some popular choices would be an; T.C. Flashback, MXR Carbon Copy, Strymon Timeline, Line 6 DL4, Boss DD-7, Line 6 Echopark, Strymon Blue Sky, T.C. Hall of Fame.

Add some more cool tones
Some fun and sonically interesting places to go with pedals are the time-based effects like chorus, phasers, flangers, uni-vibes, tremolos and filters. These effect give the guitar a whole new dimension of tonal expression; sometimes adding very non-guitar types of sounds. Check out the intro to U2's song, "Elevation" or this demo of the Strymon Mobius http://www.strymon.net/mobius/ and it will give you an idea of the dynamic quality possible with these pedals. Popular choices are too many to list in detail but some great companies to look at are; Strymon, Line 6, Boss, T.C. Electronic, Electro-Harmonix, Wampler, Mooer, and Eventide.

Possibilities never end! 
One of my favourite additions to my effects is the area of boost, compressor, and preamp pedals. These pedals can beef up a low quality amp; completely change the characteristics of the original sound; and smooth out the rough edges of your tone. I like to think of this type of pedal as adding good fuel to your engine; better performance, smoothness and efficiency is the result. Some good product choices come from; Xotic pedals, Wampler pedals, Custom Tones, Suhr, Keeley, Radial and MXR.

Take your time and do your homework
My suggestion would be to watch some product videos, talk with other guitarist, visit pedal companies websites, and demo out some pedals at local music stores. There is even a store dedicated to effects and pedals right here in Langley, B.C. called Guitar Effects Canada. For a choice of 500 pedals and some expert friendly advice, go to - http://guitareffectscanada.com/

DERRIVAL - Finalists in Peak Performance

A former guitar student of mine (Adam Mah) along with his band Derrival made their way to the finals of the 2014 Peak Performance band competition in Vancouver. Making it to the finals is not easy and it will mean that Derrival will win a minimum of $50,000 and a possible of $102,700. The finale is on November 20th at the Commodore Ballroom where they will announce the order (1st,2nd,3rd) of the winners.  Please check out their Facebook page.

Adam was a great student and worked extremely hard from week to week. I'm proud to have been a part of his development as a guitarist and a musician. 

Congratulations, Adam!!!

“I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it”
― Thomas Jefferson

Guitar Heroes ( Where have they gone? )

Some common questions I ask many of my young guitar students are; "who is your favourite guitar player?"or "can you name 5 guitarist who have had an influenced your playing?" or "what is the name of the guitar player(s) in your favourite band?" Most of the time the response I get is total silence or they might just blurt out a name like Eric Clapton or Santana even though they have no knowledge of any of their songs or description of their style.

In my youth, as a guitarist, I had 10 to 20 favourite players who I knew most everything about and who had a profound influence on my playing. These were the people who taught my how: to play, to work hard, to jump around on stage, to choose the right gear, to practice, to get good tone, to use different scales for different styles, to create, and with all that and more they inspired me to great things in music.

Fast forward to present times and besides a few Youtube 'guitar sensations', you have an industry of homogenous and faceless of musicians serving in a utility role of sounding like everyone else, who are trying desperately to figure out what the next "big trend"will be rather than being true inspirational artist
and taking up the guitar heroes mantle. It's like we are in the 'dark ages' of the electric guitar.

“I started out playing guitar because Jimi Hendrix was my hero, so my roots were really based on Jimi Hendrix and his style of playing.” ~ Joe Satriani

The Art of PRACTICE ( part 1 )

One of the question that gets asked most in music lessons is, "how do I get my son or daughter to practice more?" After 25 years of teaching guitar I am convinced that there is no ready or set answer to the question. In one sense, there is no art or skill to getting into the doing of practising of guitar, rather, there is an art to practising once things are in motion.

The one universal principle in practice that can work for everyone is to have "scheduled practice" times, just like you would have in sports, dance or drama. Start off with 3 - 4 scheduled guitar practices per week and it will get easier and more enjoyable once it's routine and you see the benefits of your consistent work.

To add to the practice tip above, here's a quote I like from the legendary and successful football coach Vince Lombardi.

"Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect"

...with patience

...and persistence

Changing Your Guitar Strings

Changing your guitar strings every 2 - 4 months is preferable for good guitar tone and the overall "in-tuneness" of your instrument. Keeping old strings on your guitar is like keeping old tires on your car: the general performance goes down. At first, putting new string on a guitar can be tough and confusing thing to do so below I will give step by step directions for consistently good string changes.

Step 1.  Loosen and remove all old string off the guitar. With acoustic guitars you will need something to pull out the bridge pins after you free the strings from the tuning pegs. *Music stores sell inexpensive string winders that have a notch in them that will do the job nicely. 

Step2.  Insert ball end of new strings (making sure they're in the right order) down the bridge holes followed by the bridge pins. Pull up gently on the string while holding bridge pin in-place and you should fell it lock in place. *Be careful not to kink the string as you pull.

Step 3. Starting with the 6th string, stretch it over the peghead and using wire cutters, cut string at the 5th string's post. Repeat this for the 5th string cutting the string at the 4th string's post. For the 4th string cut string at the end of the headstock. *Each string should be cut approximately 1 1/2 inches longer than the post it will wind around. Repeat the same process for the strings on the other side of the headstock. *String 1 should be cut at the 2nd post, string 2 at the 3rd, and string 3 at the end of the headstock. 

Step 4. *This is probably the most critical stage so take your time and do it well. Guide strings through the tuning post so the string is sticking an 1/8 inch out the back end of the post. Turn tuner counter-clockwise to tighten strings and make sure to keep the string tight against the tuning post at all times, winding in a downward spiral until each string is semi-tight. *Failure to keep the strings tight against the tuning post will affect the tuning and the life of the string. 

Step 5. Gently stretch each string and tune to pitch. Repeat this process 2 -3 more times until string stay in tune.

More Than Just Guitar...

Here at my guitar studio in Fort Langley I have started some new lessons and courses to meet the musical needs of the ever-changing culture of our modern times and to expand the musical horizons of my students. Included in the area of lessons now offered are Bass, Ukelele, and Songwriting and on the class side of things there is an exciting Digital Recording class and a fun Practical Music Theory course.

These changes have added a lot of variety and excitement to my regular lesson year and will help give students opportunities to grow and enhance their own musical creativity using the tools of technology and a practical hands-on approach to music theory.

Welcome to Grove Guitar Studio

This Blog will serve as a resource to students of Grove Guitar Studio and for information to the prospective students looking for a place to learn the art of guitar. There will be posts on "everything concerning the guitar" plus current updates on new classes, 'spotlights' on student activities and local happenings in the guitar and music community.

"For me, it's about the music. I'm just the messenger, and I hope to do it as long as I live." Eric Clapton