Guitarists of Singletrack…

I’d want something I’m hopefully going to still want to pick up in six months time

Squier Telecaster and a modelling amp with a headphone socket. 😉 Take me seriously and I’ll explain.

An electric seems to be better to start on for a few reasons:

Easier to play – it’ll hurt your fingers and hand muscles less
Can be played quietly unplugged unlike an acoustic – your family will thank you for that
Electric guitars tend to be a higher quality for a given price point so assuming you’re starting affordable you can get something much more playable (acoustics take a lot a labour to build that hollow, light but strong body)
Electrics are more easily adjustable in terms of “action”
Electrics are usually smaller bodied and more comfortable to play
Electrics can sounds however you want them to depending on the amp and setting, from clean jazz to distorted rock at the turn of a switch

BUT….. the most important thing is to buy a guitar that you like – one that your musical heroes play, one that makes you want to pick it up and play.

Warning in case you get into it. N+1 applies strongly – so you’ll probably end up with a few anyway so don’t overthink it…

As a recent learner I concur. I started by getting my acoustic out of the loft, but was forever trying to play quietly, so as not to annoy the wife/neighbours.
This was not great for learning technique!
Switched to electric early on, and it just means I can play as loudly and as repetitively as I like, either unplugged or with headphones in. And repetition is a big part of learning… 😅

I have bought a guitar to learn during lockdown and agree with getting one you like as more likely to want to play it.
I went on guitarguitar and selected the style I wanted, filtered on price and worked my way up up until I found one I liked the look off 🙂

Any thoughts on the fender rumble bass amps? I’m considering the LT 25 with the voices to practice on.

I’ve used my mate’s top end Rumble stage 800 with an extra cab. I thought it was excellent with the ability to customise your sound without effects pedals. I like the preset idea a lot. With a pedal board it’s clicking one pedal at a time, but with a modelling amp you can change amp model and three pedal models in one click.

As for a 25W bass amp it hasn’t got the power for a band practice with an acoustic drum set. I had a 25W bass amp with 8″ driver and sold it because even a 50W guitar amp with a 12″ driver does a better job. If the guitarist has a 50W tube amp and the drummer plays noramally you’ll need a transistor bass amp of at least 200W to be heard properly.

Try before you buy.

Thanks Ed. It’s just for my own messing about at the moment. The 25 lt is only around £170, so I may just treat myself!

Cheers for the pointers chaps.

When the idea did initially float into my head, I did assume that an electric with a headphone amp would get me somewhere near being able to strum out a nearly recognisable Marr or Squire riff a bit faster than going acucstic first (and indeed be more family and neighbor friendly!).

Go on @Edukator, I’m listening 🙂👍

Markwsf covers most of the points I was going to make in favour of electric over acoustic so that bit is done. You then have to choose an electric guitar and amp.

If you really do want to sound like Marr then you can buy the amp he uses, the effects pedals he uses and thus spend a fortune and have something unuseable because it’s too loud, or just buy a modelling amp with a Marr preset in there. The Fender Mustangs have one. They have an AUX in, headphone out and some great software for your phone or computer to manage all the amp models and effects options. You can try lots of effects without spending a fortune on pedals then if you really get into it buy the real pedals/amps you like the models of.

Choosing an electric guitar is another headache for a beginner. I’ve played a lot of different styles and reckon the Telecaster is as good as any to start on. It’s really easy to set up following the info on Fender’s site using bits of paper, a steel ruler, a screw driver and a couple of allen keys that come with it. You can strum it (without accidentally turning the volume knob or hitting the selector switch) and pick with equal ease. Finding the strings as you pick is easy as you can either rest your little finger on the bridge plate edge or rest your palm on the saddles/bridge (especially with the original ash-tray bridge). Slide your hand up the slim neck and when it bumps into the body your index is on the 12th fret, open your palm a bit and when it bumps into the body the index is on the 15th fret etc. On any other guitar I feel I’m working around one irritating feature or another, with a Telecaster I can just play – and I love the sound.

Over to the Strat/Les Paul/SG/Mustang/Jag/Jem fans to persuade you otherwise. 😉

As a beginner, I’ll go typical STW and recommend what I’ve got – a PRS SE. They come in various flavours and prices – my first one was a used £250 SE Santana for example.
I also have a sweet spot for Telecasters and have owned a couple – am now on the hunt for a nice one.

The must important thing I though is to get a guitar that you like the look of. One that you want to pick up and play.

Johnny Marr and John Squire are two of the best guitarists of the last 30 years (according to nme, anyway). A lot of their stuff is pretty technical, in particular a lot of Johnny Marr stuff I’ve learnt to play uses very obscure chord voicings etc. So maybe aim a bit lower for starters unless you want a big challenge.

I don’t think I can see past a Classic Vibe Squier for a newbie (in Tele or Strat flavour).

I can’t really put a finger on why, but I love my Tele the most. My Strat is lighter, comfier and more versatile. It’s a bit like that Clarkson meme. “This is brilliant. But I want that one.”

Getting away from the gear and into the music for a minute. I’m really impressed with the amount of stuff Larkin Poe have been throwing up on YouTube lately.
Gotta love the Lovells.

I don’t think I can see past a Classic Vibe Squier for a newbie (in Tele or Strat flavour).

Im a massive Strat fan so that’s a plus one from me.
I’ve played a few nice Epiphones in the past so I’m sure there are some great shorter scale Gibson clones out there.

A good beginner guitar for a very low budget is a Squier Bullet (Mustang or Start).
My only guitar is a Squier Bullet and the quality is amazing for £100. The neck is great, bridge, pickups and machine heads are all fine.
Plug in a Blackstar Amplug (that I got for £20) and I am happily playing away for £120.

I have had more expensive guitars and basses over the years but the Bullet plays as well as any of them. You need to know the basics of adjusting bridge, truss rod, pickup height to taste etc,. but that is true for any guitar I have ever bought.

No advice on getting to emulate Johnny Marr but I would put aside a few hundred hours for practising.

*few thousand hours 👍

Aspirations much! “Not even Johnny Marr can play guitar like Johnny Marr” – at least on recording with multiple parts, etc.

As total novice (bass but now also fiddling with a vv cheap Strat copy) from my very limited reading and experience….

I took my Squier Mustang bass into the LGS (Ripley Guitars in Surrey FWIW) to sort out the set up and it’s made a heck of a difference. The LGS guy was very complimentary about the playability and sound of my classic vibe model (£300-odd at the start of lockdown)  and taking that and recommendations above you can clearly get pretty good quality at around that mark, and as others have said it looks nice (both on the wall and makes me want to pick it up and play it)

Also reading around, Thomann’s in house brand (Harley Benton) get pretty good reviews….got my eye on a Les Paul or Sheraton copy actually as my N+1 – worth a look?

I’m a total novice with electric guitar too although I have been playing an acoustic for about 3 years (so still very much a beginner).
Have had an ES 335 DOT copy for a while but never really gelled with it and have been watching Squier Classic Vibe tele’s go for over my self imposed budget of £250.

Time will tell but I’m hoping this is as good as it looks.

View post on imgur.com

It’s a 91 Korean built Squier. I negotiated what I’m hoping is a fair price bang on my budget. Hopefully it’ll be here at the weekend 😎

Looks pretty nice. Good work!

Thanks again guys, great advice.

On the trying to play like Marr thang, it’s more of someone I recognise as being a fantastic player playing the sort of stiff I enjoy listening too. If I could get somewhere remotly close too something resembling his playing, that’d be the pinnacle, not that I’m expecting to!

I’d be more than happy to be able to do a recognisable Dylan, Beatles or Oasis number a few months down the road!

The most important thing I’ve learned over the past few years is that your hands don’t lie.

Guitars are like walking boots. The wrong ones might be fine for a few miles, but find the ones that fit you and you can forget about price, brand, country of origin etc and just get on with getting on.

And there might not be any fixed logic to it – my two favourites are a 7.25 radius, skinny fretted Tele and a flat as a pankake Ibanez RG550.
Similarly, I love fat necked Faith and Kate Moss thin necked LAG acoustics.

Tried loads of Strats and still find them hard to play, but purely because of the sound and feel I’m learning to love a modern C 9.5 radius.

‘Gibsons’ don’t suit me but the best seem to be made by Gordon Smith, Vintage or Ibanez.
My favourite so far was a £90 secondhand Vintage and I wouldn’t swap it for any of the real Gibsons I’ve played.
Every single one out of the 50 or so I’ve played has had issues with neck allignment or pathetic fretboard finishing.

I think with the learning thing people expect to be able to play a passable version of whatever in a few months where they don’t realize that the people they are attempting to cover are exceptional talents in the main who have been playing for a long long time.

I have been playing guitar for 36 years, I can in the main pick up a new song and play it convincingly in a week or less – often in an hour, but I have put in the time to get there, I never practise songs I practice general techniques and they are normally the route to picking up songs quickly, also an understanding of theory is crucially in knowing what is likely to come next

There are few people that I cant do and at the top of that tree is Johnny Marr. He is very none traditional and super driven to be different when he was young

Good luck

I never practise songs I practice general techniques

I do the opposite. Rarely work on technique and usually practice songs. Mainly because it takes me ages to learn the lyrics and then sing them while doing sometimes complex strumming patterns. I learned the guitar part to play along with “Qué demonios hago yo aqui” by los Zigarros in a few hours, fills, solo, the lot. The chorus is easy enough to sing but the verses in time to the strumming pattern are taking a long time. It’s going to take months at the current rate of a few words memorised a day… .

I’d be more than happy to be able to do a recognisable Dylan, Beatles or Oasis number a few months down the road!

This is how I practice most, Tele, Mustang modelling amp, the original to play over then a backing track if there’s one on Youtube. I start with just strumming along and when I’m comfortable with that start learning the fills and solos.

If you do want to learn Don’t Look Back in Anger you’ll have to tune your guitar about 40 cents up to play with the original because it’s speeded up. The backing track is normal tuning.

A man in his happy place! Win 👍🏼

If I didn’t already have a purple sparkle Fender Tele-shaped guitar…

https://www.richtonemusic.co.uk/product/squier-fsr-classic-vibe-70s-telecaster-deluxe-mn-purple-sparkle/#

That is lovely!

Set the intonation on your new to you guitar, Simon. It’s visibly a country mile out.

It will be off to my lovely local guitar shop chap (Rick @ Marvel Guitars) for strings and a setup when I get a chance. Yes, I could do it myself but I like to support lovely people in nice little shops 🙂

@Edukator that’s great. You maybe need some instruction from @Binners to get the accent right though 😉

@simondbarnes I usually do most of my strings and tweaks myself, but I must admit that Matt, my local guy does it sooo much better than I do. He’s even fixed a couple of my bodges that didn’t go well. Worth paying a pro 😊

Oooh! Amazon Basics guitar pedals…

Whilst I may be joking about the above! I bought one of these wireless guitar systems and it has been pretty darn good. My mate gigs with one on her electric violin.

Thanks for the encouragement, Simon. Posting vids here is a bit like busking, most people just walk past but now and then one or two pause and take an interest.

Your post has big holes in Eddie, I assume something should be there but isn’t.

Golly, I could see them earlier…
The first was a link to Amazon Basics now doing effects pedals, the second was to the £30 Amnoon 2.4GHz wireless system.

Want!

Feelgood guitars?

nice bit of sparkle. And I’m a sucker for a matching headstock (I really should have bought a Surf Green matchy match Strat (and/or Tele) when they did them a few years ago.

i could see that Amazon link BTW, just took a while to materialise

I have the £30 amoon wireless guitar gizmo. Works pretty well over a few metres, batteries last a couple of hours of playing. Cant complain at that price. Also bought their basic looper pedal for something like £25 – pretty decent as well

Decided to learn a few songs by other folk (never normally do that, prefer to play my own music)

Learned Twos Up by ACDC, kickstart my heart by the Crue, Last Days of May by BOC and Dead Alone by In Flames

Quite enjoyable to see how other folk play/write

Decided to learn a few songs by other folk

That’s pretty much all I do. However, I usually end up kind of learning how to play the intro, get frustrated by it not sounding amazing and then move onto another song and repeat forever 🙂

That’s pretty much all I do. However, I usually end up kind of learning how to play the intro, get frustrated by it not sounding amazing and then move onto another song and repeat forever

+1 😪

I seem to have an attention span of about 15 minutes for learning a song. I really need to sort that out otherwise I’m always going to be shit! I tried to be Mike McCready in Mad Season this morning but sound nothing like him 🙂