Choosing the right guitar for you can be quite an ordeal. You want it to look cool hanging from around your neck, but you also want it to be comfortable and unique. You see the many different types on television and that makes it even more difficult to decide. The first decision that you have to make is between an electric guitar and an acoustic guitar. Knowing a few things about both might help you to make and informed and educated decision.
The difference between an acoustic and an electric guitar is simply amplification. An electric one needs an amplifier, but they are much easier to play. The electric instrument will cost more because you will have to purchase a good amp, and they both cost quite a bit of money. The acoustic instrument is more limited in shape and size because both shape and size make a difference on the sound that comes from the guitar.
Therefore, you do get more of a selection when you choose an electric one. Although the electric guitar is easier to learn on, there are obviously limited types of music that you can play with it. So, if you learn with an acoustic one, you might find yourself a better musician in the long run.
An acoustic guitar does have choices as well. You can get a steel string or a nylon string guitar. A nylon string guitar is good for playing music styles such as classical, flamenco, and folk. The reason for the particular styles is that the nylon string produces a more tranquil sound.
The steel string guitars are louder and you find that they gravitate more towards rock, country, and any other style that requires a louder, more crisp sound. The steel string is played with a pick while the nylon is almost always played with fingers.
Deciding between an electric and an acoustic instrument can be a moot point due to the option of buying a blended guitar. This type of guitar combines the ease of learning generally associated with an electric instrument and the rich sound of an acoustic guitar.
The design and style of the blended guitars are also a combination of both kinds of guitars in that the body is similar to an acoustic instrument while the neck generally resembles the electric instrument style. Unfortunately, though, the blended guitar sounds much better when used with an amplifier rather than by itself.
One thing that is never a good idea is to bite off more than you can chew. You should master whatever you feel the most comfortable with first. For example, many people fall in love with the sound of a twelve-string guitar. This instrument is known for a rich sound that resembles two guitars playing at once. However, the twelve-string guitar would be frustrating and infinitely harder to learn before mastering a simpler six string guitar.
You should also pay close attention to your own person preferences. If you want to be a rock star, and you love Aerosmith, looking for a huge acoustic guitar would not be the wisest decision because you will hate learning to play. The same rule applies for the next James Taylor; don’t invest in an expensive amplifier if it is just not your style.
An acoustic guitar is so named because the hollow design of its body provides a natural means by which the acoustics can be optimized, so that the sound of the guitar is naturally amplified, and therefore needs no exterior or additional means of amplifying the sound. Electric guitars are quite different, and without an external, electrical amplifier, strumming or picking the strings will make almost no sound at all, and certainly nothing much more impressive than pinging a rubber band! It is for this reason that electric guitars do use external amplification, but there is a common misconception or misunderstanding as to what exactly the external amplification does.
Many people believe, quite wrongly in fact, that the external electric amplification of an electric guitar simply makes the sound of the string much louder. If you switch off the amplifier, you’ll notice that simply making the resulting sound louder would be a pitiful quality of note, and despite its name, the amplifier does not simply make the sound produced by the string louder.
It is actually not the sound that the string makes which is detected, but its movement. An electric guitar is so named because effectively, each of its strings is a wire in an electric circuit, and it is by strumming or picking these wires or strings that movement is created. The harder the string is plucked, the greater its movement, and it is this movement or resonating that is detected.
The part of an electric guitar which detects this movement is called the pickup, which are basically magnets wrapped tightly round with very fine wire. As any electrician will tell you, a magnet wrapped round with coils of wire is an electric generator waiting to happen, and the vibrating movement of the string next to this mini generator is enough to create an electric current. This electric current is sent as a signal to the amplifier, and it is at this point that the tone, voice, sound, colour, and any distortion effects, are generated, and of course, the volume boosted.
Of course, many factors affect the eventual sound of the note, in addition to simply how hard the string is plucked. The thickness and manufacture of the string, how close it is to the body, the body’s shape and design, the type of pickup, the number of pickups, to name just a few. Once the signal reaches the amplifier, all manner of different effects and distortions are possible to create an individual voice for the instrument.
Because the strings of a guitar are close together, and the pickups use magnetic vibrations, there is a natural tendency for these magnetic pickups to detect and pickup electromagnetic signals from other nearby sources - anything from nearby microphones, to other electric equipment in the area - even lighting. This extra noise is generally not overly distracting, but does tend to create a kind of background hum. Single coil pickups tend to create the most amount of background hum, and the fact that most electric guitars tend to be incorrectly shielded against any interference of this kind, this can be quite unwanted.
A solution to this hum was the development of a pickup which was created slightly differently to the normal ones. Instead of a single coil of wire wrapped round the magnets, two coils were used, but each wired to the opposite polarity, both electrically and magnetically. This meant that any electromagnetic noise that was detected by both if these coils was effectively cancelled out - like adding minus five and positive five, the answer is zero. This also had the added effect of creating a much fatter sound to the guitar too. Because these pickups were designed to cancel out the hum, they were named humbuckers, and are still extremely popular today.
There are a million different methods and styles of how to play electric guitar, and to teach them all in one article would be pretty pointless, so I’m going to give you some tips that anyone who wants to know how to play electric guitar well should find useful.
How To Play Electric Guitar Tip 1:
Make sure the strings are fitted properly. Playing electric guitar often includes string bends, and if your strings aren’t fitted properly this can cause some real tuning problems. Hearing that “PING” sound as your guitar drops out of tune mid solo can be pretty embarrassing, so make sure your strings are perfect!
How To Play Electric Guitar Tip 2:
Get to know the guitar. Electric guitars have a huge range of different sounds and textures, all accessed by simply using the volume and tone controls on the guitar, as well as using different pickup selections. Any great guitarist with great tone understands this and will work their guitar to get the very best sounds.
How To Play Electric Guitar Tip 3:
Learn to mute the strings. When played at high volume the sheer power of the sound from the amplifier will make the strings on the guitar vibrate and ring out. This will ruin ANYTHING you are trying to play unless you can control it by muting the strings you don’t want to sound. This is mainly done by laying the palm of your strumming hand across the strings at the bridge.
How To Play Electric Guitar Tip 4:
Learn some simple scales and licks. You can spice up anything by adding a few ad lib notes or licks, providing you have the scale knowledge to back it up. Some tasteful blues licks can really add depth to all kinds of songs, and will give your sound its own personality.
How To Play Electric Guitar Tip 5:
Learn to bend strings and apply vibrato. To a guitar fan one of the best sounds in the world is the sound of someone bending up to a high note and then applying some good vibrato. Both techniques are fairly easy to get to grips with but tough to master, and will add even more personality to your sound. Using these techniques you can make the most mundane melodies sound interesting.
These guitar tips don’t even scratch the tip of the iceberg of how to play electric guitar, but hopefully they have given you an idea of what kinds of directions you can go with the instrument. Happy playing!