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Step 1
Do your research. There are different guitars for different types of players. Guitars can be chosen based on the genre of music you play (i.e. Jazz, Rock, Country, etc.), tone quality you wish to achieve, etc. There are electric, acoustic, acoustic/electrics, hollow-bodied guitars, etc., so you need to have some idea of what you are looking for before going to the music store or shopping online.
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Step 2
Know your price limit. Guitars can be purchased for as little as $100 , and can cost up to ten’s of thousand’s of dollars for certain vintage guitars. If this will be your first guitar, or if you do not intend to be a serious player, a low to midrange guitar is probably the best choice when buying your guitar.
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Step 3
Read reviews and ask the opinions of other guitarist’s about a guitar you are interested in. There are various guitar review websites that list a large majority of the makes and model of guitar available for purchase.
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Step 4
Play the guitar you are interested in before buying it. If you aren’t sure what to look for in a good guitar, take a more experienced guitarist along with you. Some things to consider are tone, thickness of the neck, material of the guitar (i.e. different woods produce different tones) , etc.
Comments
Meno said
on 11/30/2009 This is cool. My daughter and I will start guitar lessons soon, so this will come in handy. 5* and a recommendation.
b1gguy said
on 11/18/2009 Agreed. The first guitar I bought was a mistake, but the second one was a much better process; I followed very similar steps. Good write up!
alltrails said
on 11/18/2009 Good article on how to purchase a guitar. There are so many choices out there, it can be confusing. Good advice to know what you are going for before you get there. Thanks for the information!
hkimbrell said
on 11/17/2009 Awesome article on purchasing a guitar! You're very right about price, never pay retail! Great information. 5 stars!