What’s up everybody there! The next lesson I want to do for you are really to show you a little bit about a harmonics are and easy ways to pick out a good Acoustic Guitar, if you’re going to buy one. My personal opinion is you have to find one the guitar that you like the way it feels.
A lot of people ask me, what kind of guitar should I buy? Is this one better than this one? Is a Yamaha better than Alvarez? Is Alvarez better than Seagull? Is Seagull better than Taylor? Is Taylor brand better than Martin? Or is Martin better than Taylor? In my personal opinion, there have been times where I've played guitars called Green Gloves, a long side Taylor’s , and I thought the Green Gloves sound better. There are times I've played Martins along beside Taylor’s, I thought the Martins sounded much better, it really just depends on the feel. The best thing that I can advise is to go sit down in your local guitar store, play the guitar, even though if you don’t know much, just learn the basic chord shape, have it memorized. When you go in or ask one of the – just sit with it, have it in your hands. See if it feels right, have one of the people there, if you want to hear the sound, have one of the technicians there play. Say, “Look you know, I've never played guitar, I want to learn, can you just play some guitars for me and let me hear the sound of it.” And that would give you opinion on the sound.
You can always learn the chord or just play with your note [Demonstration] and see which one you like the sound best, I mean it's all up to you, if you’re going to be happy with what you buy. And as you get over and you play more and become more experience, you’ll realize what things to look in for in a y guitar. But one thing that I always look for is play ability. How easy it feels, how well you move.
Now, you don’t have to base it down on the strings, because sometimes how easy to just to move up and fell the guitar neck with the strings could all been different on what type of strings you have. I mean, I use a Elixir strings and d Addario’s and those strings are so smooth to move up and down. So you could have crappy guitar with really good strings on it, you know it might make you feel like it’s a better guitar, when in actuality, there’s some other things to look for.
One of the things that I like to look for the most is you want to play every single note on a fret, so you want to play first fret [Demonstration] and you play right above the fret [Demonstration]. Whatever string, you want to make sure they sound crisp and clear, and there’s no buzzing. Sometimes, if the guitar neck is worked, some frets will be in good shape, while others won’t be. If you’re picking guitar at a local store, like a guitar shop, you probably won't have that problem, but if you're looking at pawnshops, which by the way you can get good guitars at pawnshops, you just have to know where to look for. You know, you might want to check that kind of stuff at a pawnshop.
One thing that a lot of people that are looking for is called tone intonation. And I like to do with the harmonics. So this is one way to tell, if it’s a good quality guitar or not. There are few different things with this that you want to look for. So, it’s good to hear the twelfth fret, now if you're not familiar it's harmonics. What a harmonic is this is when you’re not pushing the note all the way down to the fret, but you just have your finger on the string [Demonstration]. Those are harmonics, and they ring for a while.
One thing I want to do is, if you play the note on the twelfth fret [Demonstration] it should sound the same as the harmonic [Demonstration], it will really sound the same on the next string [Demonstration] with the same pitch [Demonstration]. Some guitars will sound that would be different, if they’re different, it’s not a good sign, I would recommend passing on a guitar if you could.
Another thing to – up here on the tuning, the tuning knobs, one that’s head’s lock. One thing tuning machine, they're going to call them is move them to the left and to the right a little bit up and down each one, now don’t move it too far, you want to make sure you turn it towards you with these stalk ones first and then you want to make sure [Demonstration] that you turn down, if you're looking down at the bottom side, you want to turn them counterclockwise. So I want to turn them, put your thumb, if you're a right hand guitarist, put your thumb on the left side, our pointer finger on the right, and you want to turn your thumb away from you and your pointer finger towards you. You want to lower the note, because you want to make sure that the tuning machine moves gently and smoothly. You don’t want to be tough to turn or really, really loose, you want to be kind of in the middle or it's not going to move, unless you twist it.
That is what they look for, as far as the other stuff to look for, when you're trying to figure what type of guitar that you want to play. If you're only going to be strumming up here, and you know that for a fact, because you don’t like doing [Demonstration] stuff like that, you know up high. That’s the reason I got this one as a cut away, because let's say I want to get up here and play [Demonstration], like that kind of stuff, you want to be able to reach up here. I have a classical guitar that the body comes at to like the twelfth fret, so anything above the twelfth fret, I can’t play, unless I play like this, which I don’t do, so wouldn’t recommend it. So if you want to play notes high up on this and make sure it's a cut away.
Also, you might want to check to make sure it has a pick guard. Some guitars you can get that one, I would recommend getting one, because as you strum and pick, you’re going to strum down and hit this wood here. A lot of these are coated nowadays, so you might not scratch it, but if you have one that’s not coated, it doesn’t have a pick guard and you're going to scratch your guitar.
Some of the other things to look for, I mean basically, it's all self-explanatory and the people in the guitar shop there, for the most part, they're not going to try and screw you over stuff here, at guitar center or something like that or a local shop, they're probably going to give you the straight answer, they're going to be honest with you, because they're not going to put a price tag on a guitar, that’s a crappy guitar for $400.00, because they know that if a good guitar player comes in there and sees that, then – if I went into a shop and saw a crappy guitar with a $600.0 price tag on it, I would never go there again, because that’s something that would show to me that they're trying to reap off the beginners in guitars. For the most part, I've never seen any shop do that. Pawnshops will try and screw you over, so just be careful of that. If you need some advice on a guitar, take one of your friends with you that plays guitar, have him go, because whenever you have someone that plays, they know what to look for as well.
Another thing too that I was like to work at is my guitar here has this tuner here, it's called a built-in tuner. It's probably the best investment I've ever made on a guitar. And basically, the reason for this is because I pushed this button, the tuner come going, I can play any note [Demonstration], tells me if I'm little sharper flat, my E there is a little flat, you can tune it up and when that drop, shows you're in tune.
This is also couple with the fact that I have a plug-in right here to make it an electric guitar. Now, if you don’t know much about electric, acoustic and electric guitars, don’t thing that just because you buy acoustic electric, you can rock out real loud, you know rock the house with acoustic, because what I found out from experience is if you play with loud amplifier and drums or anything like that, the loud noise that comes out, it's going to blow a vibrate, it's just horrible. So, if you're going to be playing loud in a band or rock music solos, a lot of loud stuff, I recommend that you don’t use an acoustic electric for electric part. You can use it for your acoustic, but don’t use it with an electric hooked up, if you're going to do that kind of stuff, use your electric guitar.
If you're just going to be on an acoustic gigs and you want to throw in a solo every now and then with just an acoustic sound, no drums or loud, loud noises, then you're fine with an acoustic electric hooked to an amp, but it's up to you.
So, that’s just a little bit information. I do not claim to be a guitar guru, just the guy who has been playing for couple years, trying to help some people. So if you want to comment, if you’re on Youtube, you can comment on the web page, you can't comment yet, but send us a message in Youtube, comment on this video in Youtube. And listen up, if you have any other advice, if it's something that is worth noticing and then I forgot or I don’t now, I mean there's lot of stuff I don’t know about the guitar that you have watched and probably do. So leave a comment and we’ll add that information in, the information that I get on Youtube, I’ll add it one to the web page, as well. So, take care guys.
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