How To Select And Buy A Cheap Electric Guitar

If you are thinking about learning guitar, you have to make some hard choices right off the bat. The first one is how much you want to spend. A lot of people think that if you are starting off you should buy a cheap electric guitar, but this isn’t always the case. The problem is that if you buy a lower quality instrument, it will be harder to play and will not sound as good. Many cheap electric guitars are not very well designed. That doesn’t mean that you can’t find one that is. If you know what to look for, you can find a low-cost electric guitar that will still help you shred like a guitar god.

With cheap electric guitars, you have quite a few options. A lot of people assume that the only way to go is to buy an all-in-one beginning guitar kit, but this is not the case. The electric guitar is probably the most popular instrument in America. As such, people buy and sell them all the time. You can find a used musical instrument that is still in pretty good shape. It helps to take someone along who knows what they are doing. You need to understand whether the frets are lined up properly, whether the neck is warped, and a lot of other things that you might not know how to evaluate as a beginner. Pawn shops can be risky business, and used musical instrument stores are not always reputable.

Of course, you can buy cheap electric Guitars without buying them used. A lot of the main manufacturers produce beginner lines that are still pretty good. My personal favorite is the Epiphone LP Special II Les Paul Collection Electric Guitar.

Epiphone guitars are made by the same people who produce Gibsons, but they are a whole lot cheaper. The quality is still good – they just aren’t as fancy. I know some professional players who still use beginner Epiphones, so they are well regarded.

There are a few other strategies to consider when you are buying cheap electric guitars. I have a friend who swears by factory seconds. Factory seconds are new guitars that were somehow slightly damaged in the factory. Usually the damage is simply cosmetic – they have a ding on the body somewhere that looks a little bit ugly. If you don’t mind a bit of cosmetic imperfection, this is the way to go. You still get a new electric guitar, but with substantial savings.

My Gibson’s Learn And Master Guitar Review

Disclosure: The opinions offered here are my own based on my experience. All information is verified as accurate at the time of review. If you choose to visit one of the courses I reviewed on this website and make a purchase I may receive a commission, how ever I do not allow this to interfere with my rating and review process. I never accept paid reviews and each product is thoroughly tested by me. All opinions offered here are my own. I am open to reviewing any guitar-training course – please feel free to email me with your suggestions.

What you get with the Gibson’s Learn And Master Guitar course I learned guitar with the DVD course from Learn & Master and here is my review: When you order Learn & Master Guitar, you get 20 DVDs. Each of the two sessions per DVD is between 30 and 60 minutes long. All DVDs have an on-screen menu, so you can go right to a lesson with your remote. In addition to the DVDs you get 5 audio CDs (each has appr. 12-18 jam-along tracks of about a minute length), plus a 100 page Lesson Book (and a bonus book, if you order the expanded version). These bonus lessons cover the same material as the regular lessons, but in more depth and give you additional information. For example, when lesson #1 teaches you the basics of a guitar and finger exercises, you will in bonus lesson #1 find some neat tips and tricks beyond the basics, like whether you should consider purchasing an electronic tuner, string winder, or metronome. I got a lot of great information from the bonus material. All lessons are both on DVD and in the lesson book so you can watch the videos, and follow the written lessons at the same time, or just flip through the book as a quick reference to refresh your memory later, which is also very handy. The Learn & Master Guitar course has received some educational awards. The guitar teacher guiding you through the course is Steve Krenz. You can read more about the rewards and Steve on the Learn & Master website. I like most that when you watch the videos, you feel you have a real guitar teacher sitting next to you and talking to you. First Steve explains something to you, then he gives you a training assignment as your ‘home work’, and at the end of each session you have to answer a couple questions to test whether you are ready to go to the next lesson. If that sounds too much like ‘school’ to you, let me tell you that it’s not – after all, you set your own schedule and pick what you want to learn. With the course you also get access to the online member section of the website which is kind of neat as you can upload videos (e.g. you playing a song) and ask other members for their input, and you find a handful additional resources there. However, Learn and Master is not meant to be an online course, so don’t expect there to find constantly updated new learning material or thousands of members online.

Learn And Master Guitar Is For Beginners And Advanced Players Learn And Master Guitar Lessons For Beginners Lessons 1 Through 8 Getting acquainted with your guitar, how to hold and tune it Learn music, read notes and tablatur Finger exercises Chords On the Learn And Master DVD videos and in the printed lessons book Steve will show you hands-on all you need to know to learn guitar. And as nothing beats the joy of jamming with other musicians, five Jam Along CDs provide you that very experience. Learn And Master Guitar For Advanced Players Chances are you have already learned how to play guitar by picking things up here and there, taking a few lessons, reading a book or watching some videos. You are able to play the basics, and now you’re ready to move beyond that. The Advanced Lessons 9 Through 20 Make smooth chord transitions Advanced chords, barre chords Develop “muscle memory” Work on your strum and develop your rhythm Train your ear Techniques such as tapping, bending, sliding Isolate the difficulties you have with a particular song so you can focus on that part in particular Why it is so important that your equipment fits you and how to make a good choice in selecting your guitar (action, strings, neck, etc) and much more I think many people become frustrated because they are trying to learn the chords, changing chords, and keeping time, all at once. As long as your brain and chording hand are working in terms of “finger 1 goes on the ‘e’ string at the third fret, finger 3 goes on the ‘A’ string at the second fret, and finger four goes on the ‘E’ string”, you’re going to take way too long. Once your muscles have learned the correct positioning, all of a sudden you will find yourself being able to put your fingers in the correct positions automatically. In the advanced lessons Steve will give you an insider scoop on how to improve your chord transitions, a lot of great tips for ear training, how to best develop your rhythm sense and much more, so things should start clicking for you at some point. I also didn’t know that it makes such a difference to have your guitar set up correctly. Plus you can always contact Steve in the Learn And Master Guitar discussion board if you have a particular question.

How the Learn And Master DVD course works: At the begin of each lesson you see the estimated time it takes to learn that lesson You learn watching Steve explaining on video (and/or referring to the book) You do your ‘assignments’ after each lesson so you have a plan what and how you need to practice You answer 2 or 3 questions at the end of the lesson to find out whether you are ready to move on to the next lesson

What I liked most about the Learn & Master Guitar DVD Course I like most that Steve Krenz, the instructor, is making the lessons very personal, you feel like you are sitting with a real guitar teacher, and he explains very well. I like the assignments you get after learning each lesson, you know exactly what you should practice and how. It was also very helpful to me that at the end of each lesson, when I was already eager to go to the next one, that there are 2 or 3 ‘are you ready to move on questions’ which sometimes showed me that I was in fact not ready to move on but needed to practice the current lesson some more. The course covers almost every style of music and guitar you can think of, acoustic, electric, classic, blues, etc. Also I liked that the JamAlong audios at the beginning of the course play slow, but get up to ‘real’ playing speed gradually in advanced lessons. I thought I could play along a ‘real’ song right from the beginning, but was I wrong…

What Are The Downsides Of  Learn And Master Guitar? You have to order it and wait until they ship it, no instant download available (but I remember that I got mine within a couple days) There online community is nice, but there are not as many people online as e.g. at JamPlay It looks expensive at first sight (actually I think it’s not, because of the great material you get with the course, and compared to what other websites and courses charge)

How Much Is It?

Click here to see the current price on the official Learn & Master website

I hope this review was helpful to you.

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How to Buy A Second Hand Guitar

Often cheaper than a new guitar and just as ready to rock out, a second hand guitar could be the perfect addition to your collection or the perfect thing to learn on, but how do you know that your potential purchase isn’t a potential dud?

The truth is that some fantastic guitars, while expensive when new, are relatively cheap second hand. Sometimes you can find a custom or a limited edition guitar that someone is selling quickly for the cash and you can often get a real bargain if you know what you are looking for. It really pays to do the research before thinking about buying a second hand guitar as some sellers will push their price up to cash in, especially if they know they are selling to a beginner who is just starting to learn guitar and may not know much about them.

So what should you look for when inspecting a second hand guitar?

Let’s just say that you have found a second hand guitar in the musical instrument section of the weekly classifieds and you are quite keen to go and take a look at it. Below is a list of hints that will help you when inspecting the guitar and talking to the seller:

When talking to the seller, ask them the following:

• The make and model of the guitar – It is best if you can do some research on the guitar model to find out the asking price elsewhere, both new and used, and whether or not other people are experiencing problems with it. You can find reviews for almost any guitar submitted at Amazon, or you can go and ask at your local music store.
• About the condition of the guitar – If they are honest, the seller may tell you about any damage that is undetectable upon rough inspection.
• How long they have had the guitar – If they have had it for a long time, they should have a good knowledge of its history of use, repairs and maintenance etc. If they are not forthcoming with that sort of information, they may be trying to pull one over you.

When inspecting the guitar, check the following:

• The overall condition – Look the guitar over and make note of any obvious damage – guitars often take a bit of wear and tear and if its just small scrapes and scratches then the guitar will probably be fine. Look for rust also , not on the strings, but on the hardware that is holding the strings and the pickups. If there is any rust in these places… run! It’s not worth it. What good is a guitar that may fall apart on you in the near future? Trust me – leave it alone.
• The neck of the guitar – the neck is really important. Here are some areas to look at:
• Make sure that the neck is not warped or out of shape in any way.
• Check the area where the neck joins to the body of the guitar – look for cracks where it may have been broken in the past.
• In the same fashion, check the area where the neck joins the head of the guitar.
• Check the action – Action is a word that describes how close the strings are to the fret board starting at the head of the guitar all the way down to the bridge. It is preferable to have the strings very close to the fret board as to make it easier to press them down (not so close that they are touching of course). If the strings are nice and close to the fret board all the way along, you would say that the guitar has a good action. Pictured right is a guitar with poor action. Notice that the strings sit quite far off the fret board. Guitars with poor action are harder to play and don’t sound very good. You can fix the action on your guitar by taking it to a guitar technician, but it will cost you between $20 and $50.
• The Intonation of the strings. Intonation is a word that describes the accuracy of each individual note that the guitar can produce on any string. If the intonation is correct, every note on the guitar will be the correct pitch – If it is out, the guitar will be impossible to tune and it will sound horrible. To roughly check the intonation, play the E shape barre chord on each fret of the guitar. As you move towards the bridge of the guitar, you should hear the chord keeping its pitch – if not, the intonation is out and you will need to get a guitar technician to work on the problem.

• If the guitar you are looking at is an electric, you must plug it in and see how it sounds through an amp. Ask the seller if you can play it through your amp and if you don’t have one, ask someone if you can borrow theirs. Try the following when testing an electric guitar through an amp:
• Turn the amp up to a fair volume level and then play with the volume and tone controls by turning them to full and then back to zero. Test the pickup selector by flicking its switch back and forth. Carefully listen to any sounds that are being made while doing these things. You are looking for scratchy sounds or clicks that might indicate old or worn electrics.
• Strum a single chord and while the chord is ringing start playing with the controls like before, still listening for scratches or clicks or any other nasty sounds. Guitar technicians can fix these problems and most guitars need to be done about once every 5 – 10 years. Just be aware of this fact or you could find yourself spending more money than you first intended to get a good guitar to learn on.
• Check the sound of the guitar – Before you buy, you want to know that the guitar sounds like it should? Once you have tested the guitar sound, go to a music store and ask to play on a new model of that guitar. If at all possible, use a similar amplifier to the one that you tested the second hand guitar on, and see if you notice any BIG differences. There is a simple rule that I like to follow: If you’re not happy with the guitar sound… Don’t buy it!

The most important thing to remember when shopping for a guitar to learn on is… Don’t shop impulsively. A guitar is a major purchase and you want to get the right one. Leave yourself time to go away and think about the purchase. If you have doubts when checking out a guitar, you are probably better to leave it and hold out for something that better suits you.

If you are a guitar beginner and a little worried about testing guitar in public – don’t worry. It is important to remember that you are not there to showcase your playing ability – you are there to discern whether your proposed buy is a good deal or not so just go for it.

If you are still worried, take an experienced guitarist along with you when you are looking at a guitar to learn on. See if you can persuade a teacher or a friend – most musicians love to help beginners who are interested in learning to play the guitar. Not only will they be able to offer helpful advice – they will be good moral support when it’s time to pick up the guitar and test it out in public.

This FREE course was brought to you by Jamorama – The Ultimate Guitar Learning Course

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Jamorama Guitar Lesson 3 – How to Read Guitar Tablature (1)

TAB or tablature is the most common method of writing out music for the guitar. It is different from classical music notation in that; TAB uses ordinary numbers and keyboard characters as opposed to standard musical notation which uses symbols. Because of this format, anyone with a computer can write or read TAB making it the most user friendly way to read and communicate guitar music. Also TAB relates directly to the fretboard of your guitar meaning that you may easily see where you put your fingers. In the full version of Jamorama, both standard musical notation and tablature are used. But for this six day course we will only use TAB. The reason for this is that tablature is very easy to read and you should have no problems learning TAB in a few short minutes of reading. TAB has some weak points, the worst of which is that rhythm can’t be easily indicated. This shouldn’t pose a problem though, as I will indicate the rhythm for each exercise using the strum indicators that were introduced in lesson one. OK. To start I want you to look at your guitar and you will clearly see that it has six strings going from thickest to thinnest. On a TAB diagram, the thinnest string, (or 1st string as its most commonly called) is at the top – The thickest (or 6th string) is at the bottom. This is clearly demonstrated in the 1st example below. The following diagram shows you how tablature relates to the guitar fret board: Some of you may notice that this guitar seems upside down in relation to how you play. This is simply the way that guitar music is generally written. Now if you transfer this same model to a written format you will get TAB, which can be seen below. So the lines above indicate the strings on a guitar. The top line of the TAB being the thinnest string of the guitar, and the bottom line on the TAB chart indicating the thickest string of the guitar. Now if you look at your guitar you will see metal bars that raise up from the neck of the guitar called frets. TAB uses numbers to show you which one of these frets to press down and play. For example, look at the tab diagram to the right and you can see that the 1st string (thinnest string) is being played. The number refers to the fret that you should press down. In this case the number zero is displayed. This means that you shouldn’t press down anything. So if you were to play the above piece of TAB on your guitar, you would pick the thinnest string once with your plucking hand and do nothing with your fret hand. Tip: If you are having trouble with this concept, watch this video of the above exercise to see and hear it for yourself: Now let’s see if we can start pushing down some strings. Look at the next example below and try and play the note that the TAB chart displays. If you pressed down the thickest string at the 3rd fret then you played the exercise correctly. If you are still unsure whether you are doing the right thing or not, refer to the video below. Let’s try another one. Play the following piece of TAB: This TAB diagram above indicates the 2nd string (second thinnest) and you should be pressing down on the first fret. Tip: Once again, there is video available for this example: Things become a little more complicated when you are required to play chords, however the basic principals I have already outlined still apply. The only difference is that you will be required to play more strings and hold down more strings with your fingers. In this next example I will show you how to play the chord ‘A’. A Major Chord The first and fifth strings are played open while the second, third and forth strings are played at the second fret. The sixth string is not played in the A Major Chord and this is indicated by an X. If you have read the TAB correctly your fingers should look like this: Tip: Watch the video of the above exercise to see and hear it for yourself: So now you know how to use basic tablature as it applies to notes and full chords. In this introductory set of lessons you will use TAB to learn different chords and by lesson six you will be able to play the full song, ‘Rivers of Babylon’. Time to take a break. Well done, you’ve just completed the first part of this newsletter. Next you are about to learn about notes on the first string. Don’t forget, for the ultimate guitar learning kit which includes step-by-step written lessons, video lessons, audio lessons and sophisticated software games, visit Jamorama.com. Notes on the First String Knowledge of the notes that are on each string is necessary for understanding guitar theory. The first string is also known as the high E string. The main notes in the first position on the first string are E (open), F (1st fret) and G (3rd fret). The first position refers to the first 4 frets of the guitar. We will use these notes in the following exercise to introduce to you the concept of note picking. Exercise: Note picking is a skill that is used in all types of music. For now, we will use it to familiarize ourselves with the note names on each string in the first position. Pluck these first string notes with a downward picking motion. Notice that your fingers should match the fret number when playing in the first position: Watch the video for this example: We will leave it there today in terms of guitar theory. Next time I want to get you strumming a whole lot more, but right now I want to look at something else and that is how to get a ‘that’ sound. Getting ‘That’ sound – blues/rock guitar solo aka Jimi Hendrix. Many people around the world love blues, and many people love Jimi Hendrix, in fact some would argue that he is the most influential guitarist to ever grace the planet. Blues/rock guitar tends to have a characteristic sound to it. Sure there is a style of playing that characterizes blues guitar, in fact we cover this style in the Jamorama course thoroughly. There are blues Jam tracks and blues songs, the course will teach you HOW to play the blues guitar, but a question that often pops up is ‘Once I know how to play the STYLE, how do I get that ‘sound’ out of my amp?’. Ok, firstly let’s look at the aspects of a guitarist’s set up that have an effect on the final sound. Ability of player to play that style. Choice of guitar (i.e. Electric or acoustic?? Solid body or semi-acoustic, single coil pickups or humbucking pickups??) Choice of amplifier Settings on the guitar Settings on the amplifier Other miscellaneous items (e.g. strings, effects pedals etc) So, from this list we can see that there is simply no ONE aspect that will directly change the sound, it’s the use of all of these things that point to the final outcome. A nice way of looking at it is to treat all of these aspects as ingredients to the sound recipe. By changing the ingredients or amount of, or order in which they are used you end up changing the final product. Obviously one of the most important of the ingredients is the ability of the player themselves. There is no point in having all of the ingredients to play blues guitar if the player can’t actually play blues style guitar… make sense? Let’s start with the guitar itself, the best choice of guitar would be a solid body electric guitar such as a Fender Stratocaster, or a Gibson lespaul, pretty much any solid body electric guitar will do. Once you have selected the guitar let’s look at the settings that are to be used on the guitar itself. You will want to select the neck pick up (the pickup that is closest to the neck of the guitar). This pickup gives a more rounded natural sound, often called the rhythm pickup. The on board controls of the guitar (the volume and tone knobs) are also very useful. To achieve a bluesy sound you should slightly roll off some of the tone knob, roll it back to about 7 or 8. Ok once you have this set up, look at the amplifier. Blues guitarists have a slightly overdriven or distorted sound. To achieve this I want you to make sure that you are plugging the guitar into the ‘Hi-gain’ input of your amplifier (if you only have one input then use that one. What you need to do next is to turn up your amp gain to a point where the sound coming out is slightly distorted (on most amps this would be just after halfway). If your guitar amp doesn’t distort or overdrive then there are other alternatives, you could purchase and use a distortion effect pedal. Ok, the amplifier’s EQ settings??? What do I do with those? Basically I want you to leave all the ‘EQ’ knobs in the middle (i.e. don’t boost or drop any of them). The bluesy sound really comes from having selected the neck pick up and by having the amp slightly distorting. Follow these tips, and I guarantee you that your next blues solo will now actually SOUND like a blues solo. Get into it! See you in the next newsletter. Do you wish you knew how to read music like you know how to read English?Would you like to be able to play music from straight off the page? Let me tell you about my fantastic new music theory learning game Jayde Musica. Jayde Musica takes the bore out of learning how to read music. It is an exciting and challenging new game, and best of all, it’s FREE! Introducing Jayde Musica, the most fun way of learning how to read music. Developed by myself and the team here at Jamorama, Jayde Musica brings enjoyment to the otherwise monotonous task of learning how to read music. Watch as musical notes fly across the screen and do your best to identify them! This game goes from beginner to advanced levels, complete with a high scores table. Jayde Musica is so easy to set up and use that you’ll be having fun learning how to read music in seconds. I think you will find this to be the easiest, most effective way to learn how to read music. You will be amazed at how quickly you will enjoy using Jayde Musica. Only a Screen Shot “I’ve just been using your music note game this morning and i have to say i’m loving it. I’m going to pass it on to my friends. It really is a big help.” - Chris Danaskis, via Email Features and benefits of Jayde Musica: Easy, Medium and Hard difficulty modes included. Clefs include treble, bass, alto and tenor. You have the option of turning on/off various clefs, so that you can isolate a specific area of music theory that you wish to work on. Fast Learning. Jayde Musica is a great way to accelerate your learning. It will have you self-correcting and trying really hard to remember the various notes displayed, so that you can progress further and gain a record score or even clock the game! It’s free. That’s right, you can keep on using this program and it won’t expire. Unlimited use. You can use Jayde Musica as many times as you want for free and it won’t expire. Simplicity. No flashy gimmicks, so easy to play that you won’t feel like you have to learn a whole new game. In fact it has the familiar game play of space invaders. It’s as easy as 1,2,3. Just play the game, start making mistakes and learn from them! As you get higher and higher scores, you’ll be surprised at how dramatically quick your music reading proficiency level will improve. This program is so simple to use, all it takes is 10mins a day! “I just wanted to let you know that i’m really enjoying Jayde Musica. After searching for ages, i have finally found some music training software that is actually fun to use. Thanks a bunch!” - Janine Soulli, Hobart, Australia Get Jayde Musica as a free bonus with your Jamorama Learn Guitar course, and learn to fluently read all the musical notes on all the staves in just a matter of days! Jayde Musica will never expire – you can use it all you like!Privacy information: There is no spy-ware contained in this program, we do not monitor your actions or email. When you register this program, we will not give your email address or personal details to anyone. Runs on all Windows and Macintosh operating systems. P.S. How else will you ever learn all those musical notes and be able to sight read them with ease? Get Jamorama and Start Learning with Jayde Musica for Free Today. This FREE course in brought to you by Jamorama – The Ultimate Learn Guitar Course