How to Buy ACOUSTIC Guitars

Choose Between a Steel-String Acoustic Guitar and a Classical Guitar

1. First familiarize yourself with the parts of a guitar.
   
   Body: The big part with the hole in it.
   
   Sound hole: The big hole in the body where the sound comes out.
   
   Strings: These are what you pluck to make music. There are six of them.
   
   Bridge: The bar where the strings are attached to the body of the guitar.
   
   Neck: The really long thing that the strings run along. You'll notice that the neck is subdivided into partitions called frets.
2. 1. The Cutaway
      
      On some steel-string acoustics, you'll notice that the bottom of the body is partially cut away to allow you fingers access to the higher frets near the sound hole of the guitar. This is called "the cutaway." The cutaway makes playing solos a lot easier, because you can reach those high frets (that is, you can reach higher notes) and really make your guitar scream. But beware: The cutaway hurts the overall loudness and sound of a guitar, because there is less "open guitar" through which the air can resonate. The cutaway is generally not available on the classical guitar.
      
      Body Type
      
      The top of the body (the face of the guitar, and the part where the sound hole is) works like a speaker when playing, so it is an important consideration. The top of the body is generally built in two different styles:
      
      Laminated veneer top: This type of guitar face is constructed of thin sheets of wood glued together. A laminated veneer top does not provide the best top for an acoustic, and thus is cheaper, but the sound quality is worse.
      
      Solid top: This face is a solid piece of wood and resonates much better than a laminated veneer top. Thus, the overall sound of the guitar is louder, clearer and better. The drawback, of course, is the price. Solid tops cost a lot more than laminated veneer tops. It's up to you to determine if you think the increase in sound quality is worth the increase in price.
      
      Guitars may have a solid top and veneer sides. This is not optimal (and correspondingly less expensive), but the overall sound quality is still better than that of a veneer top. This may be a good alternative if you want to get better sound quality than a veneer-top guitar, but don't want to shell out the money for a purely solid guitar.
      
      Electronics
      
      Yes, acoustics also need electricity. It's hard for the people in the back row of a 30,000-seat stadium to hear you play "Blackbird" from a mile away. So modern science came up with the idea of either using a microphone or a pickup to amplify the sound of an acoustic guitar. This is not the same as an electric guitar, which has a distinctly different sound from an acoustic guitar.
      
      There are four ways to amplify your acoustic:
      
      Microphone: There's always the old-fashioned option of just sticking your guitar in front of a microphone. The catch is that microphones run the risk of giving feedback, and are hard to set at a good volume.
      
      Sound-Hole Pickup: Instead, you could go for a sound-hole pickup, which is a special microphone placed in the sound hole. A pickup amplifies the sound that you produce on your guitar, then sends it via a cable to a speaker that emits the music. If you get a sound-hole pickup, make sure it can fit into your sound hole!
      
      Piezo Pickup: This is the most popular choice for acoustic aficionados. They are versatile and extremely easy to use. You simply mount the pickup under the bridge of the guitar. (However, some people claim that the piezo pickup does not produce a realistic acoustic sound.)
      
      Acoustic-electric guitars: Acoustic-electric guitars provide one final alternative for amplifying sound. These guitars have a built-in pickup, and usually have a graphic equalizer for fine-tuning the sound. These guitars are pricier than their brethren, and guitar connoisseurs will tell you that the pickup and equalizer detract from the body of the guitar, creating a worse acoustic sound than a pure acoustic guitar. But they're good at being loud.
      
      Aesthetics
      
      An often-overlooked part of searching for a guitar is how visually appealing that guitar is. After all, you're shelling out your hard-earned cash, so you might as well be happy with it. Inspect the guitar for discolorations, dents or scratches, keeping in mind that lower-end guitars are bound to have some defects--it's hard to get around them when instruments are mass-produced.
   
   
   
   Nut: At the end of the neck are six grooves the strings nestle in. That's the nut.
   
   Headstock: The top, which houses the six tuning pegs used to tune the strings.
   
   (If you would like to learn exactly how a guitar works in great mathematical detail, see Resources.)
   
   So now comes your first big decision: Do you want a steel-string acoustic guitar or a classical guitar?
   
   The steel-string acoustic guitar is what you're probably most familiar with: You've seen them played at bars and at concerts. These guitars have steel strings, which provide a thick, rich sound. These guitars are very popular in pop and blues music.
   
   If you're a beginner, some people will tell you that you should not get a steel-string guitar because it will hurt your fingers. True, it will hurt your fingers at the beginning, but you'll eventually develop calluses that will ease your pain. So if you think that the steel-string acoustic sounds better or is more your style, feel free to get one.
   
   The classical guitar has nylon strings that provide a rounder, smoother tone than its steel-string cousin. Nylon strings are much softer than steel strings. They also have less "sustain," which means that any plucked note will die more quickly. Still, there are people who would swear that the nylon strings provide more sound control than steel strings.
   
   There are several other differences between steel-string and classical guitars:
   
   Classical guitars are not nearly as loud as steel-string acoustics.
   
   The classical guitar has a much wider neck than the steel-string; this can be a bad thing if your hands are small.
   
   One rarely strums the classical guitar, as fingerpicking is the norm.
   
   Classical guitars have a smaller body than steel-string acoustics, so they might be a little more portable if you're interested in taking your guitar with you to numerous places.