First Guitar Advice

[edwardsje]

Can anyone offer advice about choosing my first acoustic guitar? I've got to my late 40s and can't play a musical instrument, so I'm going to fix that.

My budget is up to say £250 and I hope, eventually to be playing folky-acoustic type stuff (think Shawn Colvin et al - well I can dream!).

I've seen the Epiphone Hummingbird being very well reviewed indeed and would welcome comments, thoughts & alternatives.

Thanks in advance.

[gingerpaul]

I tried a few cheap acoustics with my brother a little while ago and we ended up getting him a Yamaha FG700 for about £130 and it's excellent for the money. It was better than my old Takamine acoustic that cost over twice as much new. It's a steel string though. I don't know if you'd want nylon strings or not for folk stuff.

We went to Andertons in Guildford if they're close to you. My other usual shop is Guitar Village in Farnham, but they don't stock Yamaha.

[Ordinary Bloke]

http://www.guitarampkeyboard.com/en/yamaha-fg730s/...

or the 720 if you want to save a few quid. Lovely, dependable, worth every penny...

[bigbadbikercats]

Can't go wrong with a Yamaha. There might be better things around if you know what you're looking for and are willing to put a good deal of time into trying several examples, tweaking the setup a bit, etc, etc, etc, but in terms of out-of-the box consistency (to the point where a non-guitar player can confidently buy one sight unseen from a non-guitar shop) they're pretty much unbeatable in the low-to-middling price band.

--
JG

[GetCarter]

My advice: Buy a guitar with a very low action (so that it's easy to press the strings down) and very light gauge strings. It will make the pain in your fingers much less and thus, you'll put more hours in. The first 50 hours are the hard ones if you can get through them it'll get a LOT easier.

[edwardsje]

Thanks all for the advice, much appreciated.