3 ms·
> $80 guitar and spending money on lessons—this goes against every piece of advice I’ve ever heard from a guitar teacher about buying your first guitar. Sure,
by kerkeslager 6y ago
> $80 guitar and spending money on lessons—this goes against every piece of advice I’ve ever heard from a guitar teacher about buying your first guitar.
Sure, if you're already taking lessons...
> Yamaha guitars start around $160, and they’re fantastic beginner instruments.
Yamaha guitars start around $160 new.
If you go to a local guitar shop they almost always have playable used guitars in the <$100 range. Even Guitar Center will often have a Yamaha that's discounted because it was returned opened, or because it has a manufacturer blemish that doesn't affect play.
Guitar shops will almost never sell an unusable guitar in my experience (this is not true of consignment stores, thrift shops, or pawn shops).
- klodolph 6y agoBeginners aren’t in a position to figure out the difference between a usable $80 guitar and a barely playable $80 guitar. My experience with Guitar Center specifically is that at most stores, most of the cheap guitars on sale won’t be set up properly and some of them will be missing strings. Buying an $80 guitar from GC is a roll of the dice. If you know what you are doing you can buy a guitar for $60 or $40 on Craigslist. Doesn’t mean that you have good odds as a novice.
- kerkeslager 6y agoAgreed on GC, I don't really point people to GC in general because there are so many good local music stores which are invested in their communities.
- toast0 6y agoDon't worry so much about Guitar Center... I think the core advice of buying a cheap (used?) X at an X store instead of a cheap X at a general purpose store is pretty good. Your local bike store isn't going to sell the same low end bike shaped objects as a department store or even a chain sports store. Your local music shop is less likely to sell awful guitar shaped objects than Walmart. Etc.