Acoustic or Electric: Which Guitar is Best for Beginners?
I hear this question a lot from adult students interested in learning guitar for the first time: Should I start with acoustic guitar to get the basics, then move on to electric guitar? I’ve even heard people say “I want to learn guitar, but should I start with piano to get the basics?” I get it. The people asking these questions want to make sure they are learning properly. They want to be sure that the path they choose is the right one and that they aren’t wasting time. But when you ask these questions a crucial factor is being left out: YOU!
The best guitar to learn is the one YOU are most excited about
When you’re excited to play a particular instrument or a particular style of guitar, you’re more likely to think about it at work. You’re more likely to pick up the guitar instead of watching TV. You’re more likely to seek out lessons and find people to play with. That makes the biggest difference.
This is all you need to know. But since there are some distinct differences between electric guitar and acoustic guitar, I might as well compare and contrast them a bit.
The skills involved in in acoustic guitar are completely transferable to electric guitar and vise versa. An electric guitar typically has lighter strings and requires less pressure to push the strings to the frets. This can be a good thing if you have decent control over your hand pressure. However, it can be less helpful if you tend to use a lot of strength when fretting the guitar because too much pressure can push the strings out of alignment and make the guitar sound out of tune when it is not.
Electric guitar can have a lot of tonal variety, which is awesome if want to play lead guitar, rhythm guitar or use the guitar in an experimental way, but can be distracting if you find yourself spending more time with knobs and dials than you do with actual practice. On the other hand, acoustic guitar has very little variety in tone and tends to be a little more challenging if you want to play scales up and down the neck. Its not impossible, but it takes a little more effort.
If you might want to bring your guitar to a friends house or jam around a campfire, an acoustic guitar is incredibly portable, as it doesn’t require an amplifier and doesn’t need to be plugged into a power source. If you prefer simplicity and portability, definitely choose an acoustic guitar.
Electric guitar makes it a little easier to play with a band. Playing guitar with a drummer, bass player and other musicians is incredibly satisfying. While you can buy an acoustic guitar that plugs in like an electric, called an “acoustic-electric” guitar, the set up and feel will never quite respond the way an electric guitar does. Also, acoustic electric guitars are more likely to feedback in a loud band setting, which makes things difficult. The name is slightly misleading, since these guitars are typically not plugged into an electric guitar amplifier, but connected directly to a soundboard the same way a microphone would be. If thats confusing, just remember that an acoustic-electric is not necessarily the best of both worlds, but actually just an acoustic guitar that will still sound and feel like an acoustic guitar, its just doesn’t require a microphone when you’re on stage.
I should clarify that you can definitely play acoustic guitar in a band but its just a different experience. Its a bit more limiting in terms of playability and the kinds of sounds you can play with, but definitely also fun. Also, as I mentioned earlier, acoustic guitars are more likely to feedback (make loud annoying noises) when you’re with a loud band.
A typical beginner acoustic guitar costs somewhere around $250, and while there are similarly-priced packages that include an electric guitar and amplifier, the quality is often not as good, which can make your learning experience frustrating and unnecessarily difficult. I recommend spending a little more money on an electric guitar and amplifier and avoiding the package deals.
The main thing to remember here is this: you should choose to learn whichever instrument is the most appealing to you. Learning guitar takes time and patience. If you’re not excited to practice, you probably won’t. Choosing a guitar that gets you excited to practice will help you the most in the long run.