Learn Acoustic Guitar

It’s a shame but there are many people trying to learn acoustic guitar the hard way these days. When I refer to ‘the hard way’ I’m actually talking about acoustic guitar set up and how massively it can affect how hard or easy you find the whole process of learning acoustic guitar. If you have been finding guitar pretty difficult to learn so far then perhaps it’s time to take a closer look at your acoustic guitar in order to see just how well or how badly its been set up.

There are two principal areas which we need to be concerned with - Tuning/Intonation and Action. The good news with all of this is that it if you have these two elements set up correctly then the price you pay for your guitar massively decreases in importance. Believe or not but it’s possible to have cheaper guitar ‘feel’ better to play that a much more expensive model simply through the cheaper one being set up better. Before you begin to learn acoustic guitar just take some time to get these two things right and you’ll have a much easier time of it.

When we talk about intonation we are really talking about how well the guitar will tune up. Sometimes a guitar won’t tune up well simply because the strings are old and have lost their ability to correctly achieve pitch. More often however the guitar’s intonation is responsible and it creates this weird effect where your tuner will be telling you every string is at its correct pitch but if you go to play some chords only some of them will actually sound good. Remember that even the greatest players in the world will sound bad if they play on guitars which are not tuned well. If you are going to put lots of effort into your playing and practice then it’s only right to be rewarded with the best sound your guitar can produce for you in return right? Get your intonation checked and tune up.

Next we need to talk about action. One of the banes of many students trying to learn acoustic guitar are barre chords. These are a prime example of why it’s important to have the action set right on your acoustic guitar as it will significantly reduce the difficulty you’ll experience when trying to learn these kinds of chords. The action of your guitar refers to how high the strings are off the fretboard. Simply put, the higher your action the more ‘pressing down’ you’ll have to do in order to make contact with the frets and produce your notes or chords. A high action means that you have a lot of extra effort to put in and it’s going to hurt your fingers more too. All this goes against everything you really want when learning to play acoustic guitar - we want everything relaxed and effortless.

So the second step is to get the action of your guitar set low and if you’ve been playing a guitar with a high action up to now you really won’t believe the difference it’ll make in how much easier it’ll be to play once it’s lowered. It’s well worth the small amount of time and expense it will take to get adjusted.

So now you have a guitar that will tune up well and has a low action - perfect! Regardless of the actual price of your guitar it’s going to be a joy to learn acoustic guitar and should certainly make things a lot easier.