Choosing a quality instrument can certainly be tough enough, but finding out one that fits your personality, present and future, is a very tall order indeed. We’ll certainly answer the question of finding the right guitar for you, but keep an open mind, and know that the same process applies to a new amp, pedal, keyboard, and literally every other purchase you could make.

Whenever you’re buying a new guitar, there a two very important questions you want to ask yourself. The first being “What style of music am I currently into, and what might I be interested in later on?” The second question is, “How will I be using this instrument?” Let’s look a little deeper at each question.

The first question really is a great qualifier to make sure you get the right axe. Guitars, like people have personality. Some guitars are wonderful for jazz, others are perfect for blues, and yet others are strictly made for metal. Don’t get me wrong, with a little modification, you can pretty much play any style of music on any guitar (I think Yngwie Malmsteen proved that to everyone playing neoclassical shred on vintage Fender Stratocasters), but it makes sense to buy a guitar that comes best equipped to play to the “personality” you’re mostly interested in. Obviously if you’re a big Eric Clapton fan you’re not going to want to spend your money on something that sounds and looks like Megadeth.

Of course, I tend to hear people say things like “well I enjoy all styles of music”, and “I’m not really sure what I like to play on guitar”. I think it’s great to be musically cultured and have a broad listening spectrum, however, you’ll want to find the guitar that fits the genre of music you find yourself listening to most. If you listen to blues all day, and classical, jazz, rock and country on the weekend, you’ll probably want to get something that can really get you those blues tones.

The second question is looking at how you’ll be using your instrument. If you’re interested in just having a nice practice guitar, that’s very different from having something that will perform very well under stress and in the field. As an example, I love using guitars that are setup with “floating” bridges. I think they allow a whole host of new musical ideas, however, they’re very difficult to use for live performances since if you break one string, your whole guitar will go out of tune making it completely impossible to finish a song with that guitar. If I had a roadie ready to hand me a guitar at a moment’s notice, then sure, why not, but in my current situation, I don’t find it feasible. The overall moral of the story, is to make sure the guitar you buy fits the need.

I’ve also found it very helpful to list out specifically what I want/need in an instrument. Let me give you an example. I don’t own a 12 string guitar (yet) so if I decided to buy an acoustic 12 string, these are the specifics of what I would need and want:

Solid top
Acoustic/electric capabilities
Quality, high-ratio tuners
Low to moderate action
Great tone

I could go into the reason behind each item on my list and tell you exactly why I need it and why it’s important to me. For the purpose of this blog I think that’s unnecessary, but hopefully it gets my point across of getting your musical needs fulfilled. As you can see, having a very specific set of requirements can narrow down your list considerably, and keep you from making a purchasing blunder.