One of the great things about learning the guitar is how much progress you can make in a short space of time. You learn one chord, then two, three, and then you can write a song. But it isn’t all just one big walk in the park.
Steel strings on young fingers can hurt, especially during long practice sessions (take a break if they do). And even though there are plenty of great acoustic guitars for beginners on today’s market, sometimes entry-level instruments are not the most forgiving. They fight back.
But Jason Isbell, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter and Fender signature artist, has some advice that could spare you some pain.
Speaking with Matt Sweeney for his Guitar Moves YouTube show, Isbell argues that investing in a set up to make sure your acoustic guitar is at its best by the time you take it home is money well spent – and it will help keep you playing longer.
“Get it set up. Spend 50 or 80 or 100 bucks, and before you leave the music store, let them set it up for you,” says Isbell.” Set the action right. Make sure the frets are level. Make sure it will stay in tune. That is so huge, and I wish somebody would have told me that when I was a kid.
“Of course you are not going to be able to afford an incredible instrument when you are that age. Most kids aren’t. But yeah, if you spend extra time, the extra money, you take it home and you can play it. It makes all the difference in the world.”
Anyone reading this who started out on a hand-me-down acoustic with a set of funky old set of .14s and an action so high you could fit your pinkie between string and fretboard can surely relate. Some of those old goats might say it is supposed to hurt. Isbell and Sweeney urge you to ignore them.
“The old guys wills say, ‘It’s supposed to! You’ll get calluses,” says Isbell.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t have to hurt that much!” laughs Sweeney.
Isbell is 100 per cent correct. There’s no glory in struggling along with a poorly setup instrument. A little money spent at the guitar store – and, to that point, taking the time to try out a few guitars to see which is most comfortable – goes a long way.
I think start easy. You don’t want to quit. That’s the only thing. You don’t want to quit playing, so start with something that doesn’t hurt
The whole point is to keep you playing, to not give up. Isbell says he used to teach beginner guitars on electric guitar because it offered an easier playing experience for young players.
“You don’t want people to stop playing because it hurts,” he says. “Like, when I was teaching lessons, when I was in my early 20s, I was teaching some lessons at a community centre outside of Memphis and I always wanted kids to start off on electric. All the old guys would say, ‘Start on the acoustic, ‘cos when you go to electric it is so much easier.’ But I think start easy. You don’t want to quit. That’s the only thing. You don’t want to quit playing, so start with something that doesn’t hurt.”
If you’ve caught Sweeney’s Guitar Moves show before, you’ll know there’s plenty of wisdom for players of all ages and experiences. The Hard Quartet guitarist has all different kinds of players on – Marcus King, Jim Root, Dan Auerbach... He even had Lemmy on.
Isbell says he wished someone had told him when he was learning that a well setup guitar was going to be easier to play, easier to learn on. He also shares something that many of us might wish we were told when starting out: sing along to those early chords.
“Always sing along. As you’re strumming chords, sing melodies to it,” says Isbell. “It doesn’t matter, the words could be gibberish. That’s how a lot of people start writing songs.”
That’s how a lot of people continued writing songs. As Sweeney notes, there was a guy by the name of Paul McCartney who had some songs an a melody and sang the words “scrambled eggs” along to them. That song became Yesterday. He did pretty well out of it.
Are you wrestling with an acoustic whose strings are too far from the fingerboard? If so, check out MusicRadar's 6-step guide to lowering your acoustic guitar's action.
