A Beginner’s Guide to Different Types of Guitars

Did you know that the world’s largest playable guitar is 13.2m long? It’s a much larger (12 times larger to be exact) version of the Gibson 1967 Flying V. It weighs an incredible 1018kg, but you can still play the chords and enjoy the music. If you’re into guitars and want to buy online and start playing, there are plenty of ways you can go. You can choose acoustic, electric, bass, hollow and much more. As one of the easiest instruments to play, the guitar community is very large, and you’ll find guidance and assistance easily.

Types of Guitars

Electric

This is one of the most popular and most commonly used guitars in the world. It’s very versatile, comes in many shapes, sizes, and colours and you can play a wide variety of music genres. Every high-performance electric guitar has unique internal hardware. Every brand will sound differently in your hands and will allow you to play different things. Each brand will produce a different tone. When you’re experienced enough, you’ll be able to distinguish them with ease.

The body of this guitar is where most of the differences lie. It can be hollow, semi-hollow, or solid. The solid body ones are very common, and their body is made of solid wood. It’s not always a single piece of wood, but there won’t be any holes inside. Some brands even use three pieces of wood to create a single guitar body.

The density of the wood is the main reason why an electric guitar has the most sustain. If you want the guitar to be more resistant to feedback from the pickups, buy one that’s made of denser wood. This will give you a more focused low end. This is one of the reasons that a great number of heavy metal musicians love solid wood guitars.

With semi-hollow guitars, we have hollowed bouts. To get enough airflow they usually have F-holes or some sound holes. They also include a strong central core that passes across the entire body. They have tones that are a lot like solid-body guitars. The one difference you might notice is the less sustain and a less focused low end.

Hollow guitars are self-explanatory. They’re very similar to the acoustic type and also have F-holes. However, there isn’t a centre block. They have a very loud and present sound, low sustain and boomy low end. The warm and round tones hollow guitars produce make them a favourite among jazz players.

The electric guitars for sale are a popular choice in genres like metal, pop, rock, punk and blues. They offer a wide range of pickups and tonal possibilities. To provide extra tones, you can also install more pickups. Plus, they connect to amps and pedals which gives you even more versatility.

Bass

If you want something with a lower pitch, a bass guitar would be a great choice. You’ll find that it’s very similar to an acoustic and an electric guitar with the only difference being a longer neck and scale length. Bass guitars can have a minimum of four and a maximum of six strings. They come in three varieties:

• ABG (acoustic bass guitar);
• Electric bass guitar;
• Semi-acoustic.

The acoustic bass guitar is tuned one octave lower and always has steel strings. It can sometimes be hard to hear, depending on the setting where you’re playing. To fix this, you can use a magnetic or a piezo pickup. This will brighten up the low frequencies and bring them to life. The electric bass guitar is when you want to play with low frequency and add some groove to the music.

If you’re a beginner, this is a good guitar to start with because it’s very easy to play. It works well for jazz, metal and rock music. The semi-acoustic guitar brings out a warm and clean sound with a lot of resonance and a variety of tones. This one works well for blues and jazz music.

Classic

Classical guitars have nylon strings. That’s why they’re often referred to as nylon-string acoustic guitars. The fact that they’re acoustic means you don’t have to plug them anywhere to get or listen to the sound they produce. They usually have six strings, three made of nylon and three just wrapped in nylon wire.

Just as the name suggests, these guitars are very popular in classical music, but they’re also great for jazz, pop, folk and flamenco music. The sound you get from them will always be very gentle no matter how hard you play the strings. A classic guitar is good for beginners because it’s easy to play. One thing that makes it simple is the fact that you don’t have to press hard to get a nice sound. So next time you’re looking for some guitars for sale, check the classic section, you might find what you need.

12-String

If you want a 12-string guitar you can find it in two versions, electric and acoustic. It resembles the 6-string one. The main difference is the doubling of the strings. So, instead of six single strings, you get six pairs of strings. This is a guitar that came out with a bang in the 60s and 70s and has remained popular to this day.

This is a very interesting guitar because it produces a very unique and unusual sound. When you hear it once, you will be able to recognise it in any song that has a 12-string guitar playing. The double strings means that you’ll have to strike the notes harder. This, and the fact that it has 12 strings, doesn’t make it very suitable for beginners.

Resonator

To make it simple, resonator guitars are acoustic guitars that have a metal cone instead of a sound hole. As a result, you get an improved resonance, better production of each tone and a loud sound. A resonator works well with jazz, blues, country, Hawaiian and bluegrass music.

Acoustic

There surely isn’t a single person on this planet who hasn’t heard of or hasn’t seen the most popular guitar of them all, the acoustic one. There are two types, steel strings or nylon strings. The steel strings work beautifully in metal, rock, Irish, Scottish and English music. The nylon strings have a warmer sound, which makes them perfect for swing, jazz and classical music.