NYAA Entry - Skills - Overview for January - Guitar

Participants: Boon Kiat, Calvin, Edmund, Jiawei, Joseph
Venue: Victoria School, Peninsula Plaza
Dates: 19^th, 26^th Jan 2007

Each of us did our own research on various kinds of guitar models and various guitar accessories on the internet, and had a group sharing and discussion of our research findings, and also went about on a recce to learn more about guitars, their accessories and prices and establish reliable guitar and guitar accessories distributors to help in purchase of our individual guitars.

Purchasing of guitar

Possible questions to consider in buying a guitar:

• What’s my level of commitment?
• What’s my spending limit?
• Do I buy retail or online or mail order?
• Am I a “new-guitar person” or a “used-guitar person"

Possible points to take note in buying beginner guitars:

• Appearance
• Playability
• Intonation
• Solid construction (includes materials and workmanship)

Some popular music styles and classic guitars that most people associate with those styles (as we have decided to purchase classical guitars, the list only includes classical style):
Ramirez, Hopf, Khono, Humphrey, Hernandez, Alvarez

Finally, bringing along an ‘expert’ when purchasing a guitar is largely advisable.


Guitar accessories

Cases:

Hard cases: The hard case is the most expensive option but offers the best insurance against damage to the guitar. It’s composed of leather-or nylon-covered wood and can even survive the rigors of airline baggage handlers, providing crush-proof protection to the guitar. The safest thing to do is thus to go with a hard case.

Soft cases: The soft case isn’t completely soft, being in fact more stiff than truly soft. It usually consists of some pressed-particle material, such as cardboard, and can provide some protection for the guitar – for example, if someone drops a coffee mug on it (an empty coffee mug, that is). But that’s about it. The soft case is the inexpensive alternative to the hard case because it enables the guitarist to transport the guitar without exposing it to the elements and at least prevents an outside intruder from scratching it. But these cases easily buckle if put to any real stress (such as getting caught in an airport conveyer belt) and cave in, fold and puncture much more easily than a hard case does. In most cases, however, a soft case provides protection against the daily bumps and grinds that would otherwise scratch an unprotected guitar.

Gig bags: The gig bag provides almost no protection against shock because it’s a form-fitting nylon, leather, or other fabric enclosure. Gig bags zip shut and are about the consistency of any other soft luggage carrier. The advantage of gig bags is that they’re light, they fit on your shoulder, and they take up no more room than the guitar itself – making them the ideal case if a guitarist is to fit his electric guitar into the overhead bin of an airplane. People who live in big cities and take public transportation favour gig bags. With the gig bag over their shoulder, they still have two hands free to feed a token into a subway turnstile and hold the poles on a train car. But a gig bag isn’t nearly as protective as a soft case, and the guitarist can’t stack anything on top of a bagged guitar.

Capos: A capo (pronounced KAY-po) is a spring-loaded, adjustable-tension (or elastic) clamp that wraps around the neck of a guitar and covers all the strings, forcing them all down to the fret-board at a given fret. This device effectively raises the pitch of all the strings by a given number or frets (or half steps). In some cases, the guitarist may want to tune his guitar with the capo on, but most of the time, he tunes up without it and then place it on the desired fret. Capos enable the guitarist to transpose music he plays on his guitar to another key, while he still plays the chord fingerings in the original key. Capos price ranges from $3 to $20; with the elastic-band type being the cheapest and the higher-priced being clamp and screw-on types, which are more popular with serious capo users because they can put them on with one hand, and these type of capos generally hold the strings down better than the elastic kinds do. The screw-on type, such as the one made by Shubb, is a particular favourite because the guitarist can vary the size and tension of the capo’s grip, which enables him to customize the capo size for different parts of the neck. (The lower fret of the neck, toward the head, require a smaller capo opening than do the higher frets.)

Picks: Picks come in different materials, different thickness and different shapes for different styles of guitar playing. A guitarist if habited to using picks, will have to find and get used to a certain material, thickness and shape pick to use, which will not be changed much, even going on different kinds of guitars.

Strings: Extra strings have to be kept on hand for the simple reason that if one is broken, it will have to be replaced immediately. The higher, thinner strings tend to break more easily than do the lower, thicker ones, so carrying more spares of the high E, B and G strings will be advisable.

Electronic tuners: To be touched on in the post for next month


(With reference from Guitar for Dummies 2nd Edition)