How to Buy the Right Guitar for Your Child

So your child has decided that he or she wants to learn how to play the guitar - an instrument in which you have little to no expertise. Musical instruments can be very costly, and in order to maximize their effectiveness as a learning tool, they need to be durable and long-lasting. This is especially true when choosing a musical instrument for a child, who may be more prone to drop it, knick it, ding it or otherwise treat it carelessly. Like most string instruments, the guitar is particularly prone to accidents because of its irregular and bottom-heavy shape, making it even more accident-prone for the average child. You also want to make sure you're getting full quality for your money's worth - this guitar needs to be in it for the long hall if you're going to go through all the trouble of finding an instructor and incessantly nagging... I mean... encouraging your child to practice.

Essentially, if you're going to plunk down a hundred dollars or more for a guitar, you want to know that it's a keeper. Here are a few things to ask yourself when shopping for your child's new instrument.

What Kind of Guitar is Best for the Music My Child Wants to Play?

In simplified terms, there are three basic types of guitars: electric, electric-acoustic, and acoustic. Modern music buffs are probably most familiar with electric guitars, since they are the kind that most guitarists use in playing modern music. Electric guitars come in a dizzying array of choices. They all have steel strings. They come in every color of the rainbow, and while most are made of lacquered solid wood, they come in a wide variety of materials, too. They come in solid-body, which are guitars with no holes in the body cavity. These tend to be quite heavy - too heavy for young children to play while standing. This is an important factor to keep in mind when purchasing a guitar for a child, because the eccentric designs of some electric hard-body guitars make it difficult to play them in a sitting position (those cool V-shaped guitars that K.I.S.S. members play, for example, will slide right off your lap).