I think it is a little intimidating to start playing guitar as an adult.  For starters, you are starting a little late to get in your 10,000 hours.  Sometimes it isn’t easy to find the right teacher.  In addition, you can’t start playing until you have a guitar to play.  Even when you are ready to choose a guitar, there are 1800 guitar options to consider on Fretbase alone.  I’m writing so that you won’t make the same mistake I did.

I started by getting a teacher recommendation in my local guitar store.  I asked my teacher for advice on the right guitar to buy (I’m a logical person).  This was his advice:

“Buy the most expensive guitar you can afford.  It will inspire you to play more.”  This was without a doubt some of the worst advice I have ever received (not counting my friends who told me not to work at Twitter).

You see, with your first guitar you really don’t know what you like.  You are likely unsure of the music you’ll end up playing.  You don’t know what guitar shape feels most comfortable to you.  You don’t know if you like a guitar with a wide nut or a narrow nut.  You don’t know if you like a thick neck or a thin one.  You don’t even know if you will like playing guitar.  You don’t know enough to make a 4 digit investment in an object.  Trust me.

In my case, I bought a Martin HD-28V.  In many ways it is a great guitar.  I bought it largely because I read that Dave Matthews played it and my heroes played dreadnoughts.  But I immediately ran into problems.  First of all, that guitar has a v-shaped neck which was very uncomfortable to me (I didn’t realize just how uncomfortable until I played a Martin D-35).  Also, the Martin HD-28V has a lot of BOOM.  But soon after buying it I was primarily playing fingerstyle and accordingly quickly became more inclined toward smaller-bodied guitars.  I ended up selling the HD-28V within a couple of years at a significant loss.

So here it what I tell people.

Start with a guitar that costs less than $500.  Play it long enough to figure out what you like and don’t like in a guitar.  Then, go out and buy the guitar of your dreams.  And of course, come to Frtebase to research it.

Since many acoustic guitar players like dreadnoughts, I think dreads are a good place to start.  These are the guitars I’d look at first.  They are under $500 and they’ll be perfect for figuring out what you like and don’t like in a guitar before you go out an buy a Collings.

1.  Seagull S6 Cedar Original

2.  Yamaha FG730S

3.  Blueridge BR-40 or BR-60

4.  Recording King RD-17

Good luck in your search.  Even though it is challenging to get started there is a lifetime of rewards in front of you and there is interest to earn on the money you save buy being conservative on the first guitar purchase.

Please let us know about your first acoustic guitar in the comments.