Quote:
Originally Posted by charles Tauber
You don't say what your intended purpose is for the guitar. Do you want to play classical music on it using classical technique, for example, or jazz, or ...? Do you have a particular sort of sound in mind?
|
Mostly playing and teaching classical pieces, using classical technique.
I mainly play other styles of music (blues, folk, rock, jazz) but have the guitars I need for those styles (not top range, but what I considered very good quality).
Currently, for classical guitar, I use a very ancient - and very cheap (and poorly intonated) - nylon-string, which is a little embarrassing in lessons. I also have an old Aria crossover electro-acoustic nylon-string, which is better made (good intonation etc), but has a small, shallow body - so the acoustic tone is not great.
Mainly I want a nice-sounding guitar, for my personal use! It's not for live performance - certainly not in concert halls. I will probably use it for recording at some point - but again, not professionally.
Quote:
Originally Posted by charles Tauber
About two years ago, in preparation for a new guitar build, a friend and I went to the best music store in our greater geographical region. We played classical guitars that ranged in price from $1k to $14k. They were by many different makers, some famous, some not, some were new, some were old. Their was no obvious correlation between any factor and the sound of the instruments. The highest price didn't give the best sound, the name of the maker didn't correlate with sound, old or new didn't correlate with best sound. There is VAST difference between them, regardless of price, age or maker.
My recommendation, particularly with classical guitars, is - if you have something specific in mind sound-wise - don't buy sight-un-seen. If you can wait, wait until you can go try a bunch a base your decision of experience of them, rather than spec sheets or on-line videos.
|
Thanks Charles, that's very sensible advice - and would be my usual practice in normal circumstances.
I suppose I'm just somewhat impatient, especially as most of my lessons now seem to be on nylon-string (although not all classical). The lessons are all currently on Zoom, of course, so sound quality is not really an issue there. But I've been playing for over 50 years on the rubbish nylon-string, and I feel it's well past time that I upgraded to something sensible and mature. With my other guitars, I've bought similar upgrades in the past, and always kicked myself for not doing it sooner.
I'm getting drawn into the "unbeatable bargain, now!" thing, when clearly when one bargain goes, another will turn up sooner or later... But I am more interested in second-hand instruments than new ones, which is one reason I'm surfing ebay. My current steel-string acoustic, a beautiful guitar, was a real bargain on ebay (well before lockdown) - half the price I nearly paid a friend for a similar model.
It's just now occurred to me (I don't know why it didn't before) that the lockdown - and the closure of music shops which was going on even before that - means it's a private sellers' market at the moment. Prices may well be unnaturally inflated.