The Guitar Topics That Get People Talking (And Arguing!)

If you’re like me, you may have had some of the following discussions (which sometimes turn into arguments) with your musically-minded peers.

These are topics where your opinion may evolve over time as you learn more and develop into a different musician, although in other cases may never change.

So, where do you stand on the following guitar topics?

I Am Left-Handed, Do I Need to Flip My Guitar?

I’m not going to lie, I have had a few heated debates with friends of mine over this topic.

To set the record straight, I used to sit firmly in the “no” side of the camp, and my argument was this.

We play guitar with both of our hands, both performing different tasks.

It’s not like writing where you are trying to perform the same task of holding a pen and writing letters the same way in both hands.

We are strumming/plucking in one hand and fretting the strings in the other, two tasks which are completely different.

I would also argue that when we first start playing guitar, fretting the strings and chords is the more technically challenging of the two, and funnily enough this is executed with your non-dominant hand.

I will often see beginner students of mine looking at their fretting hand most of the time and letting their strumming/fretting hand go into auto pilot, meaning their non dominant hand is the one with the harder job.

When I have a new student start lessons with me and they tell me that they are left-handed, the first thing I will ask them is “have you played guitar before” (and this means properly as in playing songs not just having a few go’s at home).

If their answer is yes, then I will get them continue playing the way they have been doing it (either in the right or left-handed position) as their muscle memory would have already began to set in and then will feel most confident in this playing position.

If they haven’t tried playing before I will start them off in the right-handed playing position, as they often will feel comfortable this way.

The reason that I do this is because left handed guitarists are sadly at a disadvantage to right-handed players when it comes to shopping for new instruments, as there is often significantly less stock for left-handed players in music stores, with some models of guitars not even available in a left-handed model.

This sometimes isn’t an issue for symmetrical guitars such as on a nylon string, as you can just re-string the guitar the opposite way and adjust the nut/bridge, but for acoustic or electric guitars all of the controls and the cutaway would be located on the wrong side.

In other cases I have actually had a student (who is left-handed) learn guitar in the past with another teacher who made her learn right-handed, for her to ask to try it the left-handed way after starting lessons with me.

Instantly the guitar felt more natural to her and she looked much more comfortable!

My hard and fast advice – try playing right-handed to begin with and if that really doesn’t work for you, go left-handed!

What Type of Guitar Should You First Learn On?

Growing up I was always told that you should start playing on an acoustic guitar and specifically a nylon string guitar, as the nylon material is softer on the fingers for a beginner, but I have seen many people make the argument that electric and steel string guitars are easier to play because their action (string height off of the fretboard) is often lower, requiring less strength to fret the notes.

Some say that you need to earn your way to an electric guitar by first strengthening your fingers on an acoustic, as once you graduate to an electric this will make life easier, but you could also make the argument that you need the ease of playing when you are first starting out.

My two cents would be that you should learn on a nylon string acoustic/classical guitar (regardless of the musical style that you are playing) as this gives you the guitar in its rawest form without having to worry about how it reacts through an amplifier or with effects.

This can require a lot of getting used to even when coming from an acoustic instrument, as the guitar reacts completely differently when amplified, and requires a lot more control.

The one important thing with a nylon string is that you should ensure that it is set up effectively with an action that isn’t too high so that the strings aren’t too hard to press down.

Even if this is still slightly higher than a super low action on an electric, the nylon will be much kinder to your fingers as a beginner, and make the overall playing experience much more straightforward in most cases.

Do Guitarists Need to Learn to Read Sheet Music?

Another question that I often get asked when a new student comes to me is if they should learn to read sheet music.

My answer is always that it depends on what the students goals are for learning guitar.

If they want to learn their favourite rock songs, learn guitar solos and jam along to backing tracks, then I would say that it’s not overly necessary.

If they want to learn classical guitar then yes, they should definitely learn to read sheet music (and this should be how you start your guitar journey).

If you want to learn jazz guitar, or even just get more into music theory and understand the nuts and bolts of how music works from a more academic view, then I would advise that yes, it would be beneficial to learn how to read music.

This skill is much easier to learn at the beginning of your guitar tuition, so even if you spend the first 10 minutes of each guitar lesson or practise session reading through a few examples of a guitar notation book, this will slowly put the pieces together for you on how to read sheet music on the guitar.

This purely depends on your goals on the instrument, although you have nothing to lose by learning even just the basics!

Tube Amps vs. Modellers

A popular debate in the guitar community as of late is the argument of which is better out of traditional tube guitar amplifiers or the more recent digital copies that exist in amp modellers.

Personally I use both and have many different units in both camps which all serve different purposes.

I will often play pop gigs with in-ear monitor systems and backing tracks with a click track, which I will use my amp modeller (Line 6 HX Stomp) for to give me a very consistent sound on every gig, as well as the ability to quickly change between very contrasting guitar tones.

On other gigs I use a more consistent base tone from a nice clean tube amplifier (Two Rock Studio Pro 35, a single channel Fender style clean amp) to then add different drive and effect pedals on top of.

This can work better with a more ‘raw’ sounding band, who don’t rely on backing tracks to fill out the sound and is a bit more ‘plug in and play’.

For recording I also use both, sometimes mic-ing up my amp, sometimes using the front end of my amp and digitally recreating the speaker cabinet and microphones, and other times using a completely digital model of an amp.

What works best for you will depend on what sort of music you play (different styles across many different bands, or one style in your own original band), how you play it (live or recording in a studio) and how many different sounds you need access to.