String choices - Electric and Acoustic

Choosing the right set of strings can help improve tone, performance and tuning between changes. Although most string companies seem to offer very slight variations of the same product, the individual tone of feel of certain brands are well worth exploring to add the extra punch, clarity or a unique characteristic you might be looking for.

String Thickness or Gauges

Most electric guitars you pick up in a store will have 9's on them. That number refers to the thickness of the 1st string (.009 of an inch) and is a good place for beginners to start. As you improve you might try 10's or 11's for a bigger tone or a firmer feel. I use 10's for their fairly light tension, bold tone and responsiveness when I dig in with more aggressive picking.

Most acoustic guitars are strung with gauge 12's. This thickness of string is a nice balance between playability, durability, and general wear and tear on the guitar. Lighter strings will give you easier playability but less durability and might promote more buzzing on the guitar. Heavier strings will create better tone and durability but will tougher to play. Again, it's about trying different scenarios out to get a feel for what feels best for your fingers and your style of play.

Type or Style of Strings

This area is a where most players experiment and try different things. Different string options like round-wound, flat-wound, hexegon-core, gortex coating, and all the different type of metals used in the construction of strings can create subtle nuances for an individual players sound and can be frequently changed to add a fresh sound or unique tone to update and refresh you're style. Many higher end guitars like Taylors, Larivees, Collings', Goodalls and Santa Cruz's are fitted with Elixer Phosphor Bronze lights on all the guitars they sell. They last incredibly long: so long that at twice the price of a regular pack of strings, your string budget will actually go down.

String Brands

I use D'Addarrio NYXL 10's on my electrics and Elixer Phosphor Bronze lights on my acoustics. The D'Addarrio NYXL's are more expensive than other electric strings but they add more punch, volume, and stay in better tune than any other string that I have tried. On acoustic guitar, I avoided Elixer strings for years because I thought the idea of a gortex coating on acoustic strings was unmusical but I have since been pulled over to using them. They are double the price of regular acoustic strings but last 3 - 4 times as long and have consistently good tone and presence throughout their time on the guitar.

Good Brand to choose from:

Some good brand choices for acoustic and electric strings are: D'Addario, Martin, Ernie Ball, Dean Markley, Elixer, GHS, and DR. They can be found easily in most local music stores.

“The guitar is a small orchestra. It is polyphonic. Every string is a different color, a different voice.”
- Andre Segovia

A Guide to Buying an Electric Guitar

Les Paul

The two main legendary pioneers in electric guitar history are Leo Fender and Les Paul. They invented what we know as the modern electric guitar and since then, (50+ years ago) nothing has really changed. In fact, modern players pay huge dollars for early (vintage 1950's/1960's) models and companies like Fender and Gibson constantly reissues their older model trying to capture that magical tone of the old guitars. My main guitar is a reissue of a 1962 Fender Stratocaster and I have found in the guitar world that technology has had a hard time improving on that old recipe that never fails to deliver great tone and character in almost every musical context I would use it in. Your choice will be indirectly influenced by a history we sometimes take for granted and a age old design that has seemed to reach it pinnacle of design.


I wanted something very dense, something that would sustain long and more pieces of wood that would be soft, sweet, for more of a mellow sound. Quote - Les Paul

Leo Fender

When shopping for an electric guitar you will basically be choosing between a Fender Stratocaster or a Gibson Les Paul style guitar. There are other variations but virtually 90% of all guitars will fit loosely into these two categories. Fender style guitars generally have a thinner, open and cutting tone that is perfectly represented in players like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Hendrix, Jeff Beck, John Mayer and Mark Knopfler. Gibson style guitars have a thicker, darker and muscular tone and are championed by players like Jimmy Page, Peter Frmpton, Slash, Angus Young and Joe Bonamassa. My starting point for choosing an electric guitar has always been to follow in the footsteps of my favourite players.

The design of each element should be thought out in order to be easy to make and easy to repair. Quote - Leo Fender

When making your choice, choose a guitar that goes with your style preference and the type of tone you might need to play that style. Most country players use strats or telecasters for a thinner, twangy tone that cuts through the mix. Metal players go more for Les Paul style guitars with big, bold and crunchy tone. Blues player have generally chosen Strats over Les Pauls and Rock and Pop players make sure they have a mix of guitars for different musical whims and situations. To confuse the process, there are fatter sounding strats style guitars and thinner sounding Les Paul style guitars that  add complexity to your choice but can ultimately help you find that perfect mix of sound and feel. For example, my Fender Hotrod '62 is called by some, the Les Paul of Stratocasters. It has a vintage Strat sound with some added fatness of a Les Paul style guitar. I have always loved the sound of a Strat but the style I play needs a fatter tone so I have found a good mix in this guitar.

Practical Choices:

For your first guitar, I would suggest the conservative approach of buying a well-known established brand and a fairly basic 'tried and true' body style. Most of the legendary guitar Icons of our day play very basic styles of guitars and have learned that most of the magical tone comes from their highly trained and experienced fingers.

TAB vs. Standard Notation

Guitar TAB (short for tablature) is the most popular way of reading music notation for modern guitarist. Hundreds of website on the internet offer thousands of songs in this 'easy to use' notation format and the majority of published songbooks now prefer TAB because of it's universal appeal, practicality, and efficiency of use to the modern recreational and professional guitar player.

This modern TAB trend has had it's fair share of critics and dissenters mostly among music teachers and professional players for it's apparent "dumbing down" of the process or art of studying music in the proper traditional way with the result of creating a world of illiterate musicians. Hence the proverbial joke being, "how do you shut up a guitar player? - put a piece of music in front of him/her.

Lute TAB from 1554

When confronted with this attitude,  I truly sympathize, understand, and clearly see the results of a general musical illiteracy and the decline of most modern music to the lowest basest form of mind numbing stimuli and soundbites for the purposes of entertainment only. The problem is, that if we look at TAB in the historical context (dating back to the 15th century) it has been around longer than the invention of the guitar and deserves to be critiqued within a broader picture and context. The descent of music is a mirror of the decline other things in our modern culture and must be viewed in the context of art and technology and the participation and use of music in our local economies and communities.

The Big Picture

As a professional guitar teacher I use TAB notation for 95% of my students studying for recreational purposes and 50% of the time for university and college music majors. Using TAB allows me to get my students playing and doing music more and reading and thinking music less. To me, that's a great starting point that creates momentum, confidence, and openness in the journey and process of the enjoyment and making of music. Once that 'playing field' is open there are many opportunities to fill in some of the missing gaps during the 'game'. 



Final Thoughts

Unless you are studying music for the purpose of becoming a music educator, studying traditional forms of music like classical or jazz, or as a professional guitarist, standard notation can be bypassed in favour of TAB as a more efficient, enjoyable way of learning the techniques of guitar. You'll fly through the music 5 times faster and once your on your way, standard notation might be something of value later in your journey.

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