A Beginner’s Guide to Acoustic and Electric Guitars

Acoustic and electric guitars are two of the most common types of musical instruments out there, however both sound very different and look pretty different too. Here is a newbie-friendly ‘beginner’s guide to acoustic and electric guitars’:

Acoustic Guitars

We start off with the good old acoustic guitar – one of the most common, instantly-recognizable musical instruments in the world, a musician’s best friend and a ‘campfire classic!’

Gn’R’s Slash once said ‘There’s no lying with the acoustic guitar, there’s something very pure and humbling about it.’

All acoustic guitars are wooden guitars, and are constructed using different kinds of woods – most commonly Spruce, Rosewood, Mahogany, Maple and Ebony.

Most acoustic guitars feature steel-strings, and are hence also sometimes referred to as steel-stringed acoustic guitars. You have the choice to play an acoustic guitar with either your fingers, or a pick.

Acoustics are also referred to as hollow-body guitars. An acoustic guitar’s sound is produced as a result of the string vibration, and the hollow body of an acoustic guitar acts as an echo chamber. Hence acoustic guitars have the ability to produce their own sound, and unlike electric guitar, do not need to be hooked up with amplifier (more on that in a bit).

Acoustic guitars are excellent for parties, road-trips, jamming with friends, campfires or gatherings, as they can produce their own sound and are not dependent on electronics for the purpose. They are also much more portable than electric guitars.

Some acoustic guitars – called semi-acoustics or acoustic-electric guitars – have electronics onboard. Even though they produce the same sound as any other acoustic guitar and can be used as stand-alone instruments, having electronics onboard allows for them to be hooked up amplifier – useful when playing in a large place, for instance.

Adele’s Someone Like You, Wonderwall by Oasis, John Mayer’s Neon, Jason Mraz’s I’m Yours, and Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters are good examples of popular songs played on (or which prominently feature) acoustic guitars.

For beginners, I personally recommend starting off with acoustic guitars. Acoustic guitars are relatively cheaper, are not reliant on electronics, are very portable and also help beginners build finger strength – making the transition to acoustic guitars much easier.

Electric Guitars

Electric guitar look, feel and sound completely different from acoustic guitars, but are just as popular, well-known and instantly-recognizable musical instruments as their acoustic counterparts, if not more.

When you first pick up an electric guitar, you’ll notice a few things immediately: electric guitars produce no sound of their own, are considerably heavier than acoustics but with thinner bodies, feature a lot of knobs and different electronics on them, have a much lower action (distance between the neck and the strings) than acoustic guitars, and features much thinner strings as well.

Electric guitars are almost entirely dependent on amplifiers and effects processors in order to produce their sound. Electric guitars have electromagnetic ‘pickups’ on their bodies. These magnetic devices pick up string vibrations and convert these vibrations into electric signals, which then pass through the amp in order to produce the sound that one hears on the electric guitar. The size, type (quality), number and shape of these pickups might vary – and it is precisely these factors that might very well end up determining the quality and the cost of the guitar – however the function of the pickups is always the same.

Knobs on electric guitars allow for easy control of volume and tonal settings. Most electric guitars use steel-strings, which can be played using a pick or simply your fingers.

Because the sound of an electric guitar is amplified, this means that thinner strings can be used with electric guitars. Coupled with the fact that electric guitars have a much lower action than acoustic guitars, this makes them much easier to play than acoustic guitars, especially for beginners who might have trouble with finger strength and the ability to hold strings down.

Apart from an amplifier, electric guitars can (and are often) hooked up with different effects processors. Often times, most of these effects come built-in with the amps, although standalone effects processors – or effects pedals – are also used. These allow the player to virtually be able to change the sound of an electric guitar to anything he or she wants – a process known as adding an effect. The most commonly-used effect is distortion.

Because electric guitars are always required to be paired up with amps, this makes them much less portable than acoustic guitars. Electric guitars also need to be close to an electrical outlet at all times. In addition, all the extra accessories, and the fact that electric guitars might feature expensive electronics, means that they are usually much more expensive than acoustic guitars – which could be an important consideration for a beginner guitarist.

Famous electric guitar songs include, well, anything you hear from Metallica (most notably, Master of Puppets, One and Fade to Black), The Trooper by Iron Maiden, ACDC’s Hells Bells, Gn’R’s Sweet Child O’ Mine, and Creed’s Higher, to name just a few.

Your Decision

So there you have it, some of the main differences between acoustic and electric guitars.

As a beginner, whether you go for an acoustic guitar or an electric one, it pays to be well-informed before making the purchase, as it allows you to make an informed and educated decision. At the end of the day, whether you decide to go for the standalone, much more portable and cheaper yet harder-to-play acoustic, or the easier-to-play but the more expensive electric guitar is totally your call.

Go for the instrument which is the best fit for the kind of music you want to play, the kind of artists that inspire you, and the kind of guitarist you yourself see becoming down the road. In addition, enroll for a guitar learning program such as JamPlay (reviewed on PlayGuitar.org), no matter which guitar you choose. Guitar lessons such as these provide some excellent sets of tutorials, suited to both kinds of instruments.