To not want to spend much on school guitar?

[moogoom]

Do you think £200 is too much to spend in a guitar that is taken into school? I want to get son a cheap one to batter around / potentially be lost somewhere but i may be being a cheapo as usual. New guitars cost anywhere up from £100 and the one we liked was £200. Would you risk spending that much to send junior aged kid to school without getting lost?

Edit: without guitar getting lost not son!

If he's a beginner I'd go as cheap as possible. Can always upgrade as he improves and / or becomes more careful.

Would have thought you could get something ok for under £100 to be honest. Dawsons Music seem to have a fair selection (I've bought other stuff from them and have found them quite good).

You can have ours for free if you want. Son begged to play. Now has given up. I just want rid of the damn thing now

We spent £60 by the way new

I bought my son's first (acoustic) guitar from Asda for £12.

It was about 9 years ago but I thought it was a bargain. Try supermarket toy aisles.

Electric guitars are a lot more expensive.

Do not spend much on his first guitar.
If he gets into it you have YEARS of spending a fortune on guitars (and strings) ahead of you.
Take it from one who knows.

Get him the cheapest one you can find. You can get a decent electric copy for £200. I certainly wouldn't be spending that on a school acoustic.

For primary school we got our dd a cheap one from toys R Us, think it cost around £20. She had a few lessons then decided it wasn't for her and the guitar just got wasted. I wouldn't spend too much unless you think it is something your child will persevere with.

Buy a second hand one, plenty of people out there who've got one or two in the loft because their DCs were going to be the next Jimmy Hendrix! After several years of lessons we finally splashed out around £220 on a decent guitar for our daughter, because assured us she was going to persevere with it, literally within weeks of buying it she'd decided she hated guitar, now its gathering dust

Forgot to say ours is acoustic one.

How old is your son and how long has he been playing? If he's been playing 5+ years and is good then I think he needs a good guitar but us probably also dedicated enough to look after it well.

When my daughter started playing, the teacher recommended a 3/4 size one from Argos, it was around the £30 mark and perfectly adequate for the 1st few years. Definitely no need to be spending hundreds.

Sweetpea oh no! Theres always ebay! Thanks for all your advise. Asda it it then

I'm sort of the opposite. I would always get a nice sounding one as it encourages them to play.

I'm not sure how much ds's was - I was planning on spending around £100-120 but fil who plays picked it & put towards it.

Agree, don't buy an expensive one. My son had one broken in school by being knocked over while in the allocated space for instruments in school.
I got an acoustic full size for £89, make is santoz Martinez (recommended by the guitar tutor), and good enough for doing grades.
My advice is save your money for an expensive one once your child has reached a high grade and old enough to take care of the guitar

We got a cheap one from Argos for Dd1 when she was about 10 (16 now) for learning at school. She never really took to it but Dd2 has been teaching herself from youtube for the last 2 years and its still got a good sound. Once they are taking it seriously you can pay more. When Dd2 was interested in violin we started out with a basic £70one. Her latest one was about £300~400 and she has her eye an a better bow next. Take it a bit at a time till they are committed and then they will have a better idea of what is a good instrument for them.

And yes to waiting till they can care for a good instrument properly.

No way would I spend that for a primary aged child just starting out unless you have money to throw away. Instruments taken to school get battered about, young children decide after five lessons they're not interested etc. Dh has been playing guitar since he was a teen and his acoustic cost £250 and he's perfectly happy with it.

Save that kind of money for a few years down the line when he can appreciate and look after a guitar like that. Get a cheapie £20 from argos for a beginner they're bot performance quality but perfectly fine for a beginner that may or may not play for more than a few months.

I spent £50 on my son's at something like Asda but probably Amazon.

£200 is steep.

DD bought her own with her birthday money, about £55 from the local music shop in Colchester. We pay for the lessons (I thought if she bought her own guitar, she'd be less likely to quit!!)

Eliza I wouldn't send a guitar like that to school (assuming school lessons) I'd get a second cheap one for school and keep the expensive one at home for practice.

Is it an acoustic or electric one? 200 quid sounds an awful lot for an acoustic one!

Ds was in year 7 when he started playing so secondary.

Argos do acoustic guitars from £20 and electric ones from £80.

The thing is, if you get a toy one then they've got more of a battle to get a nice sound and so will be more likely to just give up because it will be much harder for them.

Agree with everyone else - I wouldn't pay over £50 for a starter.
Loads of instruments available 2nd hand too.
Might be worth spending money on a hard case.

I would NOT buy a cheap guitar.

I would buy a good quality guitar, second hand, and buy a good case that when you upgrade to a better guitar, will fit the next one too (or alternatively will hold its resale value).

Cheap guitars not only can sound horrible but they can be a pain to tune, not up to holding decent quality strings and the necks can bow meaning the strings get further and further from the fret board.

The higher the strings are the harder it is to play and for a kid who is just learning that means you are making the task even harder and they are much more likely to quit!

Hardcases are good BUT... they are big and heavy to carry around they bash you in the legs and are a pain in the arse.. so they don't get used!

The other option is to hire one which might be better in the short term to see if your child is going to enjoy it and pick it up fast and stick with it.

For example this one..

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Acoustic-guitar-/162272492331?hash=item25c831bb2b:g:4RcAAOSwnbZYIIoJ

I am biased as I have a Tanglewood semi acoustic myself, but.. the neck is small, you can play it acoustic or plugged in, and the bodies on these are not huge unlike some makes.