do you play acoustic guitar? help me with xmas prezzie please!

[Tortington]

dd wants an acoustic guitar for xmas, she has friends who play and wants to learn from her friends. she is 17

NOW, i don't expect this to be a long term thing, so i don't want to spend loads of money

equally i don't want to spend 9.99 at argos.

also, none of us can string or tune the bugger, so it needs to be both tuned and strung.

anyone have any links or ideas of where to get one online?

You could do a lot worse than get a £9.99 one from Argos - it will give her an idea of whether she is going to stick at it or not, if she likes it and takes to it, you can get a better one later.

One thing you will deffo need is a guitar tuner... they are dead easy, you switch it on, tell it what string you're plucking and it tells you how close to being in tune it is, you then tweak the turny bits at the end of the guitar until it says it's right then move on to the next string.

However well whatever guitar you get is tuned it will lose tune as she plays it/leaves it abandoned in a corner of her room so a tuner is absolutely essential (unless you're so good you can tune it by ear [but I'm guessing you're not ])

\link{http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yamaha-F310-Acoustic-Guitar-Starter/dp/B000I1V5KA\i have this} now sadly sat alone without being played for years, really nice guitar imo

i also found it easier to tune by ear. there must probably be something on youtube to explain. it's easy once you know

thanks, what is a guitar tuner?

<a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=eltongregory.net/guitarcenter/media/guitartuner.jpg&imgrefurl=eltongregory.net/guitarcenter/page9.html&usg=__BkIWS02_Ehm4kC9S5IroBD0lk40=&h=304&w=310&sz=13&hl=en&start=0&sig2=i5Y_tEHxyspkVdUbchTiLw&zoom=1&tbnid=Bm6roJl4e6VOEM:&tbnh=114&tbnw=116&ei=muTfTLjBEOCAhAeR8ojQDA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dguitar%2Btuner%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D824%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=588&oei=muTfTLjBEOCAhAeR8ojQDA&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0&tx=56&ty=38" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">something like this You pluck the string and the needle moves to where it wants to - you want the needle to be bang in the middle. They're not very expensive - p'raps between a fiver and a tenner.

ooh! thanks, i didn;t know they existed

Was also going to suggest a guitar tuner. If your house is noisy/full of people then you may want to get one that attaches to the guitar and tunes accurately regardless of background noise. £15 upwards.

thanks

any more suggestions re: guitars?

Find a friend with guitars (guitar enthusiasts never stop at one ) and ask for advice. He (always a he) will be delighted to help you find a second hand guitar.

I have 2 DBs with guitars and both spent hours happily trawling the internet to find the "right" one in my budget for DS. Happy as pigs in shit they were.

Sorry, not guitar advice here. But would also suggest a book/booklet with chord diagrams if she hasn't got one already. Internet has loads of song/chord websites once she's mastered a few.