Guitars

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My sons wants to take up guitar - any advice? He's 12 and has studied violin for 4 years.

"Practice makes more practice" my brother said that when he was teaching me how to play
Also
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Guitar

iBreatheMusic.com
This is a pretty good website, dealing with technique and theory


UltimateGuitar.com

This site is a compendium of music tabs, articles and also guitar/amp/misc music (and other instruments) product reviews

Get something decent for a guitar, and he will stick with it. You can also get better gear for a given price by buying used gear, check places like Music-Go-Round and eBay for decent instruments. Another advantage of buying used gear is that it will hold it's value well and you'll be able to get your money back should your son lose interest.

Also another thing that I suggest you get is an amp modeler like a Line6 POD, as it's a decent piece of gear that digitally emulates the sounds of a whole series of very expensive tube amps and speaker cabinet configurations. The best part about the POD is that even though it has Line out (to run through a PA system, or Stereo system) it has no internal amplifier and relies instead on headphones, so you, (and your neighbors) won't have to deal with loud noise. --Again, buy used and you'll be able to recoup the cash invested should your son lose interest later on.

I found this recently:

Totally Guitars

Hope it Helps!

In addition to the above, I'd suggest going to music stores together and finding him a selection of songs that inspire him to play. Many people cannot resist picking up a guitar after listening to a particularly awesome song.

You may also want to install TuxGuitar, an open source guitar tab program which reads many of the popular tab formats such as GuitarPro. Not only can you practice with these tabs (which are played in midi), but you can also compose your own tabs. It also has nice tools such as the ability to display scales and modes all over the fretboard, a metronome, and the ability to slow down the playing of a tab for difficult segments.

When I started out I bought myself a starter kit by ashton, as a brand for a starter they're your best bet they come with an inbuilt tuner, practice amp, strap and picks, I paid under £200 for mine and they're nice guitars for the price.

Also if your son does decide to take up guitar and the tips of his fingers hurt, it means he needs to play more to make them more callous so that it doesn't hurt anymore, but make sure he doesn't overdo it.