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Acoustic guitars

soooo..how's the geetar going? i think it's an eminently sensible approach you took, for more than one reason. i hope you're enjoying getting to know the new box :) i don't believe that yours has a spanish heel, but she should still talk to you. the fun is in finding out where she resonates the best, where you can best induce the natural resonance and harmonics for the guitar, where you can effortlessly invoke octave harmonics and best of all, finding out how best to pluck the strings...nail, no nail, what angle, what attack..to get the best voicing. it's a voyage of discovery for any guitar, electric or acoustic, and given the care and attention you've spent on her this far, i'm pretty sure you're on that voyage with an ear to listen. i had a sad accident with a lovely classical a couple of years back and this thread has inspired me to change tack on finding a replacement.
 
I’m enjoying it a lot. It still isn’t holding tuning very well, though is staying in tune with itself now. I tuned it last night before going to bed and this morning it had lost ten cents on each string, so not something I’d notice without a tuner. The action is constant and hasn’t shifted at all so it is definitely the strings settling down. They seem far more fussy than electric strings which are stable after a quick thrash as long as you put them on right. I’ve been playing it a lot over the past few days to the extent the thin neck and fast low-action of my electric guitar felt rather odd when I picked it up earlier!

I doubt I’ll get very far technically/technique-wise, but I just know it is a guitar I will very much enjoy having knocking around for its different sound. I love the sound of it, a very different pallet to play with. These very old Yamahas, despite having laminated tops, do have a reputation of sounding a lot better than one would expect - it has a nice warm body to it and feels light and alive, though I don’t have any more expensive reference to compare it to. I suspect the old fashoined long 658mm scale length has some sonic advantages even it it makes it harder/heavier to play (certainly feels heavier to play than the one I tried in Forsyths, even with low tension strings). I fully intend to get the basics of finger-picking down, and that is certainly way easier on this than the narrow strings of my electric or steel-strung acoustic.

I ordered a case (link), it cost more than the guitar!
 
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Still very much enjoying the Yamaha. As previously stated I’m not really attempting to learn classical guitar, its just great to have knocking around for noodling about on, finding jazz chords etc. I really love the sound of the thing and I’ve been playing it a lot. I’m slowly learning to pick with three fingers and thumb in a kind of pseudo-classical manner and I’ve got a basic arpeggio down pretty solid now. The wide string spacing helps so much with this, in fact I’ve been playing this guitar so much of late picking the electric up earlier today felt so odd, like it had a tiny, tiny neck, which it has in comparison (my Yam SC1200 is quite narrow and has a very low action). Took a good while to adapt back! Interestingly I could just about do the finger-picking thing on the electric, whereas I stood no chance previously, so I have actually learned something!

The Yamaha classical is now holding its tune fine, seemed to take a good couple of weeks for the strings to settle down. I wasn’t aware just how much they stretch in the first week or so, I will wind rather less on the pegs next time! I still feel the action is a little too high (its stable at just a hair over 4mm/3mm) so I’ll knock a tiny bit more off the bridge and maybe drop the nut a smidge next time I restring it. I reckon half a mm would make quite a difference.
 
Tony, you like Bach. Bach can sound so good on a classical guitar. So, buy Christopher Parkening 'Play Bach'. Get the music. Realise you need HELP and get his 'Guitar Method' and then give in and find a Classical Guitar Teacher. You know you really want to, or you wouldn't keep saying you don't. JSB, Tarrega and Villa Lobos, wonderful companions. Make music don't just listen to it.
Good luck!
John
 
No idea how often one should restring a nylon string classical guitar, but I’ve just stuck a fresh set on the £50 Yam. I took the opportunity just to knock a tiny bit more off the bridge, so I’ve now got about a 3.5mm bass and 3mm treble 12th fret action, which is about half a mm down from before and I suspect is now bang on for my taste. I’m loving this guitar, it is just great for random noodling about on, in fact its not left the sofa since I bought it.

PS It is obviously now hopelessly out of tune again after re-stringing! Hopefully it will settle down a little faster this time as I was aware just how much the things stretch in the first few days so wound a lot less around the pegs.
 
Nylons last a while but start to stretch when they're done, you can see the marks on the strings left by the frets, shifting. In my experience they take a week to settle in no matter what you do.
 
Dozey said:
Don't you pull them upwards at the 12th fret a few times to stretch them?
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Yes, but as a noob to this kind of guitar I’m not sure quite how far to stretch them! It seems to be settling down a bit now anyhow. I left it alone all afternoon and it had dropped a semitone/full note on the G and it tuned up easy enough. I’m sure it will be fully stable in a week. I’m pretty sure I had more than ideal amount around the pegs the first time as I just didn’t expect them to stretch as much as they do! I stuck the same type of strings (D’Addario EJ43) back on so no change in tension as far as the guitar is concerned.

I get the impression from a bit of googling that pros/serious players tend to chenge strings every month, but that seems way too often for me. I guess they’d play many, many hours a day and also play far louder than I do just noodling about. I don’t think the new strings sound any different, though any difference in feel is hard to assess as I gave the action a little tweak. The wound strings were starting to look tatty with very obvious rings around the fret-contact area, so probably about the right time to change them.
 
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A friend has a 3/4 scale nylon strung guitar that he leaves lying around for noodling new song ideas. Apparently it’s called “Magic”.

He also has a few very decent guitars, and he can actually really play. Bastard.

“Magic was bought over 20 years ago, for his then very young son.

Anyway, he says that he can’t remember ever having restrung “Magic”.
 
My daughter plays, just taking grade 1 in the summer, and a set get her through a school year just about. The struggle will be to encourage her to keep it up when she goes to secondary school in the autumn.
 
Whaleblue said:
A friend has a 3/4 scale nylon strung guitar that he leaves lying around for noodling new song ideas. Apparently it’s called “Magic”.

He also has a few very decent guitars, and he can actually really play. Bastard.

“Magic was bought over 20 years ago, for his then very young son.

Anyway, he says that he can’t remember ever having restrung “Magic”.
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I’ve never played a kid-scale guitar, though I assume the string tension is really, really low, which should help string life hugely. My Yam is at the opposite extreme at 658mm, which is longer than most concert guitars these days, so makes for quite a high string tension (hence my using ‘light’ strings!).
 
I'd just like to say that I have an acoustic guitar (a beat up and well worn old epiphone) specifically tuned to play this...

And this guy explains how to play it quite well. I think.

 
Tony L said:
I’m toying with the idea of buying a nicer acoustic guitar, though have no idea what at this stage. I’m a pretty terrible guitarist by any measure (entirely self taught, all the bad habits etc, I could teach bad habits), but I love just quietly noodling around and tend to play my electric for half an hour to an hour most days. I never get much better but it is an enjoyable part of the day!

I do have an acoustic, a cheap Epiphone AJ10 that is actually surprisingly good considering it only cost about £100 twenty or so years ago. My main issue is it is a jumbo, and that’s rather bigger than is comfortable to sit with and certainly far louder than I need (it is far louder than I play my electric). I have a feeling what I want is a ‘parlour’ guitar, or maybe even a nylon strung classical. Just something really nice to play, but fairly small in body size and quiet for home noodling about (never gigging). Definitely don’t want anything with any electrics etc. Just a really nice simple little acoustic.

No real budget as such, though if fairly expensive I’d want it to hold its value well, i.e. happy to consider the lower-end of US-made Taylors, Martins etc. I guess the real question is ‘parlour’ vs. classical vs. something else?
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Maton guitars are rather small but have a glorious sound.

 
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