Guitar | Imamother

imasinger

Sun, Dec 22 2024, 10:41 am

I think the best is when the musician can pick out his/her own choice. There are thousands of options, in every price range and style. Acoustic? Classical, or steel string?
Acoustic/electric? Electric?

I think the most impactful way for someone who hasn't yet played at all, see if you can find a loaner or used instrument, and spend the real money gifting them a few private lessons. Let the hem develop a bit of skill, then choose an instrument they like.

If this person already can play a bit, you could perhaps offer a gift certificate to a local music store.

amother

Blue

Sun, Dec 22 2024, 12:48 pm

If you want to get someone a basic budget playable guitar as their first one, especially if you're getting it for a child or teen, I recommend buying from Monoprice and getting it set up by your local luthier (as with any guitar, really). Idyllwild solid top acoustics are definitely good for the price range, and their Indio Cali Classic is in my opinion the best value you can get in budget electric guitars. (Sometimes they go on sale.) I've never seen the Indio Retro Classic in person, but it's probably the same quality. (They're imitations of the Stratocaster and Telecaster respectively.)

Those are decent guitars for people who are just starting out and don't want to invest too much, or as a spare guitar for travel, for musicians who don't want to unnecessarily risk their expensive guitars by exposing them to the elements or to careless baggage handlers. But if you want to get a serious musician a serious instrument, that's going to be a lot more expensive.

Most serious musicians want to pick out their own instrument. A lot of them already have one in mind. If you're in a position to do so, you can probably get that information out of them, but if you mean this to be a surprise gift, it's going to be hard. And guitars go from the hundreds well into the thousands...

If what you want to gift is a guitar, and the recipient is an adult, a fun way to do that could be to gift a set of Elixir guitar strings and present it along with a gift card to a store that sells guitars.