Why Invest in a Solid Wood Guitar if You're a Beginner?

There are many thoughts running through a beginners mind when planning on buying a guitar. The price is one of the major factors in deciding on which guitar you'll purchase. Now, you ask yourself... Why invest in a solid wood guitar if I'm a beginner? I'll tell you why, it will give you more motivation to keep playing and become the guitarist that you always dreamt of being. There are many factors that go into choosing a wood guitar instead of a highly manufactured laminate bodied guitar. Lets start with the fact that the sound that is projected from a guitar made out of all solid woods can not be imitated by any other material. Now why would this be of importance to a beginning guitar player? Guitars were not made to be stuffed in a closet, you're going to play it, and you'll play it in front of others eventually. So... if you play it in front of others, don't you want you're guitar looking like a million bucks and sounding like angels are flying out of the sound hole?

You need to see your guitar as more than just a playing instrument; it is more like a tool for your improvement as a guitarist or a key that unlocks many experiences. I'm not gonna lie to you, my first guitar was made out of plywood, except for the neck that was solid Mahogany oddly enough. It was a handmade piece so whenever I took it to a Guitar Center it would obviously sound better than the cheap models that they carried. It played well for a little while but then it started sounding dull after I played a few solid wood classical guitars. My first Solid wood guitar was a handmade classical guitar by Isidro Selva from Managua, Nicaragua. It had solid Honduras Mahogany back and sides with a "Spruce" top. I place quotation marks because the Luthier informed me that it was a spruce known in Nicaragua to grow in the mountains of Matagalpa. I'm pretty sure the top was made out of some type of Pine. The point is, it was the most lovely sounding guitar I had ever played, just exactly the way I wanted it to be. The trebles rang like bells and had a sustain the length of echoes in a cave. The Spruce made it bright and the Mahogany made it powerful. Every teacher that I presented it to admired its light weight with powerful sound. The fretboard was made from an old aged Nogal Walnut that had matching binding strips. The Walnut collaborated with the Mahogany to make a sweet golden 3 pound guitar.

You should know what happened to my first guitar; of course... it's locked away in some closet. I've been through many guitars after my first wood guitar and I wish I still had it.

Purchasing a solid wood guitar is an investment (especially if it's handmade) of its own. The type of wood on the guitar increases in value just as the Luthier that made it makes it increase as well. The quality of a wood guitar will always surpass that of a plywood guitar. Even if factory made, it usually carries more detail and higher quality accessories and materials used. The wood opens up after playing it for a while and the tone will ripen to a crisp sounding professional level guitar. The static experience that you will have with a plywood guitar does not justify its low price. For an extra hundred dollars, you can own a tool that will improve your guitar playing skills and motivate you to play in front of others. At times, you can find solid wood guitars costing less than many over-marketed plywood guitars.

Beginning guitar players should think about their future as a musician. Do you want to learn a few chords and only play a couple of songs? Didn't think so... Invest in a well made acoustic wood guitar to become the guitarist that you always wanted to be. Spend on a good guitar now before you spend more on one later. Exotic woods keep raising in price and what was favorable in price now will not be in the near future. We provide high quality handmade wood guitars on our online Wood-n-Guitar store that go for very affordable prices. Try one out today and begin a dedicated path to becoming a guitar hero. 

Fretboards for Acoustic Guitars

Fretboards are like the handle and trigger of a gun. If you don't hold it right or the trigger is too soft, you won't be able to shoot accurately. This is a similar situation with an acoustic guitar, if the fretboard is not smooth or dense enough, the notes, playability, and tone will not come out the way that you would want them to. There are various types of solid woods that can be used for fretboards. The woods that we supply at Wood-n-Guitars for fretboards are Cocobolo Rosewood, Granadillo, and Macacauba A.K.A. Coyote. Other woods used for fretboards on acoustic guitars are Ebony, Indian Rosewood, Ziricote, Palo Escrito, Honduran Rosewood, Brazilian Rosewood, Walnut, Palo Escrito, Pau Ferro, and much more.

Choosing the right fretboard for your next guitar project or even if you just want to change the fretboard on your current playing guitar, is an important decision. You will have to decide on what tone you want it to deliver, the figure it should have (quartersawn or figured), how dense it is and its weight. There are types of woods, such as Granadillo (56 lbs/ft³), that are very dense but don't weigh as much as others such as the Rosewood family. Granadillo is known the be the "wood that sings" due to it's bright and high quality tone. The best type of Granadillo fretboards to use are straight quartersawn blanks, they make for easy transitions and they are the most dense of its species.

Cocobolo Rosewood fretboards are the most sought after blanks in the market right now, especially for bass guitars. Cocobolo is known for its bassy and deep tone, it's very dense and does have some weight on it (69 lbs/ft³ or 1,095 kg/m³). Cocobolo Rosewood fretboards are favored for their striking beauty and pearl white sapwood. When slab sawn, the blanks tend to display very aesthetic figures. There have been a few times that I've seen faces on the fretboards with other weird artwork. The wood gives out sharp black streaks across the blank and sometimes they might curl. It's recommended to purchase straight quartersawn Cocobolo Rosewood fretboards to get the best value out of the wood. Cocobolo Rosewood is a wood that tends to warp so when purchasing slab sawn fretboards, make sure that they have been properly seasoned. If your strings ever start buzzing, your neck might be warped due to the fretboard, believe me I've seen this happen many times.

Macacauba or, as we like to call it, "Coyote" is a fairly new wood to the fretboard world. Macacauba is very similar to Granadillo in density and weight (59 lbs/ft³) but is a little easier to work with. The smell characteristics of Macacauba are remarkable, when cutting Macacauba, the smell resembles that of cotton candy or something sweet in nature. The wood is very stable and delivers a nice tap tone. Macacauba fretboards are not easy to come by online , but here at Wood-n-Guitars, we have plenty to go around. The price of this wood in fretboards should be about the same as Granadillo. You can pay around $20usd for a first grade straight quartersawn fretboard. This wood is definitely enjoyable to work with.

Different species of fretboards have their own characteristics and reason for use. Investigating what kind of fretboard suites your needs best would be very wise before building or purchasing a wooden guitar. Electric and Acoustic guitars have distinct uses, which is why species of wood that are used on electric guitars might not work for acoustic guitars. To get the tone that you desire out of a wood guitar, you must pick out the woods that will deliver that tone. Not only in back and sides, but also the top, fretboard, and even the bridge blank. We have a variety of figured and quartersawn fretboards for you to choose from on our online store. Our inventory keeps renewing on a weekly basis to give you fresh products. When purchasing figured fretboards from us, you should have no worries. Our Luthier supplies go through an extensive drying process and only fully seasoned fretboards are sold. You can even ask to have a bridge blank match a fretboard of your choice in color and figure. Don't hesitate to contact us for custom fretboard orders as well. 

Cocobolo Rosewood Tonewood for Custom Acoustic Guitars

Whenever you've heard a guitar that impresses just with it's sound, rest assured, it'll most likely came from a guitar made out of Rosewood. Out of all the Rosewoods there are in this World, Cocobolo Rosewood has fiercely grown to become one of the leading choices for custom acoustic guitars. On top of its beauty, with the black streaks and red tone, it delivers an angelic sound when accompanied by a soft wood top such as a Spruce. The density of the wood rejects sound absorption and allows for stronger resonance propulsion.

Cocobolo Rosewood (Dalbergia Retusa) a.k.a. Nambaro is a true rosewood that grows from Mexico all the way to Panama. It is said that the finest quality Cocobolo Rosewood comes from the mountains of Nicaragua. This precious wood displays beautiful red to orange hues when first cut and darkens to a rich dark reddish brown tone. It displays solid black streaks that make clever figures; the sap is strong and gives it a stunning look when included in a custom acoustic guitar. As with many exotic woods, Cocobolo Rosewood will damage and morph under extreme temperatures.

Cocobolo Rosewood back and sides have the tendency to be full of bass and have a mellow tone with stronger sound characteristics than most Rosewoods. It has similar traits of the highest grade Brazilian Rosewood. Luthiers can find sets of Cocobolo Rosewood with higher quality than the Brazilian Rosewood being provided now in the market. On my last purchase, I acquired 10"x10" logs of Cocobolo at $12/sqft. Five years ago, I used to purchase them at $3/sqft.. The supply of Nambaro has dramatically decreased due to SITES restrictions on many Central American countries and it's large demand from consumers. The Middle East, mostly China, is rapidly depleting the supply of Cocobolo Rosewood, using the wood for luxury furniture, flooring, and trim.

Cocobolo Rosewood is a top choice for custom acoustic guitars due to it's quality and unique visual appeal. Most Cocobolo guitars have figure on them, it's rare to find completely quartersawn grain on a Cocobolo guitar. Some luthiers opt out from using Cocobolo Rosewood on custom acoutic guitars due to it's allergenic properties. Guitars are sold at a premium due to it's slight difficulty to work with. When sanding, Cocobolo may cause sneezing and rashes to people that are allergic to it. I find that I only sneeze a lot from it, I've never gotten a rash. It holds an abundant amount of oils so it can be difficult to glue. 

There is no doubt that Cocobolo Rosewood will become even more popular, one day earning the name as the "Holy Grail" of guitar wood. This means more expensive Cocobolo guitars in the near future. Whatever the price, it's worth to pay for a custom acoustic guitar made from Cocobolo Rosewood. You can get yourself a quality made Cocobolo Rosewood custom acoustic guitar here at Wood-n-Guitars. Specialize your custom acoustic guitar to the most detailed specifications. Cocobolo Rosewood is not as scarce as Brazilian Rosewood yet, so you should not pay the exaggerated prices they go for now-a-days. 

Buying a Guitar Online

There are a number of ways to buy a guitar online, your options are not limited to eBay and Amazon. You can purchase a guitar from an online guitar store, an online auction, a forum, and even a blog. You can get a guitar for less than MSRP from many online vendors and it will be shipped to your door within a week or two most of the times. Not every vendor will give the best price for a guitar though; the prices might get
jacked up due to an online guitar stores recognized brand name. Make sure you research guitar prices in many online guitar stores before committing to one.

Here are some factors you should look out for before buying from an online guitar store:

Detail is an important factor to have on your side when it comes to buying a guitar online. The online guitar store should provide you with the most information possible in their content. How detailed are the descriptions of the inventory? With all the features a guitar has, the description should name each and every one. It should include if the guitar is new or used, refurbished, or damaged. The more pictures the description has the better; now you have visual evidence of the condition the guitar should arrive in. Used guitar descriptions should provide detail on the damaged or defected areas. 

Shipping and handling charges and times should always be considered before purchasing from an online guitar store. Some stores might be international and may take up to a month to deliver the guitar. Many times, the guitars that come from abroad can provide as good of a quality as U.S. made guitars but with a smaller price tag. Return shipping should also be considered when buying from abroad; at times it might take more than $100usd to return a guitar and this is money that is not refundable.

Reviews and feedback are always valuable metrics to look over before purchasing from an online guitar store. Since you're not going to visit the store personally, then go by what previous customers experience with the online guitar store. Testimonials may also be a good credible source to go by, but just be cautious of false testimonials, they're usually pretty obvious when read. Googling an online guitar store can give you any negative review that the store might have earned. Negative reviews usually appear on the top of Google search result pages and are there for the visitor to be aware.Credible review sources would be sites such as Yelp, Manta, and bizrate.com.

Make sure that others know about your experience with the online guitar store. Give your testimonial, review, and feedback so that others may know if you had a good experience or not. If you had a really good experience, then share it with everyone so that the online guitar store that treated you well can receive more customers. If you had a terrible experience, then make sure to share it to the world so that everyone (just like you) can beware of the shady online guitar store. Remember that there are many options online, take some time to research so you can find the best deal.

Guitarras Pilarte Spanish Acoustic Guitar Shop

When we think about handmade acoustic guitars, we think about how the old fashioned luthiers use to make them. Fancy and expensive machinery were not used to make great sounding guitars, it was all left to the skill of a master luthier. Fine acoustic stringed instruments have been around for centuries and until now they're being manufactured at a large scale through pure machinery. Nothing can compare, even less, replace the hand work of a master guitar builder. As unique as the solid wood being worked with is, the guitar has to be given a unique and personal treatment.

Guitarras Pilarte is a small guitar shop that specializes in Spanish handmade acoustic guitars. Based in Masaya, Nicaragua, Guitarras Pilarte has the accessibility of obtaining various types of exotic woods to use for their handmade acoustic instruments. This small shop takes pride in making unique stringed instruments that please the eyes as well as the ears. With 3 generations of guitar making skills, Guitarras Pilarte has mastered the hand-making process that leads to a great sounding guitar.  Having connections in Miami, Florida, Luis Pilarte has been able to reach a broader market and, at the same time, gained the ability to obtain a variety of precious woods and materials from around the world to use on his handmade acoustic guitars.

Online selling platforms such as eBay, Amazon, and Craigslist have made it possible for Luis Pilarte to show his beautiful and unique work to a broader public. Since the shop is small, they are not able to produce enough acoustic guitars to give them a decent presence in the handmade acoustic guitar market. Slowly but surely, these guitars will have a respectable brand name that will entice many aspiring guitarists. The guitar prices are very reasonable, especially since they are made using all solid woods with many man hours of work behind them. They use exotic guitar woods that U.S. guitar companies charge a very hefty premium for. This is the major advantage that Guitarras Pilarte has over many guitar builders around the world, a wide supply of high quality exotic woods.

The best thing about these guitars, on top of their top notch quality of a sound, is that they are all uniquely made in comparison to the next. You won't have to worry about bringing the same looking type of guitar in any kind of guitar session. In fact, yours will stand out in the crowd, making you the center of attention. On top of their great look, they all have a unique type of sound as well; it all depends on the wood type and quality being used. It is very hard to find a shop like this, making fine instruments and selling them for a low price. Get your hands on one today to see what all the buzz is about.

Learn How to Play Guitar Through Youtube

There's been much time and money spent on learning to play the guitar. It's not as easy as it sounds "playing guitar", there are a bunch of other factors to it than just learning the strings. You have to find the right teacher, make sure that teacher is not abusing on price and learning time, time spent practicing, a guitar with the right scale and ease of playability. One teacher I had, not such a good experience. He basically lectured me for 15 minutes and the other 15 is his eating $%#& time. The only reason why I lasted 2 months was because he was actually a great teacher but it's just the little things that did not make it worth my time and money.

Being self taught at home was the best decision I've ever made in my guitar career. You see, in our day and age we have a little commodity called the Internet and it's meant to be used to the maximum. Information is ran through the Internet by the billions. The best part about it is, we can select an article to learn from which suits our educational needs the best.  Youtube has been a place where millions want to be recognized and I believe that guitarists are at the top of that list. You can choose from hundreds of amateur instructors on youtube, rating the better ones to help another aspiring musician as yourself take advantage of these free high quality lessons.

I've listed some locations from youtube where you can learn from scratch "how to play the guitar". We start off with some chord learning, then to the strumming, some fingerpicking, and then we learn some songs to expand our playing techniques. I place the steps from easiest to hardest, I do not recommend skipping the steps if you've never picked up the guitar before. If you know a thing-or-two about playing than you should try to learn the songs as a challenge. The songs are also numerated from easy to hard. You should have plenty to go with here, so, save my blog page to be coming back and keep trying the steps over and over. Each step should take you at least a week to practice, but, the more you practice a step, the less time you'll have to spend learning a song.

The way you hold your guitar from the beginning is mandatory to master before you start to play:

How to hold my guitar

Let's make sure your guitar is well tuned before you begin playing:

Standard Guitar Tuner

Lesson 1:  Let's start off by learning some chords

1.  Individual Chords
2. United Chords
3. Some more chords
4. Blues Chords

Doing step 1 on your own and without any lectures on strumming or fingerpicking is vital. Once you learn the right way, you learn from your errors and learn a better way to play. Learn as many chords as possible so you will go through less trouble in the future when you want to learn a new song. Make transitions with strumming at first, before you learn to fingerpick and burn in those finger blisters. For some newbies, your fingertips will hurt in the beginning and will peel a couple of times before settling in. Try to practice these notes and chords as much as possible before moving to step 2.

Lesson 2:  Strumming and Fingerpicking

These steps can be done with both pick and fingers.

1.  Strumming with pick
2. Strumming with chuck

1. Basic fingerpicking
2. Fingerpicking
3. Inside out fingerpicking
4. Folk style fingerpicking
5. Jazz Blues progression fingerpicking

There are many other strumming fingerpicking styles you can learn on youtube. It's easy to find them once you look through these videos. Using the chords you just learned in step one with these strumming and fingerpicking styles can improve your skills dramatically.

These techniques can be used on electric guitars as well. Some of these songs will sound better on electric but many will sound better on acoustic. Try a little of everything, learning different kinds of songs will expand your ability on the guitar.

1. Bob Marley- No woman no cry
2. Jack Johnson- Good People
3. Incubus- Drive
4. Playing the Blues
5. Some more Blues
6. Pink Floyd- Wish you were here
7. Led Zeplin- Stairway to Heaven
8. Metallica- Nothing else matters
9. Kansas- Dust in the Wind
10. Red Hot Chilli Peppers- Snow

These are just a small portion of the thousands of videos they have on Youtube for you to learn. As you can tell, I prefer to learn rock songs more than anything else. Just place "How to" then your song of interest on the youtube search bar. If this is not your style of learning than an online teacher or a real teacher may be more suitable for you. The advantage of an online teacher is that you can save the video sessions to return to practice at your leisure and they're not that expensive. Hope this got you started well on the guitar.

To be or Not to be a Solid Wood Guitar

Much speculation has risen when deciding on going laminate or solid wood for a guitar (due to the price of course). Everyone will tell you that you must go solid to reach the full potential of an acoustic guitar. All about tone and power and whatnot. Don't get me wrong, I'm one of those as well, telling you that a solid wood guitar will always be superior to any other. I'm a guitar Lover, something about them that I always stop and check one out if one happens to cross my path. Inspecting and playing for the right to judge it's construction, playability, and sound.

My first guitar was a foreign piece from Nicaragua, for me, it was the nicest sounding guitar I've ever played (and first one at that). Guitar Center was the go-to-place for me after my first, thinking in my mind, "yeah, i'm part of the guitar click now". Comparing her to many other beauties in the store and receiving feedback from the store clerks was fun for me. Until, they hit me with the "this guitar is made out of plywood". I had to sit down and take a breath as this came as a shock to me. Couldn't believe my ears, but true, my first guitar was a cheap plywood piece. After that, it worked as a placebo effect, other guitars starting sounding better than mines (in the same day) after the news.

My interest in wooden guitars grew when I made a trip to a Luthier shop in Nicaragua. Watching the Craftmans make these impeccable looking things from basically a chisel, a drill, and a table saw. Nothing to do with what I've seen about Gibson guitars on Discovery channel. When I mean Handmade, it cant get any more crafty than this unless you scrape the wood with your fingernails. I had to make a video on how they make these guitars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwYptY2azcI
I've had these people make dozens of guitars for me to sell online and around my area. For the price and the quality of wood, you couldn't beat 'em. Some eBay customers had bad intentions though and would take advantage of my return policy. For me to find out that these people were luthiers and only purchased them to see their competition. It did discourage me a bit since the limited guitars I had were being returned with damages from these A%$*#&@$.

Anyways, back to the subject at hand. With all of these Solid made instruments in my possession I never dared touch a plywood back and sides guitar. When I started to take the prices of solid wood guitars against nonsolids under consideration, that's when I started noticing that some nonsolids are actually not that bad at all. You will have many people say that the top of the guitar is what really matters, even my luthier friends will say that. But, for us few perfectionists that have that keen hearing ability, you will notice a difference in the type of back and sides you use. Even though with that being said, plywood is not all that bad if you have a solid top on the guitar.

I played a $1200 Taylor the other day and it didn't sound that bad (these are the cheaper ones). It had a low-mid grade top (one I can get on ebay for probably $6) and a laminated rosewood back and sides. The construction was impeccable, should be a huge factor in whay it sounded so nice. A while back, I remember playing a $150 Valencia guitar with a solid cedar top. The thing was not bad at all, even for a mediocre player as myself. With some better strings the guitar would've been ready for action. Not that I'm going to switch or anything from a solid wood guitar to a laminated one but you can find some real nice and cheap laminates out there.

Now, in my opinion, I love to see the wood age and I love to smell the wood of the guitar as well. When I receive the Mahogany and Spanish Cedar guitars, you'll see my nose stuck in that soundhole. With time you will have a nicer sounding guitar on a solid body unlike the laminate. If you are looking though for something to just have fun with, I wouldn't worry too much about it being solid wood or not. If you want to compare prices, I've played $400 laminated guitars that sound better than a $4000 solid body guitar. It depends on the builder as well, I'm not going to call anyone out.