So, Vaderling got 4 guitar lessons from his mom(she paid for them).
She had a crappy beat up old guitar with nylon strings that broke(don’t know the specifics) when she tried to tune it.
I had a cheap, not beat up, 2nd hand, elementary school, 3/4 guitar with metal strings that the instructor apparently dislikes (I’m of the opinion that it’s because it didn’t come from the guitar store where he works)
I gave the guitar to Vaderling to take to his mom’s house since his lessons are on the weekends he is with her(with the unspoken understanding that I’m never getting that guitar back)
I have a brand new(from same guitar store) yamaha acoustic guitar for Vaderling to practice on at my house.
That’s the background, however necessary it is or isn’t.
For tuning, I downloaded a tuner app to my phone and just set it on the body of the guitar while I pluck and tune the strings.
I’ve seen tuners in some videos that clamp on to the neck, near the head. How does this affect the tuning of the guitar, which is better or does it matter?
The clamp-on tuner (“Snark” is the brand) is very convenient - it leaves both hands free and is very easy to read. And accurate too.
I’m guessing the 3/4 guitar is indeed crappy. It sounds like it is. Some cheap guitars, or guitars that are not setup correctly are horrible to play. A beginner doesn’t need an unnecessary frustration, there are enough when you’re starting to play.
Starting any new skill is hard enough without crappy equipment making it harder. Take the 3/4 guitar to a good guitar shop and get it setup . Snarks run about $15 but the tuner app will work well enough for now.
An OK student guitar will run about $150.
What are the brand names on these existing guitars (3/4, classical)?
If you have a guitar that won’t stay in tune, that’s a problem unto itself. I used to have one (a Hondo brand from the mall) and I gave up on playing for a long time. If you have a reasonably good guitar that stays in tune, generally you tune it when you start a session of playing and an hour later, it’s still in tune…the app on a phone is good enough. When you change strings, it’s going to go out of tune a lot for a couple days until the strings stretch a bit…that’s when having a tuner that’s clipped on is really nice.
Bang for the buck, I really like my Oscar Schmidt. I’ve had it for about 25 years now. Nice tone, good action. My wife has some guitars that cost times 3-4 as much but I like mine better.
I’m not sure what brand the 3/4 guitar is, the brand new, full size guitar is a yamaha. It wasn’t the priciest guitar in the shop, holy crap not by a long way(10g for a guitar?) But there were some that were cheaper.
Totally agree with this. Crappy instruments (especially guitars) are much harder to play and will turn off beginners. And you don’t need to spend that much to get out of the crappy range. But at least I’d think a good guitar repair place would probably take a look at the 3/4 one and tell you whether it’s worth spending the money to get it set up.
But one other thought: It’s also going to be harder moving between a 3/4 and full size. It might be worth just getting an inexpensive but decent full-size for the Vaderling, if their hands are anywhere close to big enough to handle it.
Remember, paying a pro to set up the old guitar is probably about the same price as one lesson. And will pay off a lot more in the long run, if it makes the guitar more playable. Buying a new beginner guitar from the shop is probably the price of four lessons or so.
I think the ex said she spent 150, something like that on a promotional deal for 4 lessons. I gave her the 3/4 to keep and spend 300 on a full size yamaha guitar for Vaderling to use. Although, to be honest, I don’t really see any of what I’d call interest in learning from him. He hates the fingering practice the instructor wants him to do to build callouses. I think he’s probably more interested in the idea of playing guitar than actually putting in the effort to lesrn
The 300 wasn’t just for the guitar, I got a strap and a variety of picks also, and sales tax, it totalled out around 300