Where is the best place to buy a guitar? Pawn shop? Yard sale? A friend? Or more likely, if you are looking for a premium guitar, the best place may be a music store or perhaps online.
Based on my experience, you are best served purchasing a guitar at a local shop that focuses primarily on that particular instrument. The store should offer a premium line or two of guitars, indicating a higher level of seriousness.
Why buy at a local shop? Most importantly, guitars can be idiosyncratic artifacts; consequently, playing the guitar you buy before hand can be quite illuminating. Even so for acoustic guitars this may still be a bit of a gamble because new guitar woods are a bit tight and not ready to yield their final tone… the wood requires time to open up, which can take a year or so… Nevertheless, if it sounds good new, overtime it will probably sound even better.
A local business too will service the instrument if required. You’d probably be surprised at how often that eventuality occurs. Further, a new premium guitar like a Taylor will be under warrantee and the store that you purchase it from will service it for you unless there is some type of catastrophic failure which requires return to the manufacturer.
A well run local store will offer the expertise of its staff when evaluating an instrument, amp, pedal, tuner, what have you… This is much better than making the decision in a vacuum in front of a computer screen.
Not just new guitars can be found in a typical guitar store. In fact, I’ve purchased two used instruments from my local establishment. Guitars are like cars, in a way… new ones lose value as soon as you drive it off the lot, so getting a used guitar, if in excellent condition can be a great savings!
Not all communities are lucky enough to have a good guitar store. Just recently I learned that Rochester, MN lost its excellent store, Avalon Music. If you are a guitar player, it would serve you well to throw some business to the local store to keep it going.
I am not sure if all guitar stores are like the one in my town, Bob’s Guitars. I think perhaps there are some others, like Rudy’s in Manhattan, NY where a musical community exists around and within it. Spend anytime in the store and you will see the best musicians in the region constantly passing through. Further, if you are a frequent customer in Cedar Falls, you get to hang out with Bob (the Bob) and the other staff and there’s quite a lot that can be learned from them.
In sum, a local guitar store can be a local treasure… perhaps the best place to buy a guitar too… In a future blog post, I will speak to buying a guitar online, which I’ve also done for better or worse…
