FAQ
Common questions
How much should I spend on my first electric setup?
Around $350-$450 total: $230 for the guitar, $80-115 for an amp, $25 for a real cable, $15 for a tuner, $30 for picks/strap/stand miscellany. Below this, you're either skipping the amp (the electric is silent without it) or buying a starter pack with components that don't work. Above this, you're paying for upgrades that won't make you a better player.
Should my first guitar be a Strat or a Les Paul?
Whichever genre you want to play. Strat (Squier Affinity, Yamaha Pacifica): brighter, lighter, better for funk/blues/country/indie. Les Paul (Epiphone Studio): thicker, heavier, better for classic rock, hard rock, and metal. Both work for any genre — your favorite players have used both — but the body shape and pickup voice are different starting points. Pick the one that looks like the music you love.
Can I learn electric guitar without an amp using headphones?
Yes — the Fender Frontman 10G has a headphone out, which silences the speaker and routes the sound to your ears. Useful for late-night practice in apartments. Some beginners go an extra step and use a pocket amp like the VOX amPlug, which plugs directly into the guitar. Either works; just don't try to learn with no amp at all — the unplugged sound is too quiet to hear what you're playing.
Should I learn on electric or acoustic first?
Whichever genre you actually want to play. The 'acoustic first because it's harder' advice is partially true and totally irrelevant — you'll quit if you don't enjoy what you're playing. Pick the instrument you want to hear. The skills transfer between them later.
How long until I can play a real song?
About two weeks for a 3-chord song played slowly, three months for it to sound listenable. The chord transitions are the hard part — your fingers physically learning to move between G, C, and D is what your first month is about. Riff-based rock songs (Smoke on the Water, Seven Nation Army, Iron Man) are accessible faster, week 2-3, because they're single-note melodies.
Do I need to learn music theory?
Not in your first six months. Learn chords, scales, and songs first — theory makes much more sense once you have the patterns under your fingers. Around month 6, learning the basics of keys and chord families dramatically accelerates your progress, but trying to learn theory before you can play sounds and feels disconnected. Don't bother yet.
How often do I need to change strings?
Every 4-8 weeks for daily players, longer for casual. Signs strings are dead: they look dull or grimy, sound muffled, and stop holding tuning. New strings are the cheapest tone upgrade in music — $7 makes a $230 guitar sound like a $400 guitar.
