Whether it’s a Paul Reed Smith or a Flying V model, there’s always been a great demand from music fans to learn how to play the electric guitar in order to jam out to their favorite bands on their own “ax”. It’s no secret that getting your electric guitar skill level as high as a Clapton or a Hendrix will require vast amounts of time and practice to achieve, yet many people realize the hard way that traditional methods of learning how to play the electric guitar presents a challenge beyond their patience. New students of the electric guitar can find an easier ‘tutorial’ of sorts by learning the acoustic guitar before they begin learning how to play with the electric guitar (plus the amplifier), and thus avoid dealing with the additional variables that are unrelated to simply learning the fundamentals of guitar play.
One of your first lessons while learning how to play the electric guitar will be to find the best sound possible when picking strings. Contrary to an acoustic guitar’s nylon strings (which can be plucked by using fingers) it sounds best when using a pick for playing an electric guitar’s steel strings. Nearby the bridge area of on an electric guitar are variously placed devices called ‘pickups’. These devices will literally ‘pick up’ the sound vibrations that travel when picking strings on an electric guitar, and be sent to the amplifier to produce a sound. The amp will also feedback any interference from other electrical signals in the area, giving electric guitar players the unfortunate possibility of having an unwanted burst of noise coming out of the amp if, for instance, a speaker or two gets placed too close by a live amp!
When you learn how to play the electric guitar, you will study the balance between the electric guitar, pickups, and amplifier while experimenting on how to obtain the ideal sound when playing. The location of the pickups on the electric guitar will determine the effect it has on the richness of sound coming out of the amp, and represents a relationship within the electric guitar and amp just as integral as the one between player and guitar. Depending on the brand of amplifier used, that too will determine the tone of the sound (whether it is dark/light, more/less distorted, or how resonant it will be). If at this point you find yourself marveling at the amount of considerations to be taken in when playing the electric guitar, this is the very reason why it’s typically better for beginners to first learn on the acoustic guitar, to allow focusing on the basic fundamentals of learning how to play.
Despite all the variables to account for, there are a few advantages associated with when you learn how to play the electric guitar versus learning on an acoustic guitar. Rather than managing a bulky, awkwardly-shaped acoustic guitar (engineered to produce a natural acoustic resonance from the hollow body and soundhole located near the center) the electric guitar has no such requirements in shape. If you’ve ever wanted to play behind-the-back style, or with your teeth (heaven forbid!) you’ll only be able to pull those rockstar-like moves off with an electric guitar!
