Rock... if you are going to pick up the guitar.. make the best of it.. if not... It is guitar zero land for you. ;)

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As long as you're not buying your used guitar from a pawn shop, it's okay spending less for a guitar. Pawn shops are only worried about getting their money out of it, but the majority of people at a music store are snobs and they aren't going to let you leave with an instrument that is inferior or low quality.

The absolute worst thing you can do is take someone along with you who thinks they know anything and everything about guitars. Yes, talking to someone who plays so you can get an idea of what to look for its a great idea, but they're going to tell you what THEY prefer. Becoming a good guitar player has nothing to do with the wiring or even the look of a guitar. It's all about comfort and feel. It sounds so corny, but it really needs to feel like a continuation of your body. Different guitars have different action in the strings, and you need to find what is comfortable to you and what sounds good to you. You want a guitar that has a good weight for you. So many people swear by Les Pauls, and they are nice guitars, but the weight was a big deal for me.

Long story short, don't worry too much about all the technical things concerning your first guitar. Get something comfortable that you like and that sounds good to you. Once you learn more, you may want to upgrade, but don't break the bank on your first guitar.

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What Nathaniel said is right on. Avoid pawn shops like you'd avoid a pack of zombies. The absolute last thing they are concerned about is you.

And yes, a lot of guitarists have their own prejudices. What works for them might not work for you. For example, I don't like Les Paul's either, but I do like Gibson SGs. Personal preference. However, you might pick up the Les Paul and say "wow, this is exactly perfect for my style of playing" and you might absolute hate how SGs look. You have to take someone along who will understand you, not just guitars.

We have different styles of music, different finger sizes. You and I will play scales and chords differently. The guy you take along has to understand that. You might like a cleaner sound than I might like, so you and I might like different pickups. Plus, one neck I might hate might work with your fingers perfectly.

You do need to see basics though and that's what I was getting at. Like, is the neck warped? Are the strings too high to be playable? Is the bridge garbage? Are the pickups garbage? Is the wiring so bad that it will have to be rewired?

This is just me, but I'm more worried about you getting something so cheap that you hate it than I'm worried about you breaking the bank. But then again, music matters more to me than money. That's just me though.

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try to learn right handed
i used to be a left handed drummer, but my set came as right handed (tom on the right, snare on the left, and all the cymbals mixed up) and i couldnt change it because it was so complex, it took about a month or so but i finally mastered it, now i cant play left handed because i havent in so long.
its going to be hard to find a left handed guitar for cheap, especially a starter one
maybe a custom acoustic?

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Thanks for all the help, guys.

I've got my mind set on a right handed one now, I think. Maybe a Squier starting set. That white Squier Strat looks great and, from what I've read and heared, it's a great starter guitar. And it comes in a starter pack. From what I've read, the only thing it struggles with is getting a full metal sound, but I don't like metal, anyway.

You can't convince me that I should pay more than 200 euros for my first guitar. Maybe I'm just a cheapskate.

I was thinking about buying it off the internet. I'm not used to anything right now. I don't know any guitarists, either. You know the problems I have, as well, Zombie. I don't want to get taken advantage off in a music store, either.

Al - You're right. Learning to play right handed shouldn't be too hard. It just takes a little getting used to.

Pack93 - I have one version of guitar hero. Never play it. It's great when it feels like you're making music, but I just can't get past the fact that I'm just pushing in colored buttons. And if that's the case, it gets boring really fast.

The well known story is that Paul is right handed but Brian Epstein asked him to learn to play the Bass left handed as the symetry in the way the group played on stage would look better

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Tried some starter lesson stuff on an acoustic guitar. I was horrible. And not just starter horrible. I was better with a right hand guitar that I turned around, than I was playing regular right handed guitar.

I'm going with a lefty. There might not be that much choice, but big whoop. Odds are that I hit a bargain on ebay faster, as well. And I'm a decently smart guy, if I say so myself, I should be able to learn it the other way around from a right handed instruction book/DVD/teacher.

I finally figured out what guitar I want, as well. I read a lot of reviews and decided to step away from the Squier strat for two reasons. The reviews all had it coming out pretty mediocre. Next to that, I'd like to play a little Foo Fighters, Lynyrd Skynyrd, a little rock. I'd like to have a humbucker on it. The strat only has 3 single coils. Maybe I'm aiming a little too high for someone who's just starting, but I'd like to play on it longer than 3 weeks.

So I pretty much got my sights aimed on an Epiphone Les Pauls Special II. It gets good reviews, it's pretty cheap and I'm hoping that I can get it in the starter kit that it comes in as a right handed guitar.

Again, thanks for all the help.

That will probably be a pretty good guitar for you. 700T/650R pickups if I remember correctly are decent and Epiphone necks aren't that bad. I've played on the Epiphone SGs and they're pretty dang close to the real SGs, so I assume the Epiphone Les Pauls will be close to the real ones.

I think you made a good choice there, Rock. May you get several good years out of that guitar. If you get good at it, you always need a 2nd guitar anyways because it's kind of a given that a string will break when you least want it to, i.e., your first show or trying to impress that babe you've wanted to show off to for the past year.

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Well it may be a little late but I'll at least throw you my two cents.

I got a starter guitar (YAMAHA) when I was around 10 years old to start learning. My mom made me take lessons for 3 years and I learned most of the basics: finger picking, basic chords, strumming, etc., One of the things I never picked up on however was the actual notes on the guitar (I still get strings confused to this day lol). However, despite not knowing notes I still loved to fool around and play.

Once I got to high school I quit guitar for a while. I had gotten an electric (Ibanez) that was great but it started to break down and I didn't want to play my acoustic because of how shitty it was to begin with (starter guitar).

Fast forward to college, I have no friends so I have to make new ones. Turns out that every other new person I meet "plays" guitar (I put plays in quotes because most douches count knowing a few Jack Johnson songs as "playing"). So first thing I did was bring my old acoustic guitar to college with me and with my limited knowledge I began "jamming" with multiple friends, probably one of the best experiences I've had musically.

Now here I am, roughly four years into college with my decade-old acoustic sitting in my lap while I type this. I just had it re-strung last week. I still don't know many names of the notes but I'm so musically inclined that I can put together good chord progressions by ear (I mainly play rhythm guitar).

So what does all this mean? That your guitar experience, just like everything else in life is exactly what you decide to make it. Once I learned how to actually play with people it became a lot more enjoyable and I found that I never really wanted to be a guitarist, just someone that knows his way around the basics of a guitar.

Also, learning by tab can fun but it really doesn't teach you much. I know people that can play 10 songs amazingly on guitar because they practiced only those tabs but have no clue what they're doing otherwise.

I'm definitely not your foremost authority on guitar in this forums but I thought I'd give you my guitar story. I also want to say that I've played trombone since I was 8 so I was already musically trained before I started guitar which probably made it a lot easier.

My best advice? Have fun.

So, I finally got the guitar. Screwing around with it right now and the first thing I noticed is that two or three strings rattle quite a bit. Especially when playing the 1st fret.

Of course, this could just be because I just started playing the thing, but it doesn't look like too great a start.