Playing Electric Guitar

The electric guitar was one of those happy accidents that produced something that no one was expecting. Way back in the big band era, when the guitar started to replace the banjo, guitarists had trouble being heard over the other instruments. A few guitarists came up with the idea of rigging up magnetic pickups, forming the first electric guitars. Eventually people playing these realized that they could get some weird sounds simply by playing with the amp settings. Finally, Jimi Hendrix almost single handedly demonstrated that this electric guitar was capable of things that were never even dreamt of on an acoustic guitar. However, electric guitars are rather different than acoustic guitars and require some extra equipment to use.

The Guitar
Obviously you do need an electric guitar itself. There are some acoustic guitars with magnetic pickups, but their purpose is the same as the original purpose of the electric guitar, to amplify acoustic guitars so they can be heard when the acoustic aspect is not enough. The pickups on those guitars are not designed or intended for electric guitar techniques. In general, a starting electric guitarist should get a solid-body guitar, and the other variants should be left for more experienced players that are buying them for different tones.

Amp
In addition to the guitar, you will also need an amp. Unless you have a power amp or modeler with a headphone jack, you want at least one amp 5-15 watts to practice on. Even 15 watts is actually overkill for practicing alone, since it could be turned up loud enough to cause hearing damage. Small practice amps are fairly cheap and far, far more practical than a giant 100 watt amp with a 4x12 cabinet for practicing.

Hearing Protection
Almost all guitarists overlook this, but this is very important. If your ever feel your ears ringing after practice, you just caused a little tiny bit of hearing damage, usually too small to notice. This hearing damage does add up over time, which is why a lot of veteran touring musicians have very poor hearing. These are really cheap, and if you are ever in situations where the volume is loud enough to cause hearing damage, these are great things to have. Get a decent pair of musician’s earplugs, rather than the cheap wadding kind. You won’t really notice they are even there, but they will still protect your hearing.

Cables and Effects
You will need at least one cable to hook the guitar to the amp, but past that, this is more extra equipment. A good tuning pedal effect is a solid investment for starting your effect chain, but past that it isn’t necessary. Effects mainly alter the tone in some really interesting ways, but they don’t really help you practice. The tuning pedal is a nice thing to have, but past that, they aren’t too necessary.

Differences from Playing an Acoustic Guitar
If you have been playing an acoustic guitar for awhile, there are some very significant differences that aren’t readily apparent. The main one is that your main volume control is no longer how hard you hit the guitar. You should play an electric guitar exactly the same if you are practicing by yourself as you would in a stadium full of people. Let the amp do the work, any differences in how hard you pick should solely be for dynamic effects, like accents.

Another thing to keep in mind is that an electric guitar needs to be muted much more stringently than an acoustic guitar. Acoustic guitars can’t really feedback on their own, but electric guitars can. Sometimes guitarists intentionally cause feedback for effect, but it should be something that is controlled. If you try to play an electric guitar like an acoustic, it isn’t usually going to sound very good, unless you are using fairly mild amp settings. There are guitar effects that minimize this, but those would just end up being a crutch and should not be relied on.

Keep on rockin'!