The Acoustic Guitar Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Buy and Maintain a New or Used Guitar [Paperback]

Larry Sandberg (Author), Artie Traum (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2000

This book will help all guitar players make better friends with their present guitar or decide on features to look for in a new one. They will learn about the differences in guitar woods (and how they sound), simple guitar maintenance, how to choose an instrument for their style of playing, what to expect from a music dealer, and the mystique of collectible guitars. This new edition includes more details on amplifying acoustic guitars, and a guide to guitar companies’ Web sites.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A great guide. . . . highly recommended." -- Whole Earth Review

"A must for anyone who gets down acoustically." -- Guitar Player

"even guitarists who have been playing for years will learn something...required reading." -- Bluegrass Unlimited

About the Author

Larry Sandberg is the author of The Folk Music Sourcebook, Complete Banjo Repair, Chords and Tunings for Fretted Instruments, and other music instruction books.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press; Revised and updated edition edition (November 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556524188
• ISBN-13: 978-1556524189
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #402,053 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FANTASTIC! Don't Buy A Guitar Before You Read This.., September 8, 2002

By 

palcat (Silicon Valley CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Acoustic Guitar Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Buy and Maintain a New or Used Guitar (Paperback)

Face it - you can't hang-out with guitar people if you have
no idea what nut width is! I decided to get one book
to comprehend the "acoustic guitar', and chose this one.
It is fantastic.

It's not necessary to read beginning to end. The author
organized it so well that a quick look up will fill you
in on the spot. I have become knowledgable enough about
guitar construction, woods, parts you name it, that I
can carry on an intelligent conversation with any guitar
head out there.

The author is a wonderful writer. He keeps it simple,
very informative, and he has a fun personality which
makes the reading fun. It sounds strange to say but
it's an exhiliarating read too because the information
is vast and very interesting.

Anyone planning to buy a guitar in any price range
should read this book first. Making a purchase will
be much easier for you. You'll know so much that
you won't get taken, and you'll know how to know
if you like a guitar or not.

If you want the skinny right now without any
blah-blah-blah or difficult to understand
technical terms, here's your book. It will
be something you'll look at for years to come.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "Must Read" for Serious Buyers, September 12, 2001

By 

Rhys A. Ord (Florham Park, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Acoustic Guitar Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Buy and Maintain a New or Used Guitar (Paperback)

As an "older-boomer-beginner" returning to guitars after a thirty-year absence, I read about this book in the Unofficial Martin Guitar Forum ....

This is a very readable book for anyone thinking of purchasing a high quality acoustic guitar that wants to understand much more about what they are buying. This Second Edition contains just enough up-to-date technical and historical background to give you what you need to select a great new or used acoustic guitar. It clarified many things that I found confusing when I first started reading about model sizes, nomenclature, woods, strings, and everything else. I now feel like a very informed buyer, even though I'm not much of a player. I suppose there is a certain slant towards Martin guitars, but I think that is unavoidable given the history of the company.

Mr. Sandberg is correct in that no book full of adjectives will help you evaluate either sound or action. You need to go out and play as many guitars as you can. However, this book gives you a great start, and gives you a lot of good reasons to pass over a lot of what is on the lower end of the market today. Highly recommended.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sandberg knows his stuff., May 19, 1998

By 

Mr. Einstein (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Acoustic Guitar Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Buy and Maintain a New or Used Guitar (Paperback)

I've been playing acoustic guitar about ten years now. I got into it for "mental stimulation" and found it did the trick. For many years, I read EVERYTHING I could get my hands on that concerned what makes a good guitar. Learning to play the thing is an entirely different subject. Anyway, of the thousand of pages I've read, I feel this book is still the best guide to acoustic guitars there is. You'll learn A�@LOT about the instrument if you read it.