Why does Kerikeri Guitar recommend the nylon string guitar to beginners?

It offers musical advantages to the beginner:

• Its versatility, the classical nylon string guitar can be used in accompaniment and solo roles.
  

• It allows the learner to build a broad and solid foundation both musically and technically. This foundation enables the learner to later specialise and/or change to other constructions of guitar, should they wish to do so. Other constructions of guitar are more musically specialised, do not provide the same universal foundation and can impose limitations upon later options.
  

• Its literature uses standard music notation which, once learned, opens the wider world of music to the learner.  Standard notation develops universal musical skills that are transferable to other instruments and other areas of music study. It allows access to the tools of music theory and analysis.  The learner is not confined to the musical ghettos that reliance upon inferior guitar-specific tabulature systems can create.

• The classical guitar has a huge repertoire that not only encompasses 600 years of written music, it also includes music from five continents and the music of scores of different cultures, opening an exiting world of musical exploration to the learner.

• It has a well established catalogue of pedagogical literature.

• Classical finger-style techniques very quickly enable beginners to produce, on their own, a complete self-contained musical result. For adult beginners in particular, this can be a very rewarding outcome. Group performance is a desirable and enjoyable goal for music making in general. It is well recognised as an essential element of learning process for most instruments, hence the existence of school orchestras, bands and performance opportunities organised for children. However, access to such musical groups can be more difficult for adult beginners. In comparison, plectrum/pick techniques designed for accompaniment and melodic roles usually don't produce such a stand alone complete musical arrangement. The pupil is more reliant upon additional participation of their teacher, other musicians, or their own voice in order to complete the musical performance.
  

Its physical advantages for the beginner:

• The nylon string guitar is generally considered to be the instrument best suited to the physical abilities of children. Its strings are softer and thicker than steel strings, easier to depress against the fingerboard and cause less irritation to the fingertips of either hand. The spacing between strings is also more generous allowing easier and clearer articulation of the music.

Its lower purchase cost for beginner:

• The entry level classical guitar is the lowest priced of all the types of guitar. It requires no immediate purchase of accessories aside from a $15 footstool. It does not require the purchase of an amplifier.

Text by Richard Christie
2012