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Beginner Guitar Accessories – What gear is best for Beginners?
Introduction
This is our final instalment of the “Beginner Guitar” series! This time, we’re covering beginner guitar accessories—small items that can help you improve your playing, explore new sounds and tones, and keep the experience fun and exciting! Guitar can become boring when it feels repetitive, so some of these accessories are designed to keep things fresh, others are meant to assist you, and some are essential for specific genres.
As with our other articles (links below), we’ve categorised these accessories into three genres. These categories aren’t set in stone, but we find that these accessories tend to work well within these genres. In fact, out of all our articles, this is the one where the genre categories matter the least! With that said, let’s dive right into the accessories!
Check out our other beginner gear guides using the links below:
Best Beginner Guitars Accessories!
So what are we looking for in beginner guitar accessories? Simple: affordable and practical items that you can keep in your gig bag. Many of these accessories aren’t things you’ll use every day, but you’ll find them handy every now and then. We’re not suggesting useless gadgets or stuff that will end up as landfill, but actual products that you’ll use and that will help you in one way or another. So, why don’t we dive into our first genre? Blues and Rock!
Blues/Rock: Dunlop Glass Guitar Slide
For the Blues/Rock genre, we’ve chosen a glass slide! A good, affordable glass slide is a lot of fun. While not essential, a slide gives you a new goal and something different to learn. It will help you expand your solos and add some extra licks to your repertoire. Nothing beats a great slide guitar solo!
Now, the downside: slide guitar is challenging! It’s an entirely new skill. However, once you get the hang of it and start to master it, the rewards are immense. It takes time, though—lots of practice. You have to almost relearn how to play the frets and notes since you’re not pressing down. Additionally, you need to get used to playing with only three fingers while the slide is on—a big adjustment!
I’m recommending three options for glass slides. Why three? Well, people have different preferences and finger sizes. Below are three sizes of the Dunlop Glass Slide. Choose one based on your finger size, and spend some time getting used to how it feels on your finger while playing:
Metal: Gruvgear Fretwrap
If you’re into metal and enjoy playing those “chug, chug!” riffs, this beginner guitar accessory will be of great use to you: fret wraps! These are small wraps that fit between the 1st fret and the top nut, designed to reduce string noise and unwanted ringing. The closer you move it to the first fret, the less ring you’ll have. Fret wraps can be used for a variety of reasons, such as keeping the silent parts of a heavy breakdown truly silent. They can also help reduce noise when doing fast runs and shredding.
A good fret wrap is a lifesaver when recording. Got fast, complex solos and riffs? A fret wrap can help cut down on excess noise, allowing you to record the perfect take more quickly. This is especially helpful if you’re renting studio time, as it can save both time and money.
There are some downsides to using fret wraps. First, you can’t use open strings effectively—they’ll sound dead or muted. Second, they aren’t quick to put on and take off. Many people keep them just below the top nut and slide them into place when needed, but this takes practice to master, out of all of the recommended Beginner Guitar Accessories, we think this is one to just have in your gig bag! Below are two sizes we recommend, both of which I’ve used personally:
Universal: D’Addario Clip-On Tuner
Looking for something that will make you sound incredible? Try a clip-on tuner! Keeping your guitar in tune is essential for making your playing sound great, and a clip-on tuner is the most affordable way to do that. Simply clip it onto the headstock of your guitar, switch it on, and you’ll have a quick and easy way to check your tuning. The guitar doesn’t even need to be plugged in, and these tuners work on any stringed instrument. You can find a variety of clip-on tuners on the market.
We’ve put out four of these articles now, and after our pedal one, we got a lot of comments asking, “Why didn’t you recommend a tuner?” In short, a pedal tuner is fantastic and an easy way to stay in tune. However, as a beginner, you want to invest in items that inspire creativity, which a pedal tuner might not do. That’s why we recommended the three pedals in our Beginner Guitar Pedal article (read here). For beginners, a clip-on tuner is ideal. If you start gigging, you might then consider a pedal tuner. Personally, I use a clip-on tuner for all my gigs! Here are two that we have used and liked:
Conclusion
These are some beginner guitar accessories we think you should consider! Remember, these items are designed to inspire you and keep you practicing. Unfortunately, there isn’t a magic gadget that will make you great at guitar—if there were, I’d have it!
If you haven’t already, make sure to check out our other articles on beginner guitar gear. We’ve covered just about everything related to playing guitar! That said, we might have one more article up our sleeve. If you’re interested in purchasing some guitar gear, even if it’s not something from these articles, you can use our affiliate link. It’s a great way to support our site and help us continue bringing you amazing content!
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