Thursday - February 13,2025
Image default
Music

Mistakes To Avoid When Building Your First Guitar

You love guitars and want to build one for yourself? Have you been going through tutorials and watching videos on how to do it?

The thought of just doing it by itself is exciting. In fact, come to think of it, there isn’t anything more exciting and challenging for a guitar enthusiast than building your own electric guitar. But truth be told, building a guitar, especially an electric one from scratch is not easy partly because of the many steps involved in doing so. However, don’t let its complexity deter you from carrying out this project. In this article, we’ve highlighted some of the mistakes you should avoid when building your first guitar. Read on to learn!

Choosing a complicated design

Simplicity is key especially for someone who is trying to build this musical instrument for the first time and doesn’t possess the skills to do so. A fancy or complicated body and headstock design might sound sweet, but without the skills of a seasoned guitar maker, you are most likely to do a very poor job.

The design you choose for your first guitar should be as simple as possible. Such a design will simplify the task and make the whole experience a lot more enjoyable.

Use this experience to learn the basic skills of guitar construction, then later on after you have perfected this art is when you can try adding more complex elements to the build.

Manage your expectations

Don’t expect a perfect guitar on your first try. Many newbies expect that the guitar they’ll build will be perfect which is wrong. Do remember that professional builders have perfected their art over many years of experimenting, making mistakes, refining their work, and practice. Instead, expect to make plenty of mistakes — which is okay. Therefore, forget about building the perfect instrument on your first try and focus on sharpening your construction skills.

Over-thinking

Most first-time guitar builders get caught up in an endless cycle of thinking, re-thinking, over-thinking… which goes on and on during the planning phase of the project. They keep re-thinking, re-watching, and re-reading mainly because they are terrified of making a solid move since they haven’t figured out all the guitar-building steps.

So don’t let over-thinking and over-analyzing paralyze your efforts. Take that step and start the process and you’ll stand a better chance of finishing your guitar.

Fearing failure

Ever heard of someone who learned from success? Most likely your answer is no. Failure gives us an opportunity to learn from our mistakes and how to work on them to make the outcome better next time.

Be ready and willing to make major mistakes that might cost you a few guitar bodies and necks before you actually finish your first guitar. You’ll be able to learn from these mistakes and won’t repeat them on your second project. The learning curve is tough and takes a lot of failures to finally come up with a perfect instrument. Therefore, don’t let the fear of failure discourage you from building your first guitar.