Trusted, teacher-respecting guidance on beginner instruments — honest rent-vs-buy math, real sizing charts, and no pretending we tested things we haven’t.
Every site in this category says it tested twenty instruments. We have not tested any, and we say so. What we do instead is compile the published specifications, read the manuals, and do the arithmetic — then show our working, so you can check it.
The top pick from each of our buying guides, with the live price. Sizing comes before the model on every one of these — the guides say so, and they say it first.
Best beginner guitar
A solid spruce top at a laminate-top price, which is the one spec that actually changes how a cheap guitar sounds as it ages. If an adult beginner asks for one recommendation and nothing else, this is it.
Top pick: Yamaha FG800J
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Best beginner acoustic
A solid spruce top at a laminate-top price, which is the one spec that actually changes how a cheap guitar sounds as it ages. If an adult beginner asks for one recommendation and nothing else, this is it.
Top pick: Yamaha FG800J
#ad · price as of September 7, 2026 · how this is funded
Best beginner electric
Full-size Strat, 10-watt amp, gig bag, cable and strap in one box. Buying the pieces separately usually costs more and takes three deliveries, so the pack is the honest answer for a first electric.
Top pick: Squier Sonic Stratocaster Pack
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Best beginner bass
The bass equivalent of the Strat pack, and the right default: a P/J pickup pair covers nearly every style a school or church group will ask for, and the amp is included.
Top pick: Squier Affinity Precision Bass Pack
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Best for adults
A solid spruce top at a laminate-top price, which is the one spec that actually changes how a cheap guitar sounds as it ages. If an adult beginner asks for one recommendation and nothing else, this is it.
Top pick: Yamaha FG800J
#ad · price as of September 7, 2026 · how this is funded
Best for age 10
A 3/4-scale guitar built to the same standard as Yamaha's adult line rather than a toy with a brand on it. The right first acoustic for roughly ages 8 to 11, and it holds resale value.
Top pick: Yamaha JR1 FG Junior
#ad · price as of September 7, 2026 · how this is funded
Seven sections, organized the way the decisions actually arrive: which instrument, what size, rent or buy, and what else you will need in the first year.
If you have not chosen an instrument yet, nothing else on this site matters. This section covers the decisions that come before the shopping.
Two decisions come before choosing a model: what size the player needs, and whether the strings should be steel, nylon or electric. Get those right and almost any decent guitar works.
Two specifications decide almost everything here: how many keys, and whether they are weighted. Everything else is preference.
Sizing decides more here than anywhere else on the site, and the charts most people find are pictures a search engine cannot read. Ours are text.
Everything here assumes a school program, a director with opinions, and a method book the whole class is working from. That context changes the right answer.
Rental programs quote a monthly figure and purchase pages quote a sticker price, and almost nobody puts the two numbers in the same table. These pages do.
The instrument is the expensive part. These are the cheap parts that decide whether it gets played.
Four pages that do something the rest of this category does not.
Reed & Rosin earns a commission when you buy through a link on this site, at no extra cost to you. We earn nothing when you rent an instrument, and our rent-vs-buy pages still recommend renting whenever the arithmetic says so. Prices come from a live feed with the date attached and disappear on their own if it stops refreshing, so you will never see a stale number here.