Encore ENC34OFT Natural Wood Three Quarter Classic Guitar Outfit

At around eight or nine a child shows a natural aptitude to want to play music – but the question arises as to what instrument will bring the maximum joy and pleasure to the budding musician that is fairly easy to learn? The acoustic guitar is the perfect instrument of choice because it is versatile; all styles of music – from jazz and Bossa Nova to rock and classical can be played on it with ease - and with the right grounding from day one and spending just an hour a day practicing, the acoustic guitar can be mastered very quickly - and can be played anywhere – even in the countryside.The drawback is that a child is too small to be able to play a full-size acoustic guitar and so the obvious choice is to play a three-quarter size guitar. Really good ones cost upwards of £300 + - which puts the instrument out of the reach of many – until now.What Encore have done is produced a high quality instrument with a beautiful warm tone at a low-budget price – and also provided a correctly tuned pitch pipe so that the budding guitarist can accurately tune the guitar to concert pitch and play along to professional performances. The guitar also benefits from a slender neck - which makes it very easy for a child to finger the chords.The package includes an instructional DVD – but sadly – the DVD is neither of use nor ornament because the ‘tutor’ (I use the term loosely) spends an inordinate amount of wasted time wittering on about getting comfortable when holding the guitar; very little time is spent on how to tune the guitar; and the tutor does not teach proper technique – nor does the tutor teach anything meaningful that a child can master and enjoy - such as a song or two – and so your child will come away bored and unfulfilled - with nothing to show for their efforts.The way to rectify this is to bin the supplied tutorial - without ever letting your child see it - and obtain a copy of Buster B Jones amazing tutorial DVDs called ‘Finger picking guitar from the ground up’. Buster gets you doing things properly right from the start – from tuning the guitar to how to form and change chords to which digits on both hands do what – and why.This DVD is not about spending weeks learning pointless exercises and boring ‘strumming patterns’ – your child will be playing TUNES straight away and will see how to play bass, rhythm, and lead guitar ALL AT THE SAME TIME like a PRO (yes really) with Buster’s unique method of teaching so that your child will MASTER the instrument AT PACE and not get bored with pointless strumming - and your child will come away with a repertoire of beautiful classic songs as Buster teaches your child how play properly; how to modulate (change key); how to quickly achieve syncopation; and how to perform techniques such as the slur; the slide; the hammer on; the pull-off; and ‘note bending’ right from the onset.A few things to note about the guitar - the strings are ‘relaxed’ when you receive the instrument – and so the first job is to TUNE the guitar using the pitch pipe.A few things to note about new strings – they will initially constantly go out of tune until the strings are ‘settled’ in – its how it is – and its nothing to get alarmed about.The second point to note is that a LOT of tension has to be put onto the FIRST string – the string with the highest note – to get it ‘on pitch’. This should be done GRADUALLY to avoid breaking the string. Should your child inadvertently snap a string, my recommendation would be to replace ALL strings with BALL END strings. This saves a LOT of frustration trying to tie knots that keep slipping loose.Finally – and I say this with a CAUTIONARY CAVEAT – The ‘action’ is the distance the fretboard and the strings when the guitar is ‘at rest’. If the action is set too high your child may experience difficulty when fretting the chords. The way to cure this is to de-string the guitar, removing the brdge, and lowering the bridge by CAREFULLY sanding off the BOTTOM of the bridge - a little at a time – so as to bring the strings closer to the fretboard – but not so close that the strings ‘buzz’ against the fretboard when the strings are plucked. If your child has difficulty pushing down the strings and you do not have the confidence to do this then seek out a local guitar guru and ask them to ‘set up the action’. Doing this pays BIG dividends.Once the guitar is properly set up and fitted with ball-end strings , your child will own and value a beautiful instrument that will provide years of pleasure until the time arrives when your child is ready to own a Gibson or a Selmer – which will last them a LIFETIME.Five stars

Bought this for my daughter starting guitar lessons at school. She was 7 at the time and relatively tall. At the upper end of what she could manage size-wise I'd say but she's growing and the guitar isn't! The nylon strings stretch at first so lots of tuning in the early days - took a month or so to settle. We are a year on now and only have to make minor adjustments to tuning before she plays. It has been a good buy and I would recommend as a starter guitar. The bag isn't very padded but fortunately she's quite sensible and it helps for lugging to and from school. Definitely recommend electric tuning gizmo too as unless you have a great 'ear' the pitch pipes are way too hard, especially with the frequency of tuning at the beginning.

Well presented but this guitar refuses to hold the notes, continually dropping in tone so we have been unable to use it even though eventually a guitar specialist was paid to tune it and even he found it to be disappointing. We would have returned the instrument to the manufacturer but unfortunately the box it arrived in had been thrown out.

Neither, myself or my husband have any musical abilities and neither does our daughter who wanted to learn guitar! This 3/4 size guitar was just the perfect size for her to learn on. We couldn’t believe how often it needs tuning, but having read reviews, it seems like it will settle down after a while. It’s a very good looking guitar and has a nice sound. I think that it is good value for money for a starter. We bought a little clip on tuner as the mouth organ type tuner supplied didn’t work. The little gadget clips on and make tuning effortless and accurate. My daughter is 12 years old and the size and weight of this is just perfect for her as a beginner. One criticism I have is that there is no option for a strap. There is a hook at the bottom of the guitar but nothing elsewhere to attach it at the other end. Also some parts of the guitar have scratches that appear to have been filled in. This doesn’t alter playability but is slightly annoying. All in all my daughter loves it and has taught herself a couple of times already from YouTube tutorials.

Good basic first guitar for small hands. The main problem with this product is that the plastic strings slip and lose tuning mid-song as the knobs don't grip them tightly enough. A cheap Made in China product - you get what you pay for. Would NOT recommend.

well, I was hoping that this guitar may have been a bit better in quality, I wasn't expecting a "Martin" for the price, but because I own a very good quality Encore full size myself, thought this would be a good starter instrument for my 8 yr old daughter.poorly finished fret ends up the neck, poor quality fingerboard and rust!!! on 2 of the 3 metal strings were not what I expect from the parent company JHS.I own a fretking éclat by Trev Wilkinson, and that is much better and have also played on a few of his Vintage range and they are very good guitars, so I was a little disappointed with this, I have tatted with it and it's now a little better , but I would not buy one again.

It isn't bad for a beginners guitar. I bought it for myself (an adult) to learn how to play. I ought to have gone for the full size as it is a little small between the frets, but that's my mistake. I'm still managing to hit some chords.It's steel/nylon strung, so it has quite a good deep folky sound. The package is good for a beginner to. The DVd is quite clear and consise, but basic. Though it has helped me find my feet as I was finding the books a little hard to follow. the pitch pipes are a nice touch as it did need some tuning.The proof will be in the pudding if I can actually play, but not doing to bad so far.All in I would buy it as a starter, but I could see that once I've learnt to play I will want something more professional.