5 Reasons You Should Buy That Guitar: Acoustic Edition

A Completely Responsible Guide to Buying Another Acoustic Guitar

You've seen it. This is how these things begin.

Perhaps it appeared while you were innocently browsing acoustic guitars online. Perhaps you walked into Musicmaker for a packet of strings and made the catastrophic tactical error of looking towards the guitar wall. Perhaps somebody handed you an Alvarez, Taylor or Avalon, you played one open G chord and immediately began performing advanced financial mathematics.

If I don't go out for dinner for six months...

Stop. It's Okay. We know.

There is a guitar. You like the guitar.

You may already own another guitar.

Potentially several guitars.

This has somehow been presented as evidence against buying the guitar, despite the obvious fact that guitars are different from one another and therefore this entire line of reasoning is deeply flawed.

So, in the interests of public service, we've assembled five entirely legitimate reasons to buy that acoustic guitar.

Please use them responsibly.

Or don't.

We're a guitar shop.

1. Because You Deserve It

Let's get the shameless one out immediately.

You deserve the guitar.

You've worked hard. You've answered emails. You've attended meetings that should have been emails. You've paid electricity bills without once receiving a handwritten thank-you note from the electricity company.

And through all this adversity, you've remained remarkably brave. You deserve something made of spruce, or cedar, perhaps iroko if you've been very productive.

There is, admittedly, no established economic framework supporting this argument. Your bank manager may raise objections. Your partner may ask troubling questions such as, "Didn't you buy a guitar last year?"

Remain calm. Last year's guitar was last year's guitar.

We're discussing current affairs.

And there's something to be said for spending money on an object that might genuinely stay with you for decades. A great solid-top or all-solid acoustic guitar doesn't become obsolete because somebody releases Acoustic Guitar 2.0 next September. Look after it, play it, allow the timber to settle and develop, and there's every chance you'll love it considerably more ten years from now than you do today.

Try saying that about your phone.

I mean, they're just so pretty......

2. Because Maybe You Actually Need It

Ah. Need. A wonderfully flexible word.

Do you need another acoustic guitar in the strict survivalist sense?

Probably not.

But let's investigate.

Your current dreadnought is magnificent for strumming, but you've started playing more fingerstyle and a smaller parlour or Grand Concert acoustic guitar would provide a more intimate response and comfortable body shape.

That's not greed. That's ergonomics.

Perhaps you've got a beautiful acoustic at home but you're gigging regularly and need an acoustic-electric guitar with a reliable pickup system.

That's not indulgence. That's infrastructure.

Maybe you own a spruce-and-rosewood guitar but you've fallen for the dry, woody immediacy of mahogany. Perhaps you've discovered cedar. Maybe you're experimenting with alternate tunings and want one guitar permanently living in DADGAD because retuning three times every evening is clearly an unacceptable burden on modern life.

These are problems.

Guitars solve them.

At Musicmaker, this is where something like the Alvarez Artist Series becomes dangerously persuasive. Alvarez has become exceptionally good at producing serious acoustic guitars at attainable prices, with carefully considered body shapes and tonewood combinations that let players explore genuinely different sounds without immediately entering boutique-guitar territory.

A parlour doesn't do what a dreadnought does. Mahogany doesn't respond exactly like rosewood. Cedar doesn't behave like spruce.

Therefore, scientifically speaking, they are different tools.

Case dismissed.

A new Alvarez will definitely make you happy, and won't even cost that much.....

3. Because You Can't Stop Thinking About It

This is the dangerous one.

You played the guitar on Saturday. It's now Thursday.

You're still thinking about it. You remember the neck. You remember the feel under your arm, like a musical puppy.

You remember how the guitar seemed to wake up when you dug in a little

You've looked at the product page seventeen times. You know the specifications from memory.

You have zoomed into photographs of the back wood.

Buddy.

We need to discuss what's happening here.

Because acoustic guitars are deeply individual things. Even among instruments built to the same specification, pieces of wood vary, and your hands certainly aren't identical to everybody else's. Neck shape, string spacing, body dimensions, scale length, setup and dynamic response combine into something much harder to quantify:

Do you want to keep playing it?

Taylor has spent decades becoming exceptionally good at this particular form of temptation. Pick up a great Taylor acoustic guitar and there's often an immediate sense of precision: clean fretwork, comfortable neck geometry, excellent intonation and a contemporary acoustic voice that responds beautifully to a wide range of players.

That matters.

The internet can tell you the top is Sitka spruce. It can tell you the scale length. It can tell you about bracing, electronics and nut width.

It cannot tell you what happens when your hands meet that particular guitar.

Sometimes you play one instrument among twenty and something simply clicks.

You put it back. Walk around. Play something else.

Then somehow you're holding the first guitar again.

This is generally considered a symptom.

The recommended treatment is ownership.

Of course, there is a Taylor for all occasions......

4. Because One Guitar Cannot Possibly Do Everything

We need to address a damaging myth.

The idea of The One Guitar.

A single acoustic capable of thunderous flatpicked chords, delicate fingerstyle, blues, alternate tunings, studio work, live performance, sofa noodling and looking magnificent beside a bookcase.

Wonderful idea.

Unfortunately, guitar builders have spent the last century making loads of different guitars specifically because it isn't quite true.

Body shape changes things. A big dreadnought moves air differently from a compact parlour. Tonewoods matter too, although never in isolation from construction. Spruce generally offers superb headroom and dynamic range; cedar can deliver wonderful immediacy and warmth; mahogany often brings a focused, woody character; rosewood can offer deep lows, brilliant trebles and rich harmonic complexity.

Then there are the properly interesting woods.

This is where Avalon Guitars enters the conversation carrying a piece of Amazaque or Vietnamese ebony and completely ruins whatever financial discipline you had left.

Avalon's handcrafted acoustic guitars are built in Northern Ireland, and their approach makes the differences between instruments especially fascinating. Different body shapes and unusual timber combinations aren't merely catalogue variations; they're opportunities for experienced luthiers to voice instruments towards distinct musical personalities.

An Avalon dreadnought can give you scale, projection and headroom.

A smaller Avalon body can bring focus and intimacy.

Rosewood, mahogany, ebony and Amazaque each take the conversation somewhere different.

Which means owning one Avalon unfortunately does not logically prove that you shouldn't own another Avalon.

We didn't make the rules.

Actually, we may have made that one up.

Moving swiftly on.

Just some of the incredible Avalon guitars in Musicmaker right now. You've worked hard enough.......

5. Because You Want To

And finally we arrive at the most powerful argument of all.

You just want the thing.

There is a strange pressure among musicians to justify every purchase through utility.

We tell ourselves the new guitar will improve our recording workflow.

We need the cutaway. We need the pickup. We need the smaller body. We need the different tonewood.

We need a backup. We need a backup for the backup because apparently we're now preparing for an international acoustic-guitar emergency.

Sometimes those reasons are completely legitimate. But music is also supposed to bring us joy.

If picking up a beautiful guitar makes you want to play more, write more, practise more or disappear into the spare room for an hour because you've just discovered a chord you particularly like, there is value in that.

A Taylor might make everything beneath your fingers feel effortless.

An Alvarez might completely rearrange your expectations of what an affordable acoustic guitar can be.

An Avalon might stop you in your tracks with the extraordinary experience of playing an instrument slowly handcrafted a couple of hours up the road in Northern Ireland.

None of these guitars knows how much it cost.

The guitar only knows what you do with it.

And perhaps that's the only justification that really matters.

You know you want to.

The Serious Bit, Because Apparently We Are Professionals

All joking aside, buying an acoustic guitar is wonderfully personal, and price alone tells you remarkably little about which instrument will inspire you most.

Play different acoustic guitar body shapes. Compare spruce with cedar. Try mahogany beside rosewood. Play an affordable Alvarez and then something substantially more expensive. Compare a Taylor's neck and response with a handmade Avalon. Fingerpick them. Strum them hard. Play the same familiar progression on every guitar so your ears have a reference point.

Most importantly, notice which instrument makes you forget you're comparing guitars. That's usually the interesting one.

At Musicmaker, that's precisely why we like having Alvarez, Taylor and Avalon acoustic guitars sharing the same room. They represent very different approaches to the instrument, at different price points and with different personalities, but none exists merely as a stepping stone to another.

The best acoustic guitar isn't necessarily the most expensive one. It's the one you keep reaching for.

Unfortunately, sometimes that's three guitars.

We can only apologise.

A Brief Guide to Explaining the New Guitar at Home

We feel it would be irresponsible to leave you unsupported at this critical stage.

“It's an investment.”

Risky. May result in follow-up questions involving spreadsheets.

“This one has different tonewoods.”

Technically respectable. Deploy the phrase dynamic headroom if challenged.

“I needed something smaller for fingerstyle.”

Excellent. Sounds thoughtful and ergonomic.

“The other one is in a different tuning.”

Advanced. Difficult for non-guitarists to disprove.

“It's handcrafted in Northern Ireland.”

Extremely powerful when dealing with Avalon. You are no longer shopping. You are supporting regional lutherie.

“It followed me home.”

Last resort.

Musicmaker accepts no legal responsibility for the effectiveness of these techniques.

Come and Play the Guitar

Here's the thing. You don't actually have to buy it.

Come into Musicmaker Dublin and play it.

Pick up the Alvarez you've been looking at online. Try that Taylor you've convinced yourself is far too nice. Play an Avalon and experience what a handcrafted Northern Irish acoustic guitar feels like beneath the hands.

Compare them. Ask us irritatingly specific questions.

Play the forbidden guitar-shop riff. Play it again.

We're not the police.

Because sometimes the guitar you thought you wanted isn't the one that follows you home.

And sometimes it absolutely is.

Either way, you'll know.

Browse all our Acoustic Guitars HERE.

From the Musicmaker Workshop
We've spent more than four decades watching people fall for guitars at Musicmaker, and the symptoms haven't changed much. There's usually an innocent first chord, followed by considerably more playing than intended, a suspicious amount of staring at the instrument and finally the phrase, “I'll have a think about it.” Sometimes they do. Sometimes they're back twenty minutes later. From wonderfully accessible Alvarez acoustics and beautifully refined Taylor guitars to handcrafted Avalon instruments built here on the island of Ireland, our advice remains the same: play everything, trust your hands and ears, and choose the guitar that makes you want to keep playing.

And if you already know which guitar that is?

Well.

You deserve it.