So now, let's talk about some essential electric guitar accessories.
First off, I recommend some kind of case. I choose what we call a gig bag.
Now, a gig bag is a very padded protective case that is soft and often
times it has straps that allows you to carry it on your back.
this one is professional quality. I recommend a gig bag for an electric
guitar. It's just a little easier to take around.
And most airlines do let you take gig bags into the into the cabin.
you have to have some kind of professional quality guitar cable.
the cable transmits the sound from the strings through the pickup to your
amplifier. Over here we have basically an amplifier.
You don't necessarily have to get a custom Olson amplifier, the way I have.
But some kind of electric guitar amplifier is essential to create the
sound. As I mentioned before, there are some
packages where you can buy the electric guitar along with some of the accessories
that we're talking about right now. The importance of the cable can't be
stressed enough. a low quality cable will not transmit a
good signal and you'll think your guitar sounds bad.
And then you change your cable and all of a sudden it sounds great.
sometimes if you get a low quality cable it'll sound crackly or it'll get shorts,
you know. A good quality cable, and this one I'll
kid you not, is 15 years old. So, highly recommended, good quality
cable. It's a good idea to have, as I mentioned
before with the acoustic guitar, you should have some kind of strap.
The strap helps position the guitar in comfortable way that you can sit and play
it properly. Along with the straps, especially for
electric guitar, I re-, I recommend strap locks.
Now there are many different brands you can buy I prefer these relatively
inexpensive plastic ones. Now, what is a strap lock?
A strap lock attaches, basically to the strap, the other side of the pin and it
stops your strap from accidentally coming off.
And then, your electric guitar, your wonderful investment, crashing to the
ground. So, just for a few cents, you can
actually have something that prevents that from happening.
So I highly recommend some kind of strap lock.
They range from cents. To even like, you know, quite a few
dollars depending on the, the nature or the permanence of the strap.
I've been using these for, you know, 20 years and they've never failed me.
As with acoustic guitar, I recommend you gotta have extra strings.
You just never know when you're going to break a string and you have to change it.
And in order to change it, even though you won't be using the bridge pin, pull
section of your string winder oftentimes it's convenient to have this, to be able
to, wind your new strings on. As with acoustic guitar, some kind of
tuner. Either, you know, an independent tuner or
an iPhone tuner. Or in this case, I do have on my electric
guitar a headstock tuner that's relatively permanently attached and it
allows me to stay in tune in between songs or as I'm practicing.
And last but not least, as a matter of fact most importantly, whether you play
acoustic or electric guitar. You really do need to have a really good
metronome, whether you buy a, a relatively inexpensive digital one like
this one or an iPhone tu, metronome or a, a lot of that stuff is available online
free websites. And last, but by no means least, one of
the most essential things that you'll have as a guitarist is what we call the
guitar pick. there are many different shapes, sizes
and choices that you make around your pick will affect how you sound.
It'll affect how you play. So, later on in the course, we're
going to cover the picks in greater detail.
But for now you can go out and get yourself a guitar pick that that works
for you. And, and also try and buy one or two of
the same, because eventually, we always end up losing these.
so pick out yourself a a few of these guitar picks.
And, and keep them keep some extra ones as backup.
And so those are some essential electric guitar accessories.