Posted June 19, 2009
There's also a difference between classical acoustic guitars and ones that are not... classical guitars tend to have a wider spacing between the strings for better control over plucking, etc, and don't usually use metal strings. 'Regular' acoustic guitars are spaced basically the same way electric guitars are and use metal strings as well (like electric guitars).
I would recommend picking a guitar depending on the type of music you want to play. There are styles that you can only really play on acoustic (classical is hard on electric, as is flamenco, but any metal, crazy rock guitar solos, etc, are not playable on an acoustic and have it sound anything like it should). For getting the basics the acoustic might be better, but I started on electric (my dad also had an acoustic at home so I fiddled around with both) and I can switch off between the two without issues in terms of playing... the sound is of course completely different and used for different things.
I would recommend picking a guitar depending on the type of music you want to play. There are styles that you can only really play on acoustic (classical is hard on electric, as is flamenco, but any metal, crazy rock guitar solos, etc, are not playable on an acoustic and have it sound anything like it should). For getting the basics the acoustic might be better, but I started on electric (my dad also had an acoustic at home so I fiddled around with both) and I can switch off between the two without issues in terms of playing... the sound is of course completely different and used for different things.