Traditional/ Folk Guitar

motley

After a while playing mainly rock and pop stuff, Ive started to get interested in Trad. Obviously my acoustic wont do so im looking to purchase a traditional/folk guitar.

Im wondering is the traditional the same as the classical guitar or are there differences? And what would you recommend for around €200 - €300? Thanks

Bratach Bán

Not quite sure what you mean here...

By trad, do you mean playing the melodies of jigs and reels, or do you ant to play a rhythm accompaniment at a session? Either way, your acoustic will sound fine - there is no traditional folk guitar as such. Bert Jansch, Martin Simpson, John Renbourn and Richard Thompson all use standard steel string acoustic guitars for playing trad.

The real key to playing trad guitar is the use of tunings - open E (EBEG#BE low to high), open D (DADF#AD) or DADGAD are all used.

For what it's worth, I play trad on a Stratocaster, which just goes to show that there is no real 'trad' guitar.

fish-head

Yeah it's not really anything to do with the guitar when playing trad, it's the technique.

motley

Its just that when I do see the odd session, the guitarist is usually playing a classical or variation with nylon strings instead of normal strings. But i'll get practisisng on the technique anyway. Thanks for the help.