Are you new to the guitar world? Or maybe you have recently decided to pick up your old guitar again and learn some new songs. There are some accessories out there that make life so much easier when you’re practicing and playing your guitar.

I’ve been thinking about some of the accessories I’ve bought to help with my guitar ownership – not just stuff that will help my playing, but stuff that just makes life easier when it comes to owning and playing guitar.

A Guitar Stand

It sounds so obvious! It can also sound like a needless expense as you can rest your guitar in a corner of a room but trust me on this one – it will fall, and fall again, and fall hard. Having a stand for your guitar or bass not only stops it from falling, it gives the instrument a ‘home’ – somewhere it always goes back to so it won’t be lying around the place and getting in the way! For me, a guitar stand is a vital accessory!

A Tuner

Even the best guitarist in the world will sound terrible if the guitar is out of tune! Again, it sounds so obvious. Now, you can tune a guitar to itself using one of the strings as a base-note and tuning the other strings to that, but what if that string is out of tune? It will probably sound ok if you’re playing on your own, but playing with others or along to a song… you get the picture. You can download free apps that can help tune your guitar but you’ve got to be in a really quiet place for them to work (old rehearsals where I’d hear the phrase “can everyone be quiet please… I have to tune!” spring to mind here). I have found that the best tuners are either ones that you plug into with a jack lead or clip-on tuners.

Straplocks

If you’re playing bass guitar or electric guitar and you want to stand up, fit your guitar with straplocks. For those who don’t know, straplocks make it impossible for your strap to fall off when playing – and it happens! Somehow, the strap sometimes folds itself over on the bridge pin and slips off. You may have seen the videos on YouTube of guitarists trying to swing the guitar round their bodies and the strap inevitably comes off and their guitar goes flying, into the face of the singer in some instances, straplocks stop all that. It happened to me once, at a wedding, during the first dance (I wasn’t trying to swing the bass it around me btw). I was using a different bass that night which didn’t have straplocks and I didn’t notice the strap had folded over, just standing there, the bass stayed on but as soon as I played my first note, I felt the drop! Fortunately, I caught it before it fell to the ground, I leaned back against my bass amp and just had to try and hold the bass up and finish the song, the drummer saw this all happen and just laughed at me – fair enough, it must have looked ridiculous. Since then, I have always made sure that I fit all my guitars and basses with straplocks!

A Music Stand

A place to put your music. This is one where if you don’t have one, you probably think there’s no point – just use a table or the bed or something, but I’ve found doing those things difficult; I found if I was playing and reading the music and it was on a table, I’d be craning my neck reading the music, and I’d bang my guitar or hand into the side of the table. Putting the music on the bed was better, but then I’d be twisting my body round or sitting with my leg up and no back support, which hurt after a while. Having a stand stops all that, it sits your music upright so it’s right in front of you and it also acts as a ‘home’ for your music, making sure you won’t lose it.

A String winder

This helps so much when changing strings! It’s not an essential gadget but it makes life so much easier. When you change a string, you have to make sure there’s a good few winds around the tuning peg, if not the string will just come off. Equally, you don’t want too many winds – it’s a balance that takes a bit of practice. Changing a string involves grabbing the string with one hand to get some tension, and winding the tuning peg round and round and round with the other hand until the string gets tight and can be tuned to pitch. Stringwinders just speed this process up no end and the string will be tight in seconds, not minutes.