Types of Guitar Usefullness: 5/5 if you're just starting out with the guitar 1. Acoustic Guitar This is the quintessential guitar. The acoustic guitar can be played anywhere with a variety of musical styles. A lot of campfire and folk songs are played on an acoustic guitar. A typical acoustic guitar's construction consists of a spruce wood top, mahogany wood for the bottom (two pieces), and mahogany wood for the sides. The fret board, or finger board consists of rosewood. The strings are usually bronze wound steel. On the guitar body's top is a round hole cut out to amplify the sound generated. There is also the bridge on which the strings with ball ends are held in place with plastic pegs. From the bridge, the stings are stretched across the body, the fret board, and up to the head stock where there a six steel poles with holes to thread and wind the strings. This is usually the first, but not always the best choice most people make when they purchase a guitar. Why? In a word. Action. Most bargain acoustic guitars have a very high action, making the guitar next to impossible to play. In many cases, people give up trying to play the guitar because of this. You do not want a guitar that causes a lot of unnecessary physical pain. If you really have your mind set on a acoustic guitar, at least make sure that the action is reasonable. 2. Nylon String Guitar The nylon string guitar is similar to the acoustic guitar, with a hollow body and a sound hole. The stings are made of nylon and are tied on to the bridge, instead of steel strings with ball ends that hook on to the bridge. There is also a greater distance between the frets and the fret markers are minimal. The sound can be described as mellow. For anyone serious about playing classical music (Bach, Beethoven, and so on) the nylon string guitar is an absolute must. I would not recommend this type of guitar until you have been playing for a while. 3. Electric Guitar Blues, rock, heavy metal, and country are just some of the musical styles played with an electric guitar. In basic terms, the sound of an electric guitar is output through special speakers called amplifiers. The thing that separates the electric guitar from the others is it's built in electronic devices. There are the pickups which act similar to microphones to pickup the sound coming from the strings. To control the sound of the pickups, there dials with numbers (0 - 10) called the volume and tone controls. You can have 2 or more pickups placed on the guitar's body. To change between pickups, a toggle switch is used. An output jack is also placed on top or at the bottom of the guitar's body. A 1/4" jack attached to a cable is connected from the output jack of the guitar to the input jack of an amplifier. The electric guitar would be my recommendation to most people. You may not be interested in playing loud rock or heavy metal music. But playing is much easier than that of an acoustic or nylon string guitar. Development of your technique is critical in the first few months of playing. The easier the task, the quicker you will learn. The muscles in you fingers will have a chance to become stronger without a lot of unnecessary stress. After playing for a while, you could easily move over to an acoustic or nylon string guitar. This will save you a lot of time and aggravation in the long run.