Any pickers here? (Not that kind)

Anyone play guitar or ukulele?

Considering picking up a guitar or ukulele to toy with at my next post. Trying to decide if attempting to learn would be a colossal waste of time. I'm not overly musical; I played trumpet a couple years in high school, but don't have much of a natural ear for it.

Still, it might be fun and I am going to be in a situation with some time to kill. I'd been thinking about a guitar for awhile now but came across some stores with ukuleles, too.

Any opinions? Six strings vs. four? (Although from what the guy from the store said, it looks like ukuleles can have six, too -- is that like a mini guitar?) Buy quality, go cheap? Avoid something altogether? Stupid idea?

What say you?

In full disclosure, this could go nowhere. I intended to learn to crochet prior to my first tour and I still have a brand-new needle and several balls of yarn.

 

I have always wanted to play the guitar, in 2017 I bought an Epiphone DR-100 acoustic, really nice, affordable guitar. I follow along with some YouTube tutorials but haven't really learned to play it, I just bash away. Still, it's fun.

 

@Buck

 

I recently bought a Fender ukulele that looks gorgeous. I'm slowly learning how to play it -- Youtube helps -- but I suspect I'll mostly enjoy having it as a work of art in my living room.

 

I thought of four different kinds of picking when I saw the thread title and still didn't come up with the form of picking intended.

 

I'm not going to have much of a living room, which is why the ukulele might be a better choice. The strings looked nylon.

It's very hard to ask intelligent questions when you don't speak the language, but I have a whole street of music stores with lots of stringed instruments. I figure 4-6 is enough for me, though.

 

If you're pickin', you need somebody grinnin'.

 

Guitar is a wonderful hobby. I've been playing for a long time.
Also bass. I just bought a new one!
I play some rudimentary banjo, ukele and keyboards as well.

Played in bands in my teens into my mid-20s.
Now I play for personal enjoyment and really have a lot of fun with home recording. It's just so different than the old days of my little Tascam four-track when I was 18.

You can get a really nice entry level guitar relatively inexpensively now. Not sure about the market where you are. I know you are abroad.
Also, you can get a small-body or parlor style guitar. The range of widely available of acoustic body models is so much wider now.
Back in the day, seemed like you'd get a dreadnought or nothing.

My home office looks a lot more like a recording studio than someone in public affairs, but I just really love it.

 

Also, I played an old finger-busting Harmony acoustic for a long, long time before I ever found out that the instrument's set up could be adjusted.

Also, buy guitars in person, so you can play them. Even with mass produced instruments the variation is significant.
I bought one guitar online - my '72 Custom Tele. I absolutely love it, but I got lucky with it. And I still had to do some mods and get some fretwork done on it after I got it.

Best of luck!

Maybe I should revive my guitar thread.

 

Good idea ...

Guitar stuff