Good UK guitar shops

Subject: Good UK guitar shops
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 30 Oct 06 - 05:41 PM

Twenty odd years ago, when I had a bit of spare cash, I bought myself a classical guitar. I was prepared to splash out a bit but, as it happened, there was only a limited choice in the local music shops. I bought the best I could find but, on reflection, I should have searched a bit further a?field. I'm considering buying a new classical guitar and don't want to make the same mistake again.

I'm not interested in paying for a name just to impress other people unless, of course, that name is genuine guide to quality. I certainly wouldn't want to buy anything that I couldn't play first, preferably on several separate occasions.

So here's the question for all of you British classical guitar experts: Starting in North East Lincolnshire and working outwards, where do I have to go in the UK to find a quality instrument?

DC

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: Leadfingers
Date: 30 Oct 06 - 05:49 PM

Doug - Highly Strung does Mail Order and has a good quality Classical guitar at a sensible price - look at - http://www.highlystrung.co.uk/
The guy who runs it is an ex luthier , who had to stop making when the mail order bit started taking all day , instead of just the morning

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 30 Oct 06 - 06:08 PM

Can you play mail order guitars before you commit to the purchase?

DC

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 30 Oct 06 - 06:41 PM

Stafford Guitar Centre hold a range of quality instruments by British Makers as well as other good classical guitar. If you don't want to go there, they (at least they used to - I haven't checked the web site recently) would send one to you for trial and you could return it if you didn't like it. But if you don't mind the trip over there they're very helpful.

There are also individual makers within distance. Peter Barton in West Yorkshire makes classical guitars amongst others (Kate Rusby uses his acoustics). Nicholas Scott in Chesterfield makes Smallman-type guitars (and maybe others). (Problem with going to makers is that you may have a long wait. On the other hand you can get what you want)

Guitarnotes in Nottingham, as well as being the mail-order supplier of classical guitar music, also sells guitars.

Hope this is of some help.

Mick

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Oct 06 - 06:49 PM

I'd be interested in the answer to this one. I have no idea.

How much are you going to spend, and what sort of classical guitar music, do you play.

Perhaps you're going to buy something really classy - a Fleta, a Ramirez. I've no idea - how much such a thing would cost and where to start looking, but I'd like to know.

The acoustic avalon guitar show is in Leicester in a week or two. the emphasis is on wire strung guitars, but I think there will be some nylon strung ones as well - mainly medium price stuff I would think. All the top guitar makers display there. And there a great nylon strung virtuoso going to play this year - Antonio Forcione. It might be decent sort of place to have a look round. I'll be there, checking out the Taylors - see ya there!

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: s&r
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 03:12 AM

Music Live (N E C)is on in B'ham this weekend - mostly rock, but previos years they have had several top classical guitar stalls. Might be worth the trip

Stu

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 03:19 AM

While a flamenco guitar is, I believe, intended to sound different from a classical guitar, this sounds like a good excuse for a fact-finding trip to Spain.....

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: breezy
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 05:22 AM

'Can you play mail order guitars before you commit to the purchase?'

Need bloody long arms.

and good ears

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 05:58 AM

If you were going to Birmingham you'd want to check out Classical Guitar Centre Ltd, Birmingham.

Or even further afield:

Barry Mason's Spanish Guitar Centre (Cranbourn St, nr. Leicester Sq. Stn, London)

The London Guitar Studio. 62 Duke Street, off Oxford Street 0207 493 1157 (web site was www.londonguitarstudio.com, but is currently listed as suspended!).

(These 2 are close enough to walk between them - about 20 mins).

Or further still:

Bristol Spanish Guitar Centre

I haven't checked if any of these do mail order, but it should say on the web sites.

Mick

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 06:07 AM

TAMCO in Brighton, huge choice of quakity new and used guitars.

eric

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: redsnapper
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 06:19 AM

Roy Courtnell at the

Newark School of Guitar-Making

might be a good contact and their are links to some of his students websites. Two of my best instruments are made by one of his graduates.

RS

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 04:36 AM

Thanks for the replies.

Couldn't make the NEC this weekend but I'll think about the Leicester exhibition. I spend quite a few weekends in Manchester, so I could fairly easily divert to west Yorkshire or Chesterfield. I'm in London often enough to take in the suggestions there. Newark is fairly easy to get to and I often pass through it, on my way to somewhere else. Nottingham is a possibility.

Birmingham and beyond would have to be more of a special trip and, as I would like to try out the guitars more than once, I will put those on the reserve list.

I'm surprised not to see anything for Manchester. Anyone know of anything around there or Liverpool perhaps?

I'm not sure how much I'm going to spend because I don't really know yet what's out there and what you get for your money. As to what type of classical guitar music I play, well, anything I can manage from compilation books of "Classical Music for the Guitar" or some such name. This would include, for example, pieces by Sor, Tarrega and Carruli or Bach and Mozart adapted for the guitar. I can play three quarters of lots of tunes but give up when things get too hard. I don't consider myself to be a classical guitar player but my wife prefers the sound to my steel string guitar. I'm hoping that a better instrument will encourage me to go that bit firther and, perhaps, become a classical guitar player.

I went to my local music shop yesterday and tried out a few of their guitars. Allowing for inflation, they were pretty much in the same price range as the one I bought twenty years ago and played very much the same, so I don't think I'll be buying one locally. I bought a new set of strings for my old guitar and maybe it doesn't sound too bad.

While I was there, I tried out a 5-string banjo and now I'm thinking.... guitar/banjo? - banjo/ guitar?

DC

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Nov 06 - 03:29 AM

well Doug, I'm not much wiser from your answer.

Its quite right what Richard says - the Spanish all think we're bonkers buying any guitars except off them. Spain's the place to go all right. If you can, go there and talk to some of the guys who play this sort of thing as their regular gig. being a guitarist is a sort of international freemasonry. they can probably get you a job on the police force as well.

Theres something really beautiful about those Spanish guitars that they make for Flamenco music - they're very light - made from cypress wood and the sound just sort of explodes out of them, when you flick your hand across the string in a whatever your take on a rasguedo type roll of the fingers happens to be. I bet Flamenco Ted could tell you about how to get one of those.

Have you tried googling Ramirez guitars and seeing what UK pages come up. Or e-bay. They're more classical.

I've forgotten what kind of guitar Paco de Lucia plays, but last time I was in Spain - I checked, and the price wasn't excessive . What you'd pay for a very good Lowden or a PRS. But that would be a real Rools Royce machine.

Banjos are suddenly a lot cheaper. Deering is knocking out some at a very good price - less than £2oo. You could get one of them as well. Why not - we go this way but once.

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 06 Nov 06 - 05:02 AM

Try the Music Room at Cleckheaton, off the M62 at Junction 26 about 1 1/2 miles on the right hand side as you enter Cleckheaton, don't know how good their range of this type of Guitar is, but they do have an extensive range of instruments so you may be lucky

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: Grab
Date: 06 Nov 06 - 05:07 AM

They're not really a classical guitar place, but I'd be surprised if Coda Music (Stevenage and Luton) didn't have some nice instruments in.

Graham.

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: BanjoRay
Date: 06 Nov 06 - 06:02 AM

There are three good guitar shops in Doncaster, within 200 yards of each other in Copley Road which leads due East out of the Market Place.
Ray

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: ossonflags
Date: 06 Nov 06 - 11:18 AM

Bassic got a good deal from Lidle/liddle? Guitar/case/cd and book all for the princely sum of thirty five pounds.

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: Hitchin' John
Date: 06 Nov 06 - 12:10 PM

If you are in London you have to consider Denmark street there are about 10 music shops in 100 yards. There is a lot of electric guitars but there was one shop on the left coming from charing cross road about half way down that had a lot of acoustics including a number of nylon strung guitars.

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 07 Nov 06 - 02:16 AM

well Doug, I'm not much wiser from your answer.

Having looked at some web sites to gauge prices, I think I'd be prepared to go up to £500. The guitars in my local guitar shop stop at around £270.

If you're not familiar with the works of Sor, Tarrega and Carruli, then think of the repertoire of Segovia, Julian Bream or John Williams. In my head I play like Segovia but what comes out of the guitar is more of a plink, plink, plonk


DC

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Nov 06 - 03:01 AM

the thing about Andy , Jules and John is - they were and are, very good. of course I'm familiar with them.

Perhaps your frustrations lie more in the tuition method you have pursued than the actual guitar.

take for example the famous tremolo study by Tarrega.   Whe you hear John Williams play it, it is something special. Its like each note is a jewel set in its place.

And yet (forgive if I'm wrong in this - I have never played classical guitar) Tarrega , when he wrote it must have been surrounded by Spanish folk tunes, and it seems to hang together like a folk piece to me. You understand what I'm saying - those pieces like the Manuel Ponce piece that Williams made very popular, and the Tarrega - you could probably hum the actual melody to a few chords.

When I was a guitar teacher several years ago - every so often, I used to get a classical players through the door and they had got to Grade Three or whatever - and often as not they could stumble through some piece or other - but they all said the same. I want to play something that sounds like SOMETHING.

I think, for most people, its a good idea to have the integrity and structure of the tune in your mind, before you mess about with notation - whether you eventually use those chords or not. Know where you are supposed to heading for!

Also make sure (if you are really struggling) you have the precise fingering - double check your notation with a tablature version. preferably with dvd version for back up.

Sorry if I'm teaching my Grandma to suck eggs. Doubtless there will be classical teachers out there foaming at the mouth - at me having the temerity to suggest an incorrect way to proceed, but the thing about the guitar is that its not a six out of ten instrument. You get piano players who come out of the woodwork and say - I'm at grade six - and people say very nice, even if it sounds like shit.

When you sound like shit on the guitar - people tell you. the world is full of experts. I have found.

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 01:53 PM

There are three good guitar shops in Doncaster...........

I'll be in Doncaster on Saturday for the Folk Weekend, so I'll call in while I'm there.

DC

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: GUEST,once bitten
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 06:07 PM

do not go to Wunjos in St Giles Place - London

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: GUEST,Pete
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 08:10 PM

Try the Music Room at Cleckheaton, off the M62 at Junction 26 about 1 1/2 miles on the right hand side as you enter Cleckheaton, don't know how good their range of this type of Guitar is, but they do have an extensive range of instruments so you may be lucky

Just in case you do try Music Room :-

They have now moved to larger premises further down the road on the left turn at The town hall and they're near the car park on the right.

The Music Room St.John's Works St. John's Place Cleckheaton BD19 3RR Tel [phone]

and also have a branch in Oxford:-
Oxford branch, 27 Park End Street Hollybush Row Entrance Oxford OX1 1HU [phone]


If you're around Manchester have a look at Johnny Roadhouse and the Hobgoblin floor upstairs:-

Johnny Roadhouse Music
123 Oxford Road
All Saints
Manchester
M1 7DU

Phone: [phone]

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: The Vulgar Boatman
Date: 09 Nov 06 - 04:40 PM

Spanish guitar centre, Nottingham Road,Nottingham is very well established, and if they're anything at all like when I used to deal with them,(admittedly may years ago), they should do the job for you. I think Guitar Notes is part of the same outfit.
Chris.

Subject: RE: Good UK guitar shops
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 09 Nov 06 - 06:06 PM

Yes - Guitarnotes is the trading name for the Nottingham Spanish Guitar Centre.


Mick