Music and Entertainment

Here is a checklist of tips you must consider when buying an acoustic guitar. These will ensure you don’t buy a dud guitar or one that’s not suited to you. Save time and money…read on.

1. Pick up the guitar and have a good look at it.
2. How good is the workmanship?
3. Are there any bows or bulges in the guitar body or neck?
4. Does anywhere look like the wood will split?
5. If it’s a used guitar, how worn are the frets?
6. Near the guitar body, are the strings a long way above the fret board? In this case, guitarists will say the ‘action is high’ which can make the guitar louder but also harder to play. A good guitar can be adjusted so ask the salesperson about that.
7. Turn the tuning machine heads, are they reasonably sturdy?
8. Sit down comfortably and hold it in playing position…does it feel good, kinda like ‘wow, I like this baby’?
9. Next, tune the guitar with a tuner.
10. Play some chords in different positions on the guitar?
11. Play some scales in different positions on the guitar?
12. How does it sound? Nice tone or sound for you? Is it how you envisaged having a new guitar would be? Are you EXCITED to have this instrument in your hands?? This is a very personal choice so don’t let anyone get in your ear too much about this. An indigenous Australian friend once said to me that his didgeridoo ‘found him’ not he found it. Think about that…What he meant was that when he was looking for a new didgeridoo, he played many and then one day he tried one and the sound, feeling, everything just told him YES this is the ONE! The same is true of guitars, believe me. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be the only guitar you own but it could be the ‘one’ for blues, or the ‘one’ for folk music.
13. Anyway, keep playing the guitar…Are there any buzzing string sounds? If strings are buzzing, then possibly the action is too low (strings too low). As mentioned above, good guitars can be adjusted so ask the salesperson.
14. Next really play the guitar pretty hard and then check the tuning. Still in tune?
15. Check the tuning of all individual notes at the 12th fret and see if they are the same as 0 fret (important!).
16. If you’re happy with all the above points, ask your friend or the salesperson to play the guitar so that you can hear how it sounds. Don’t let their personal view override yours if you are happy with all of the above. You want to hear how it sounds to you, not what’s going on in their world of wants and needs.

Remember to take your time to examine and play any guitar you are seriously considering so that you won’t be disappointed. Print this out for yourself and email it to your friends so that they make the right choices. Hope this helps.

Not so long ago, watching films at home was a hopeless experience. You could only buy or rent poor-quality videos with a grainy picture and bad sound. The experience was terrible when you compared to the big-screen, surround-sound cinema.

Now, though, the advent of DVD and home surround sound means that watching movies at home doesn’t have to be inferior to watching them in the cinema. In fact, many people now think it’s better – after all, it’s cheaper, and you don’t have to put up with other people making noises while you’re trying to watch the film. Home entertainment systems (also known as home cinemas) are getting cheaper, better and easier to construct all the time.

So what are the ingredients of a home entertainment system? Basically, there are three things: a source of high quality video and audio, a display for the video, and speakers for the audio. To begin with, you should look for a DVD player. Although you can get DVD players for nothing now, you should get a good one if you’re going to use it as part of a home entertainment system. Cheap players may output inferior quality picture and sound, and might even have trouble playing some DVDs at all.

The next step is a big television, either flat with an LCD or plasma screen, or perhaps even a projection TV – be careful with projection though, as it can break if you plan to use your TV for video games. You should consider getting an HDTV version of whatever you choose if you want to future-proof your system and make your films look just that little bit better.

Finally, you should get some good surround sound speakers, together with an amplifier or stereo system to drive them. Although you can get systems now with ridiculous numbers of speakers, Dolby 5.1 is still the best system to go with, as it is the most widely supported.