There are a number of guitar accessories that you might want tobuy for your guitar. Guitar accessories are relatively cheap andif you are buying a guitar, you might be able to pick up a gooddeal if you want to buy a number of accessories as well.

Here is a list of guitar accessories to consider (in order ofpopularity):

Guitar cases and bags

Guitar tuner/pitch pipe

Guitar strings

Effects pedals/Foot Switches

Amplifiers

Guitar stands

Plectrums (also known as picks)

Guitar Leads/Cables

Guitar straps

Guitar Capo

Guitar Slide

Headphones

Metronome

Cleaning and maintenance (polish, nut file set, wrench set, fretfile set)

Footstool

Stringwinder (also known as a pegwinder)

Straplok set

Power adaptor for effects pedals

Guitar Cases and Bags

If you plan on gigging a lot or travelling on planes/trains etc.I recommend buying a guitar case, otherwise a padded gig bagwill do just fine. The Kinsman guitar cases and guitar bags area very good quality and are also one of the most popular. TheKinsman guitar bags come in three grades.

1) Standard - hardly any padding and one small pouch for musicbooks and accessories 2) Deluxe - quite well padded, with twopouches 3) Premium - extremely well padded, with large and smallpouches and a shoulder strap.

The Kinsman guitar cases are made for Stratocasters,Telecasters, Les Paul shape, electric, acoustic or bass guitars.

Guitar tuner/pitch pipe

There are hundreds of guitar tuners to choose from on themarket. The best brands in order of popularity are:

Korg

Stagg

Yamaha

Intelli

Seiko

Qwik Tune

Boss

Ibanez

The two guitar tuners that stand out from the rest are the StaggAutomatic Guitar/Bass Tuner and the Korg GA-30. These two guitartuners are sold more than any other guitar tuner on the market.

Guitar Strings

It's always wise to have a spare set of guitar strings to hand.You never know when one will brake and leave you in a difficultsituation. You will need to buy steel strings for electric, bassor acoustic guitars and nylon strings for classical, Spanish orFlamenco guitars

Here is a list of the top brands of guitar strings, in order ofpopularity:

Ernie Ball

D'addario

Martin

Fender

Elixir

GHS

Augustine

Earthwood

Dan electro

Gibson

Markley

Newtone

Savarez

Rotosound

Darco

Dean

Elites

Thomastick

Tonesearch

Maxima

Warwick

Rickenbacker

PRS

Legacy

John Pearse

DR

Effects pedals

For some groovy sounds you will need to buy an effects pedal.The two most popular are the Jim Dunlop GCB-95 Original Cry BabyWah Wah Effects Pedal and the Ibanez Tone-Lok Series SM7 SmashBox Effects Pedal.

Here is a list of the top brands in order of popularity:

Ibanez

Jim Dunlop

Korg

DigiTech

Vox

MXR

Yamaha

Dan electro



Amplifiers

Amplifiers are used with electric guitars, bass guitars andelectro-acoustic guitars. You will need to buy a lead to connectup to your guitar. There are many types of guitar amplifiersranging from the smallest which is normally 10 watts up to 500watts! or more:

Practice amps (these are normally quite small) Standard amps(used for playing in bands or gigging) Bass amps (used only withbass guitars) Keyboard amps (used with electronic keyboards andstage pianos) Mixer amps Speakers and Monitors Combo amps (alsoknown as combination amplifiers) Amp heads

Which brand of Amplifier do I choose? There are a number ofbrands of guitar amplifiers, here is a list in order of the mostpopular:

Marshall

Fender

Vox

Peavey

Laney

Line 6

Mesa Boogie

Kustom

Crate

Carlsbro

Ashdown

BB Blaster

Yamaha

Warwick

Dean

Crafter

Cruiser

Danelectro

All guitar amplifiers sound different. Some (like Marshall andLine 6) are good for Rock and Roll, others have a softer andless bright sound like the popular Vox amps and Mesa Boogie.

For beginners, I would recommend either the Peavey Backstage orthe BB10 blaster amp. The Peavey Backstage is by far the mostpopular and best value for money beginner's guitar amp on themarket.

Guitar stands or Guitar Hangers

There are lots of different types of guitar stands, it reallydepends on which stand is more suited to you. There is thestandard guitar stand, the universal guitar stand, the auto grabguitar stand, the double and triple guitar stand and the wallmounted guitar stand. The standard guitar stand is the mostpopular and comes in three different types: i) electric/bass,ii) classical and iii) universal.

The most popular brands are:

Stagg

Hercules

QuikLok

Giraffe

Warwick

Fender

String Swing

Ibanez

Plectrums also known as picks

Plectrums are very cheap and can be bought individually, or inpacks. Most commonly you can buy plectrums on the web in packsof 6. Guitar plectrums come in different gauges. Usually thethinner ones are used with Classical, Spanish or Flamencoguitars, the medium gauges with Electric and Acoustic guitarsand the thickest ones with Basses.

There are lots of brands of plectrums. The most popular are:

Stagg

Jim Dunlop

Fender

Gibson

Guitar Leads/Cables

Guitar Leads normally come in different lengths: The most commonis the 15 feet/4.5 metre leads. This

length is ample if you areplaying in a band.

Popular brands of guitar leads/cables are:

Ibanez

Peavey

Stagg

Guitar straps

If you want to buy a gift for a guitarist, there is nothingbetter than a nice leather guitar strap.

Levys and Gibson are the most famous brands of guitar straps,Levys have the most comprehensive selection. Other guitar strapsto look out for are Dickies and Wrangler.

Guitar Capos

A capo is a clamp that you can use on different frets of theguitar to change the pitch of the open strings. Each fret on theguitar is a half step. If you place the capo on the 1st fret,all of the open strings will sound a semi-tone higher thannormal, this makes changing the key of a song easy. Dunlop andShubb are the most popular guitar capos.



Guitar Slide

The guitar slide is a tube of some hard material about one totwo inches long. Commonly, it's made from glass and metals. Eachtype of guitar slide has distinct characteristics, tonality, andoverall sound. The guitar slide is pressed lightly against thestrings so as not to touch the strings of the fret, producing asustained tone which can be varied in pitch by moving the slideacross the neck. A quick side-to-side motion is often used inthis way to generate vibrato. The most popular brand to go foris Dunlop.

Headphones

If you want to play at home but don't want to disturb yourneighbours, then a good set of headphones is recommended. Anyheadphones will do, so take your pick from any of the followingleading brands:

Acer

Acoustic Research

Advance

Advent

Aiwa

AKG

Alpine

Altec Lansing

Amphony

Apple

Artwizz

Audio-Technica

Behringer

Belkin

Beyerdynamic

Bluetake

BoomGear

Bose

Bravo

British Telecom Clarion

Compucessory

Cornbow

Creative Labs

Denon

Design Go

Direct Sound

Dolphin Music

Etymotic Research

Fostex

Franklin

Gainward

Gemini Sound Products Genius

GN Netcom

Grado

Griffin Technology Grundig

Hama

Harman Kardon Hewlett Packard

Jensen

JVC

Jwin

Kenwood

Kinyo

Kondor Limited Koss

Labtec

Logic 3

Logitech

Macally

Maxell

Ministry Of Sound MM Gear

Nady Systems

Nesa Vision

Nike

Numark

Olympus

Panasonic

Philips

Pioneer

Plane Quiet

Plantronics

Power Acoustik

Pyle

Pyramid

Roland

Rosen

Samson

Sanyo

Sennheiser

Shure

Skull Candy Sony

Stagg

Stanton

Starvision

Technics

Toshiba

Trust

Ultimate Ears Ultrasone

Unwired

Vestax

Vic Firth

Vivanco

Wharfedale

XO Vision

XtremeMac

Yamaha

Zalman Tech



Metronome

If you want to play your guitar in time then you are going toneed to buy a metronome. You can choose from modern electronicmetronomes or traditional mechanical metronomes. Traditionalmetronomes look very nice and are made from either plastic orwood, they are also known as pendulum metronomes because theticking sound is produced by a small pendulum that swings backand forth, much like the old Grandfather clocks. The Traditionalwooden or plastic metronomes tend to be a lot more expensivethan the electronic metronomes.

The leading metronome brands in order of popularity are:

Wittner

Korg

Yamaha

Seiko

Qwik Time

Cleaning and maintenance (polish, nut file set, wrench set,fret file set)

To look after your guitar you will need to at least buy someguitar polish. Gibson produce a good guitar polish and alsoDoctor Ducks Axe Wax is very popular. If you are serious aboutguitar playing then you might want to have a nut file, fret fileor wrench set. You can keep your guitar in top playing condition.

Footstool

The guitar footstool is used mainly by Classical, Spanish orFlamenco guitarists. Their style of playing and the way theyhold the guitar makes the use of a footstool quite important.

Stringwinder (also known as a pegwinder)

If you have lots of guitars, own a guitar shop, or tune guitarson a regular basis, the guitar stringwinder comes in handy as areal time saver. Instead of turning the guitar pegs by hand, youcan use the stringwinder to speed up the process.

Straplok set

For replacing the bolt that holds on your guitar strap.

Power adaptor for effects pedals

If you use effects pedals then you will need a power adaptor toconnect to the mains.

If you are ready to buy some guitar accessories you can find acomprehensive selection here: Guitaraccessories, tuners, bags, cases, guitar strings, stands andmore...

Please note that the above article makes references to guitaraccessories listed in popularity order. The popularity order ofthese guitar accessories is taken from www.Soundsmusical.com -the leading UK musical instrument website.

I hope this article has been useful and you are now moreinformed about guitar accessories.

About the author:

About the Author Henry Genry is known as 'The Music Guru' and isthe chief writer at Soundsmusical.com. Henry has spent his wholelife in music. He has played various musical instruments to avery high standard, learnt to build pianos form scratch, tunedpianos professionally and run several music and internetbusinesses. He loves to share with everyone his experiences andimmense knowledge of music. Henry hopes that the above guitararticle will