Let's add another popular stringed instrument to our folk ensemble, the guitar.  Everyone thinks they can play one, but unfortunately, the majority of people are totallly inaccurate in this respect.  Sadly I have to add that there are some musicians who also suffer from the same delusion.

Once again, I am not intending this section to be a tutor for the instrument.  It is just a guide to tuning and a few hints for maintenance and care.

I remember a few years ago when I was playing with a group of musicians, we had our practices in a local community hall.  Now most of us used to arrive by car so the instruments had left home, journeyed a few miles and arrived at roughly the same temperature of the hall.  However one guy used to walk to the practices.  Not too bad during the summer months, but enough in the winter to contract the strings of his instrument and affect the pitch.  So the cry for the first half of the session was always... you're flat!  you're playing flat!  (This is about my accordion!)  By the middle of the practice, his strings had warmed up, we were all in tune and the comment was always, "I wish you'd listen to the others, Stan...tuning is really important when you're playing as a group."...Hmmm!

So with that thought in mind, let's get the instrument in tune.  Guitars DO go out of tune.  New strings do so exceptionally fast after they've just been fitted so listen carefully  to the rest of the group; and especially during cold spells. So you will need to tune the instrument every time you get it out of the case.  Below is the pitch of each string in relation to the staff. The circled numbers are the strings in order from the thickest (6) to the thinnest (1).  Some people number their strings the opposite way so this can cause a little confusion.

To make sure the strings are at the correct pitch and you don't want to  heft a piano around in your gear, I suggest some form of tuning aid.  For local residents I would suggest you  have a word with my friend John Oxley at Market Music in Durham.  He carries a wide range of tuners.  The simplest will do for a guitar, but some allow you to tune fiddles, cellos, banjos, mandolins et al. all on the same device.

There are a few tricks you can employ without a tuner.  In my days, hey what am I talking about, I still use a tuning fork pitched at 384 cycles (G),  to tune the G (3rd) string and use the following fret positions to tune the other strings.  So have a look at the neck and listen carefully, I will say this only once.

Once the G-3rd string (red dot) is in tune, look at the positions of the magenta spots.  If you place your finger at the frets marked, you will sound the pitch of the next highest string. Its then a simple matter of working up and down the strings to tune them to each other.

If you look at the positions of the yellow dots and place your fingers accordingly, you can get the octave of the next lowest string.  Sometimes this is a good way to double check your tunings if you have difficulty distinguishing the same notes when they are within a few cycles of each other.

The blue spots (12th fret) give the octave of each string.

The green dot is the tuning for middle-C on a keyboard.

And that, as they say... is that!

It has been a lot of years since I played a guitar, but I remember the pain and suffering caused by hardening my fingers on steel strings.  A better sound for folk music, I think.  Practice, practice and practice... eventually your fingers stop hurting and miraculously the strings stop buzzing against the frets when they are pressed on to the fingerboard.  Then you'e starting to play.

I would again advise contacting a local tutor.  Market Music have a selection of tutors on their site  teaching classical Spanish style to modern rock, or if you are still not sure, drop in to the market and have a word with John.

With a little care your guitar should last a lifetime and beyond.

There may come a time when you feel you want to add a bit of volume to your acoustic sound.  If you are simply playing small clubs or small outdoor gigs, shopping centres etc., consider buying a pickup and a small amplifier.  Your guitar may already have a pickup built in and a jack socket fitted in the bodywork.  If not seek professional advice.  A single pickup will be more than adequate.  For the choice of amp, don't go power mad.  A 15watt amp will rattle ornaments on the furniture in the average living room.  A 30watt amp will vibrate windows.  Effectively the outdoor range can be considerably more than the size of the audience you are playing to.  All you need is for the sound to reach the back of the audience which may be only 30 feet away.  A simple rule is, if the people in the front row start to bleed at the ears, you're too loud.