What is action and how does it affect my playing?
The term “action” refers to string height, or to be even more precise, the distance between the top of the frets and the bottom of your strings. If action is too high, the guitar will be hard to play and nearly impossible for a student to learn on… in extreme cases, it can actually make a guitar impossible to tune. If the action is too low, the guitar will suffer from horrible fret buzz. Most people will agree that guitars with low action are easier to play, but it all comes down to personal preferance. Q: What are the benefits of guitars with different scale lengths? A: The best way to explain this would be to compare a Fender Stratocaster with a Gibson Les Paul. The Fender has a longer 25.5″ scale length and the Gibson Les Paul has a shorter 24.75″ scale length. If both guitars are setup exactly the same, the Gibson will be easier to play. This is because it takes less tension to tune each string to pitch with a shorter scale length. The frets are also spaced closer together which
The term “action” refers to string height, or to be even more precise, the distance between the top of the frets and the bottom of your strings. If action is too high, the guitar will be hard to play and nearly impossible for a student to learn on… in extreme cases, it can actually make a guitar impossible to tune. If the action is too low, the guitar will suffer from horrible fret buzz. Most people will agree that guitars with low action are easier to play, but it all comes down to personal preferance.
