tauzero

I went for Ernie Ball phosphor bronze 9-46 (I go light as I mainly play bass and prefer lower tension on thin strings). I've had a reply from them - the Ernie Balls haven't come in on their last two orders, so I've asked to swap to D'Addario 9-45 phosphor bronze. Have had the invoice and literally just paid it. Can't remember what the strings were before, it's been stuck in an inaccessible cupboard for a few years and I've finally managed to extract it. I wouldn't use my selection as any sort of purchasing guide, TBH.

I'll echo what's already been said - making it collapsible would make it more liable to tuning issues. A headless guitar would have a total length only a few cm longer than the scale length. If you had a rigid backbone to the main body, you could have an interchangeable lower wing carrying pickups and controls so you could swap pickup and control configurations by simply slotting in a different wing.

In the beginning, Marc Bolan, in both the Tyrannosaurus Rex and T. Rex periods. Later on, Jan Akkerman (who I will never be able to emulate) with Focus.

I used to like gold tops, nowadays I prefer a natural finish to paint of any sort.

I've got an FG-420E - had it for years, it's a very nice instrument. Just waiting for new strings from Strings Direct (and waiting, and waiting...). Can't comment on the other two.

Both mentioned June 6th, 2023. Has anyone mentioned Marc Bolan and his natural Les Paul?

Parfitt and Rossi seemed to eventually go for a green Tele for Rossi and a white one for Parfitt. Jan Akkerman - black 3 pickup Les Paul Rory Gallagher - the devarnished Strat

I saw them almost 50 years ago - I was a Venture Scout and we'd gone to Torbay camping, Man were on nearby and some of us went to see them. They might well have been the first rock band I saw live.

When you come back: Tuning. There are tuner apps for Android, and I assume for iPhone too. Guitar Tuna is the Android app I fall back on if I haven't got a hardware tuner to hand. Chords. Start with the ones using open strings. E, A, D, C, G, Em, Am, Dm. "House of the Rising Sun" used to be a traditional song to start a guitar career on (there is an F in there too). Once you get reasonably comfortable with them as you'll find them in the chord books, experiment a bit with barres across two or three strings - for example, barre the top three strings at the 2nd fret with your forefinger and use your middle finger on the 3rd fret of the B string for D. Barres. Once you've got comfortable with the chord shapes using open strings, you can move them up the fretboard with your forefinger taking the place of the nut. So if you use your forefinger to fret across all 6 strings at the first fret and use the other three fingers to make an E shape, you're playing F. The same applies to the A shape and C shape, and the Am and Em shapes.

Jan Akkerman Jimi Hendrix Marc Bolan (there's a left-field choice)

I think the forefinger is playing 3rd, 1st, 2nd string on the A and D chords - with the way I learnt finger picking, I'd use forefinger, ring finger, middle finger to pick the same.

I'd be inclined to go with something a bit less expensive than the $4250 Little Sister as a beginner instrument, just in case you decide not to carry on with it. Get some experience, play a few guitars, work out what you want from the guitar, then get one that matches what you want.

It might be poorly set up, or have rather heavy strings on, or both. There are mountains of information on guitar setup on the interwebs. To quickly summarise, you'd need to adjust the relief (that's the amount of bow in the neck - it needs a bit so the strings don't rattle on the frets) and the bridge height. You may even need to adjust the neck angle by shimming it. None of these are difficult, you just need to take things slowly, use the right tools for the job (you won't need anything exotic), and read all of the instructions before starting so you know what you're trying to achieve. Intonation also needs setting when you've got the other bits sorted out.

Thomann's own Harley Benton brand is very good for the price. A few years ago, I decided to splash out in a very restrained fashion and bought a Crafter for £175 - can't remember the model. I was very impressed by the playability and tone, it competed with guitars twice its price.

My main influence is Marc Bolan, in his earlier Tyrannosaurus days. I principally play acoustic (or Variax on an acoustic patch) as I now recognise that I'm a crap lead guitarist.