Looking to start a band, but you're low on cash? Want to lead a sing-a-long in your dorm room, but your wallet's looking thin? You don't have to break open your piggy bank or search under the couch cushions to come up with enough dough to buy a guitar. You just have to know where to look.

Choosing an axe to grind

There's little difference in the learning curve between acoustic and electric guitars. The choice really depends on what kind of music a person is interested in playing.

Tim Holbrook, an employee at Elderly Instruments, 1100 N. Washington St. in Lansing, said whether someone wants to mellow out with an acoustic or rock out with an electric guitar, it's important to buy the instrument from a legitimate seller.

"It doesn't matter which you choose, as long as it's set up well," Holbrook said. "Wal-Mart, Sears and places like that, they ship from overseas and no one looks at the guitar. It's essential that someone looks it over, like in our repair shop."

Ed Reyes, an employee at Marshall Music, 3240 E. Saginaw St. in Lansing, said his store won't go near guitars bought from a department store.

"Our guitar luthier won't even touch them," Reyes said. "Guitars from Wal-Mart are like a disservice to the music community."

Going unplugged

Aspiring coffeehouse rockers should opt for an acoustic guitar. They're easy to play anywhere, because they're free of the hassles of heavy amplifiers and the tangled mess of cords that come with electric guitars.

The main specification to look for in a quality acoustic guitar is a solid top. The surface of a solid-top guitar is made from a single piece of wood. Not only will a solid-top guitar sound better from the beginning, but the guitar's tone will improve as the wood ages.

"It's like a bottle of red wine, it'll get better as it gets older," Reyes said.

Laminate-top guitars, which are made from multiple layers of wood glued together, lack the tone that a solid top produces, but tend to be stronger and cheaper.

"You can get a really nice solid top in the $300-$400 price range," Holbrook said. "We have all-laminated guitars for $150-$300, but they don't sound as good."

Both Elderly Instruments and Marshall Music sell acoustic guitar starter packages, which include not only a quality acoustic guitar, but all the accessories needed to start playing right away.

Elderly Instruments stocks beginner packs from guitar manufacturers Alvarez, Yamaha and Austin, starting at $175. Marshall Music has packs from Washburn and Ibanez, starting at $169.99.

Living out loud

Maybe an acoustic approach isn't your style — you want something that's loud and proud, something noisy enough that the neighbors will complain. That's where electric guitars come in.

Holbrook suggests the Squier Strat Pack ($279.50 at Elderly Instruments) as a good route to go for beginning electric guitarists. The pack comes with a Fender-made Squier Stratocastor, a small 15-watt amplifier, a strap, picks, a tuner, a gig bag and an instructional DVD.

"The Squier Strat is our most popular beginner guitar," Holbrook said. "As a guitar player, it does everything you want, and it does it just as well as an American-made Fender Strat, which could cost upwards of $1,000."

Marshall Music offers the Squier Strat Pack for $279.99, and a similar package from Ibanez for $249.99.

Pump up the volume

Without an amplifier, an electric guitar serves little purpose — that axe won't make a peep without an amplifier to give it some juice. Though starter kits do come with an amplifier, the amp's abilities are limited. Often a starter amp will only have one channel — it won't be able to switch from a clean tone to a distorted tone — and the low wattage can cause the player to get drowned out by other instruments.

"The amp is alright, but it's basically a practice amp," Reyes said. "When you start to jam with some friends or with a drummer, it's all over."

When looking for an amp, it's usually easier to start with a solid-state amplifier. Solid-state amps tend to be lower in cost than tube-based amplifiers, and are also easier for a beginner to control.

Holbrook said Elderly Instruments sells a reasonably powerful solid-state amplifier by Vox for $119. Marshall Music sells similar amps starting at $116.95.

"For most people starting up, a tube is a bit much too handle," Holbrook said. "Tubes are more expensive, and are more costly in the long run because of maintenance and the need to replace tubes."

Strings and things

If a starter pack doesn't seem like the right choice, and you buy a stand-alone guitar, the accessories will be separate. Guitar stores will usually throw some accessories in with a guitar purchase, but only the bare necessities.

"If you buy a guitar, we'll throw in some picks, a string winder, and some strings," Holbrook said.

Elderly Instruments sells Fender picks for $2.49 a dozen, and replacement strings are available for $4-$5 a pack. Holbrook suggests low-guage strings for beginners, but said the brand of string is all about personal taste.

"There are so many different strings, it's like laundry detergent or oil for your car," Holbrook said. "It just depends. I like GHS strings, because they're made in Battle Creek, so I just buy those and keep the money in Michigan."

Practice, practice, practice

So you've got your axe, your picks, your tuner, your strap, your amp and some ambition, right? Well that guitar isn't going to be anything more than a heavy necklace or an expensive bedroom decoration unless you learn how to play it. Fortunately, there is an abundance of resources available.

Elderly Instruments offers lessons at $14-$17 per half hour, and Marshall Music offers a lesson package — $66 a month for a half-hour lesson each week.

However, lessons aren't the only way to learn how to play that six string. Most guitar stores have a wealth of instructional material available for purchase.

"There are plenty of ways to teach yourself," Holbrook said. "We've got books, videos and DVDs for days."

If spending all your hard-earned cash on equipment has left you broke, the Internet is a great cost-free resource for learning to play. Guitar tablature, a form of notation that shows how each chord is formed on a guitar, is available all over the Internet and doesn't require reading music.

There is a number of large tablature databases available online, such as www.ultimate-guitar.com, that offer thousands of user-submitted tablature files. Most bands have unofficial, fan-based Web sites that offer tablature for their own songs, too.

Ethan Conley can be reached at conleyet@msu.edu.