Jan. 3—While it may be tempting to spend $1,000 or more on a guitar that looks and sounds great straight out of the gate, that may not necessarily be the best option for you.

Many musicians will gatekeep the craft by insisting you must play an American-made model of Fender, Gibson, Gretsch, or Martin in order to be a respectable musician. For many people, American-made guitars are cost prohibitive. While the desire to own one may exist, it's often not an option.

Economy brands such as Squire, Epiphone, Harley Benton, Ibanez, Yamaha, Jackson, and Kramer offer players affordable quality. Many models from economy brands cost as little as $80 and sound decent enough straight out of the box.

In addition to ultra-economy options, if you want to spend a little more money brands such as Fender, Martin, and Gretsch distribute guitars for $500 or more that bear their prestige name, but are manufactured by machine overseas and therefore come at a cheaper cost without the American-made seal.

A lot of what you are paying for with American-made guitars is the American-made seal. There often isn't a difference in quality between a Mexican Fender and an American Fender or a Korean Gretsch and an American Gretsch. The difference lies in where and how it is manufactured. An American custom shop versus a foreign factory.

With a little love, a factory-made guitar can look and sound amazing.

Straight out of the box, you can perform some maintenance that will tremendously improve its tone and playability.

Tighten any loose hardware you notice. Often, factory made guitars are made with cheap hardware that comes loose easily. Maintaining the hardware will give your factory guitar a great starting point to prestige tone.

If you are able to splurge a little, replace the cheap hardware, such as the tuning machines. Replacing the tuning machines can make a world of difference in the tuning stability of the instrument.

Put new strings on it right out of the box. Factory guitars often come with cheap strings that have sat stagnant on the instruments for a while.

Pick up some sandpaper and a file from the hardware store and sand any jagged edges on the frets or neck. If needed, file the grooves the strings sit in on the nut.

Sit down with YouTube and learn how to adjust the action on your specific brand and model of guitar. A higher action makes it easier to play low notes, and a lower action makes it easier to play high notes. Find an action that feels comfortable for you. Lower actions are ideal for beginners because it takes less pressure to play notes.

Once you get comfortable with your instrument and save a little money, replace electronics and bigger hardware. Upgrading to higher quality pickups, nuts, and bridges significantly impacts your tone. Even something as simple as a better output jack makes all the difference.

You may be asking why you should spend money to make a cheap guitar better, and the answer is simple. It goes back to the idea of paying luxury prices for a prestige brand on the headstock and an American-made seal. You can make a factory made guitar sound the same as or comparable to an American-made shop guitar.

For example, if you take an economy Telecaster or Stratocaster from Squire for $200 and you upgrade it over time with American-made Fender parts, then at the end of the day you will essentially have an American Fender guitar with a Squire body for approximately half (or less) of the price of an American Fender guitar.

Especially if you get really good at setting up your guitar and do a solid job with the upgrades, you will fool many into thinking you're playing American-made until they see your headstock.

Most importantly, this modified guitar will be special to you. You will be able to play it and know that you put yourself into the instrument to make it the best possible. That is something a shop guitar can't give you.

There is a caveat to this, however. While upgrading factory electric guitars can elevate your tone to the level of shop guitars, with acoustic guitars you're going to have to pay more for tone.

Electric guitar tone is primarily determined by its electronics. The material the body is made out of has little to no bearing on the tone of the guitar. Putting high quality electronics on a cheap electric body will give you almost as good or just as good tone as high quality electronics on a high quality electric body.

However, for acoustics, tonewood is everything. The material the instrument's top, back, and sides are made out of is critical to the tone of the instrument.

Density and weight are important to the top of the guitar, which acts as the soundboard (meaning it pumps air into the resonance chamber). Shape and the weight-to-strength ratio are what determine the quality of the sides and back.

These factors determine what type of tone the acoustic guitar will produce.

Even if the acoustic is equipped with pickups, they have little bearing on the overall tone of the instrument.

Cheap acoustics will be made with cheap tonewoods. They won't sound good, and nothing can be done to really alter the tone.

Obviously, a cheap acoustic that doesn't sound good is better than no acoustic at all when you're learning. You can always upgrade to a new instrument once you put back some money and have more experience.

All of that to say, country music legend Willie Nelson is known for his guitar "Trigger." Nelson purchased Trigger in 1969 from a luthier for the equivalent of nearly $5,000, and he has played him ever since. While Trigger is a high end and exceptionally expensive Martin, he has seen much better days.

Trigger's soundboard has cracks and holes all in it, undoubtedly impacting the tone. If Nelson can woo crowds of thousands with a more than 50-year-old guitar that should've been retired decades ago, then a good guitarist can make a cheap guitar sing.

At the end of the day, don't let finances be the reason you don't take the plunge into music. Get on Facebook Marketplace, go to a pawnshop, or scroll through Ebay and get whatever guitar you can afford and start playing. The rest will come later.

Legendary guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan said, "your sound is in your hands as much as anything. It's the way you pick, and the way you hold the guitar, more than it is the amp or the guitar you use."

You can begin your journey to great tone on a free or next-to-free beater and still become an incredible artist.

Taylor Lane, an artist herself, is the author of the Artists' Angle column. Dedicated to the preservation of Appalachian culture and artistry and the advancement of the fine arts in vulnerable communities, Lane writes stories showcasing various art forms and local artists, as well as her own art, and how it relates to Appalachian culture and history.