10 Stocking Stuffers for guitar players

A musical Christmas morning

For as long as I can remember my family has always put a lot of thought into our xmas stockings. When my brother and I were younger we would wake up early sneak downstairs and steal our stocking off the chimney and bring it up to our room to open up.

I’ve always looked forward to my stocking and ever since I’ve played guitar its gotten even better. Now my mom knows nothing about guitars or music but always seems to get it right when it comes to small accessories to sneak into my stocking on Christmas. As we close down on December 25^th I wanted to put together a list of 10 great last minute stocking stuffer ideas for the guitar player in your family.

1. Guitar Strings

Your number one can’t go wrong stocking stuffer has to be guitar strings. Guitar players are constantly breaking strings or needing to replace them before gigs and recording sessions, so we go through a lot of strings. Strings are easily one of the more annoying expenses of playing.

This time of year is a great time to splurge on the good strings too, for acoustic musicians I highly recommend Elixr Nanoweb strings. I started using them a few years back and wouldn’t buy anything else.

2. Guitar Picks

It’s really ridiculous how fast guitar players go through guitar picks. If you’ve ever lived with a guitar player you know you can find these little things in the most unusual places. They’re so small the fall into every crack never to be seen again. The best would be to find the biggest container of picks you can fit into a stocking and just buy it, trust me they will use them all.

3. Pick Holders

If you want to help the guitar player in your family hold onto that box of picks you bought them a great gift for the stocking is a pick holder. The key chain ones are always good I got one of those last year and it was actually pretty handy.

4. Guitar Tuner

Its always good to have an extra guitar tuner laying around, I think I have like 5. These things always break or batteries die and you run out of batteries. Its just convenient to have them around. I especially like the new clip on headstock tuners, they are really accurate and you don’t need to plug them in. I used one in the studio recently and have the tuner right there near the tuning pegs was great. Who would have thought putting the tuner right where the ‘tuners’ are would be such a great idea?

5. Guitar Straps

Here is another great gift idea, guitar players can never have too many guitar straps. Although many will have there favorite its another item where back-ups are a must. Now guitar straps can get pretty decorative and elaborate so make sure when choosing the strap you know there musical style or look so its something they will actually want to wear on stage.

6. Capo

Every guitar players should have like 6 of these, I know I do. Capos allow you to change the key and simplify chord voicing easily. I have capos in about 4 different colors and I am always using them and losing them. My mom has given me a new guitar capo every Christmas for years because she know how important they are and that I’m not great at keeping track of them.

7. Metronome

Having rhythm as a musician is crucial and the best way to develop perfect time is to play to a metronome. An electronic metronome that has a speaker and a headphone jack makes for a great gift. Like most items on this list they are not the most exciting of gifts but metronomes are absolutely a must have for any musician. Some of the new ones out now even have simple drum machines in them to make it a little more fun than just playing to a standard click track.

8. Good Guitar Cable

Another inevitable expense in the life of a guitar player is replacing broken chords. Here is yet another item on the list where its good to have plenty of backups making this an easy gift idea. I highly recommend finding a guitar cable with one straight end and one right angle end. These cables are great as they tend to fall out a lot less and make a much smoother connection to the instrument. You don’t have to spend $100.00 on a guitar cable (even though you can) but don’t cheap out on the cable, they are an important part of the sound and there is a huge difference between a quality cable and a discount cable.

Something like the Mogami Gold cable shown here fits the bill nicely for serious guitar players.

9. Chord Finder

I confess to learning most of my chords on the computer, but a tool I always having with me is a chord finder. This is a little pocket sized device that you can use to find chord voicing that you are having trouble with. If you can’t remember that funky Asus7 just plug it into the chord finder and it will display the fingering for you. This is great for those still learning the instrument. In fact there are units out now that are like a guitar players Swiss army knife as they include the chord finer, a tuner and a metronome all it one!

10. String Winder Tool

Now this is an item I whish I had a long time ago, as I got my first one only a year ago. The string winder is a simple tool that helps you wind the string around the tuning peg when you change the strings. The one I have really is a guitar players Swiss army knife as it not only winds the strings but it also has a set of wire cutters to cut the new string back and a peg puller to help remove the old strings. This is one accessory no guitar player should be without!

Happy shopping

So there you are, I’ve given you your last minute shopping list, so get on over to Amazon and start shopping for the guitar player in your family! There’s still plenty of time to get your gifts shipped before Christmas morning.