Guitar Stools and Chairs tend to be associated with different genres of music, but they truly are for everyone. Sitting on the floor or a normal chair can be fine for short practices, but if you’re going to take your performance to the top level and stay comfortable, the best guitar stool can help you. It may seem like it doesn’t make a lot of difference, but experienced guitarists can tell you the benefits of a guitar stool.
Benefits & What Makes a Good Guitar Chair
- Mobility of both of your arms! This is a big one. If you’re sitting in an armchair playing a guitar, your movement will be very much restricted, and this is far from ideal when playing guitar, whether you’re a leftie or a rightie, both of your arms are needed for fretting and strumming.
- Sitting up straight. Similarly, a lot of chairs will automatically make you slump back in your seat, not good for playing to the best of your ability, it will likely make it difficult to properly get your hands in position, plus unless you have a particularly strange routine on stage, you’re not likely to perform slouched back in a chair. Practicing this way won’t prepare you for a performance or recording.
- Mobility and swivel. It’s all about the swivel. This sounds a bit fussy, but being able to swivel around in your chair can be very helpful, especially if you’re changing sheet music and playing with settings on your amp or effects pedals between performances, is very helpful.
The above factors make up the majority of the criteria we’re looking at when deciding on the best guitar stools, with a few other considerations.
- Comfort. Okay, you can be comfortable in an armchair, but as discussed it isn’t good for guitar playing. The best chairs will allow for both movement and comfort for those long sessions playing classical guitar, electric guitar or acoustic.
- Price. Of course, guitar is an expensive hobby and spending a bit of money here and there is sadly inevitable, but we’ve taken cost into account and even reviewed some of the cheapest guitar stools to help you make a decision on what is best.
- Foot Rest/Foot Stool. Some guitarists find that their posture becomes pretty bad when playing, and one way people tackle this is a footstool. This can be a useful addition to a guitar chair or stool but isn’t essential.
- Inbuilt Stand. Some have a stand built into them! This is a cool feature, not necessarily important, but cool nonetheless.
The Top Models of Guitar Stool and Chair
Gator Frameworks Combination Guitar Performance Seat
Gator is a wonderful brand when it comes to peripheral storage products for guitar, mainly offering cases, and their offering when it comes to guitar stools is equally great. With a 300 lb capacity, its great even for the bigger guitarists among us. A soft seat and ergonomically designed backrest mean comfort is not lacking at all, and even if you’re setting in for a long session practicing, your butt is unlikely to ache in the process.
These features are what you would expect, but there are some cool extra features which make the gator frameworks guitar seat stand out. Firstly, the stand. Having a stand is helpful both for practice and performance purposes, having a separate stand is pointless. Additionally, it is collapsible and perfectly portable, great for taking to performances. Gator have really thought of everything, they even have bright red patches at the bottom to increase visibility when you’re on stage and ensure you don’t trip on the stool.
There is a small amount of assembly required, which is pretty much inevitable with all these features, plus shipping would be pretty difficult if the product was already assembled and therefore very large.
In conclusion, this is definitely one of the top guitar chairs out there and offers pretty much all of the features we could hope for and though it isn’t the cheapest, it does represent good value based on how much it has to offer.
Alfred’s StagePlayer Guitar Stand and Stool
Alfred’s StagePlayer isn’t the massive brand name that Gator is, but this offers an alternative to the product already reviewed. It doesn’t have all of the cool functions such as coming with luminous feet to make sure you don’t trip, and it doesn’t swivel which can be a little restrictive, but that isn’t but it has to be said this offers a few benefits over the Gator Frameworks model:
- It is an affordable option, available at a very good price compared to a lot of its competitors.
- It comes ready assembled so you don’t have to do any of this yourself. As soon as it arrives it is ready for use.
- Can easily be folded flat in one easy, smooth motion.
The StagePlayer guitar stand and stool is another really good option, there are plenty of people who are sufficiently happy with this and the Amazon reviews back this up with people paying testament to what a good option this is, especially at such a good price tag. One reviewer said “I bought this for my partner and he loves it! It’s at just the right height both for playing and resting feet and it is very easy to just pop the guitar on the stand as soon as you’re done, he also says it is one of the most comfortable stools he’s used whilst playing guitar and is pretty sturdy too.”
Fender 30″ Custom Shop Pinstripe Bar Stool
There couldn’t be a guitar product out there without Fender offering their own model, and the brand we know best for their amazing guitars have a range of accessories out there too, most of which are excellent. The Fender range of ‘bar stool’ guitar stools are excellently built and are extremely sturdy. They come in different heights so you can choose one based on your own height to ensure that you are at a comfortable level for practice and performance.
It isn’t the main criteria when it comes to choosing the best chair for guitars, but let’s be honest, this looks great! It can make a superb addition to any guitar practice area or studio, and the Fender branding is nothing short of iconic.
The design of this sort of stool has less to offer than some of the alternatives. Barstool designs don’t tend to come with stands or footrests for instance, but this is sturdy, affordable and well built. If you don’t need the extra features then this could be the answer for you. Reviews have also talked about how comfortable this product is and the fact you can order in multiple sizes means you’ll get the right height for you. I’m a little surprised that I’m yet to find a Fender guitar chair with a few more features, but these definitely do a good job.
