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It's funny ... I don't think I've bought a guitar in 18 years with the idea of changing how I sound. Once I went back to 6-strings around 2004 I had a singular sound in my head and every guitar that came and went I just tried to dial them in to the point where I got what I considered to be my sound and my feel. I don't think I bought them with the idea that they would make me a better player either. I've been practicing compulsively since about 1988 and I've never really thought that gear would make me a better player. I think I've been churning gear for the much the same reason why I did a lot of drugs when I was much younger. It fills the in between time and distracts me from things I don't especially want to think about. As a result I've ended up selling some gear that I really loved along the way for absolutely no reason other than to continue churning (like that Vola Vasti Tele I had last year).
Originally Posted by jads57
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06-06-2022 01:09 PM
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I got my first guitar for my 10th birthday. It was a United Elitone that cost $10 new - and it was probably unplayable, but no one told me. So I learned to play on it Originally Posted by Marinero
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Things like increased resolution, better sensors, increased dynamic range, lower noise, more focusing points, more powerful focusing processors, improved ability to focus on eyes, more powerful CPUs, better image processors all give a decided improvement in newer tech cameras. But guitars are not computer devices. None of those CPU type improvements will help make an eastman sound like a 1947 D'Angelico. How many strats can fender make that sound just like the original? Same with gibson and their historic guitars. Originally Posted by JWMandy
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Well we are influenced by eye candy and needing new stimulus! Much like Jim describing many peoples addictions. Also we somehow hope by choosing gear our heroes use, and or the latest greatest it will supplant our musical abilities.
And it sure is fun until the high wears off and we are back to our true musical abilities, Lol!
I found awhile back while it’s still somewhat fun, I really am missing gigging and the hang with other musicians better than I am.
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I'm pretty sure that most top guitarist have a bunch of guitars, but you might not see them because they don't use them to perform. Some are full blown collectors, but most I think are just looking for inspiration and variety. Nothing wrong with that. Originally Posted by Cunamara
Actually almost every high level player on any instrument I know has multiple instruments. I know drummers with 10 snare drums for different situations. Horn players with 5 horns, etc. Multiple keyboard owners. But most top musicians I have known have been in the studio scene somewhat, so they need to be ready if a certain type of gig comes in.
So it can be justifiable. But 10 Les Pauls, "because they all sound different"? Not so much.
The other thing as I get older, I have gotten much lazier about maintenance. Keeping 8 guitars in fresh strings is a pain! And 4 tube amps, luckily they have older tubes that seem to last forever, but the whole thing gets to be a bit much after a certain point (age!).
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This is wisdom. Gear hunting provides little dopamine hits along the way and a really big one when the gear arrives. This how addiction works. One could argue that this board and others like it are filled with addicts and enablers. Those of us who have dealt with addiction, either our own or someone else's, know that a habit (or even a "hobby") becomes a problem when it interferes with the rest of your life. And when that happens it has to be stopped, period, no excuses. Originally Posted by Jim Soloway
I don't think that gear hunting is automatically a problem. I know a lot of extremely productive people and they all waste time on something. It seems we all have to "turn off" now and then to stay sane. In my opinion gear hunting, guitar maintenance, and the occasional purchase can fulfill that need for you IF it has zero impact on the more important things in your life. It can be the equivalent of watching TV. And I mean that even if you don't practice. I am a professional designer - I make beautiful things for people (or try to, anyway). I put function first, but I still appreciate beautiful objects for their own sake. If someone collects beautiful instruments that he can't really play, that's fine so long as it has zero impact on the rest of his life. If you ignore your money, your health (including mental), or your people, it's a problem.
This has been said here and elsewhere a million times. The problem is that people lie to themselves.
I once read a comment (maybe here) that gear is just "jewelry and purses for musically-inclined men." Sort of. To me guitarists are more like golfers. Every golfer I know is looking for a new club. Every golfer I know will also admit that Ben Hogan could beat him with clubs that would literally be considered trash today. So is every golfer lying to himself, chasing a quick dopamine hit rather than doing the hard work of becoming Ben Hogan? Surely some are. But not all. Just as some people are able to have a couple of drinks now and then with no consequences, some people are able to keep gear appreciation and acquisition in their rightful place.
Jack Pierson exists to humiliate fools who think that gear matters in music. I happen to have the Squier Strat that Jack plays all the time. It's great! I also have a few guitars I prefer in every way. Do I have to practice on the Squier until I'm as good as Jack Pierson before I'm allowed to play the guitars I prefer? I don't think so. I acquired my other guitars without impacting my family in any way. Also, I love practicing more than anything else, but I will never come close to playing as well as Jack Pierson. I suck equally on all of my guitars! Might as well play the ones that look, sound, feel and smell better, right?
Sometimes guilt is the one emotion that's telling you the truth, and that's when you need to listen to it. But if your priorities are in line, and you're ruthlessly honest with yourself and the people around you, guilt is almost always a wasted emotion.
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I think you mean your 'no mo' moment.
Switch to piano or Hammond and you won't have that problem.
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As I've mentioned a few times, I only play the Django-style stuff, and right now that means I only have one guitar (two on the way). Because I've already made the switch to luthier-built instruments, what I am chasing is not so much making me a better player, but things that compliment the tones I am looking for and honestly just a little variety. I love my Gaffiero (another one on the way), but it's sometimes nice to put a guitar down after hours and hours (or months and years) of playing and discovering what a different instrument will bring out of you.
When I was playing rock, it seemed like gear hunting and having lots of guitars was more important than getting better on the instrument. There are people that are mediocre players with a huge collection, incredible players with a wonderful collection, and everything in between. None of them is more right, it's all what we're searching for individually. Since I've found my focus, having a few different types of SelMac style builds will give me more than enough to keep me finding what makes each of those guitars special. In the future, I can see myself trying to get a couple of other builds, but ultimately I think the Busato or Selmer vintage will be part of the search when both my skill and wallet can justify such costs.
Glad you've found and accepted that what drives you Jim, it took me years running from what I loved to finally accept who I wanted to be with my playing. Best thing that could have happened.
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I've always admired the horn players who have one main horn that looks like it was around since WW1, and they make it sing.
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I've considered both Oud and pedal steel. Either would probably take me the rest of my life to reach a level of basic competence though and I'm not that patient. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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As someone who survived for years with a 355, a Tele and a nylon string, I came to the GAS party late. I really will have to get rid of some gear. However, in relation to M's comment, I did bring a newly acquired archtop to a gig where the pianist looked at it and said, 'I can see why guitarists collect guitars...' Originally Posted by Marinero
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I've always loved the pedal steel, so I bought a mint condition used 8 string single neck with 3 pedals and 4 levers about 25 years ago. I tried to master it for a few years, but I never got better than mediocre at it. It was the most frustrating experience of my adult life! So I sold it and swore that when I retired from my day job, I'd devote enough time and effort to it to learn to play one well. But the fear of failure has kept me from fulfilling that promise to myself - I found it to be a very difficult instrument to play well. Originally Posted by Jim Soloway
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Years ago, I sold off all of the other instruments that I owned and played (My last saxophone, my last electric bass, my last piano and my mandolin). While I could play all of them at an intermediate level, I never felt that I would be able to get to an advanced level on any of them as I have on the guitar. Furthermore, I also felt that time spent on those other instruments would be better spent on the guitar in any case. A couple of years later, I sold my 7 string guitar for the same reason.
I will turn 65 this year and seeing that time is running short, I am no longer working on my rock, blues and classical chops. I am all in with jazz guitar. And while I have too many guitars for sure (holding steady at 15). I would rather spend time honing my chops rather than maintaining any more guitars. At some point I may even thin the heard. I may even quit riding motorcycles, as it seems more dangerous with each passing year. But not today.
We each find a "no mas" moment in our lives for various things. Guitars, which are art as well as tools for making music, can be very alluring. That allure can be distracting and when the addiction of buying guitars gets out of control, can cause financial problems for some. While I think Jim's "no mas" epiphany may be great for him, I hope that many fellow forum members do not go that route. I still enjoy the NGDs that happens around here. If we all had a "no mas" realization, this place would not be nearly as cool as it is.
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65 isn't what it used to be - most of us are in far better shape today than our parents were at our age. I'm 11 years ahead of you and (knock on wood Originally Posted by Stringswinger
) hanging in there pretty well. Of course, my amplifiers & cabs are all under 20 pounds now, but I dragged monsters around for far too many years, just like the rest of you.
I share your focus on uncluttering the mind. My wife delicately brought up the subject of my weekly Sunday blues brunch gig, and it appears that she's had enough Sunday afternoons without me. It didn't even upset me to be discussing this with her. I've toyed with the idea of just doing jazz dates for a long time now, and the appeal is growing. I was playing a few times a month at our local Whole Foods before the pandemic, from solo to quartet dates (the manager left it up to me) - and I'd love to pick that up again. Along with my Thursday night trio gig and the occasional outside date, I'm sure it'd be enough to keep me happy. I have a jazz gig this Monday in center city Philly, and I have to admit that all the street violence has me planning out where I'll park and how I'll walk from the garage to the gig. I'm no longer going to accept gigs if the location, time etc cause me any concern at all for my safety.
Apart from a few relics of my past with little monetary but much sentimental value, I'm down to a 16" and a 17" archtop, my Tele, my Tricone, and my trusty fiesta red '57 P-bass. I no longer have a jones for any instrument, although if a 7 string El Rey comes along, I'll probably buy it. I'd also consider a Benny 7 at the right price, but I'd sell the Tele if I did that. I still love guitars a lot. But with a fixed resource base, an impending recession, too little coming in from music to even call it an income (except to the IRS), and the prospect of another 15 to 20 years of life, my wife and I are both realistic and fortunate to have as much joy as we do.
Jazz is great!
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I guess I hit my "no mas" moment somewhere along the line. I set myself a one-in-one-out policy a while back because we have a small place and there's really no room for more stuff. So getting a guitar means getting rid of one. Periodically, I jones for something (currently, P90 Les Pauls), spend way too much time on Reverb, maybe try a few out in shops, and then realize that I don't actually want whatever the Jones-du-jour is more than any of the ones I already have, or at least not enough to make it worth going through the hassle of buying and selling.
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Lucky for me, here in Australia there are a fairly limited selection of archtop guitars about at a given time, so the gear-acquisition-syndrome isn't so bad. Between having two nice carved top guitars, and a good laminate electric archtop, that's 95% of my gigging needs covered. I'm more interested in getting the best out of the gear I have as opposed to getting new gear. With all that said, if a nice pre war Epi Emperor ever appeared for sale, that would change everything, but that's not likely to happen any time soon!
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Hi Jim,
I know where you're coming from. I ended up coming to the same realization myself several weeks ago. I had 3, electric guitars - 2 Telecasters, and the Eastman Pisano. They were all nice guitars, but none of them really wowed me. To top it off, I was spending more time by far playing my acoustics (a Gibson J-35, and an all mahogany Guild OM-120) than playing my electrics. I was sick of looking at 5 guitars piled up against the wall of my single bedroom apartment. They looked cluttered. and in the case of the electrics, were just collecting dust. I didn't want to give up playing electric, but I decided to get rid of the clutter, by doing something that had been at the back of my mind for a few years - trade excess electric guitars, towards getting one really nice, electric guitar. My favorite local guitar shop (Cream City Music) is a Heritage dealer, and had some H-535s and an H-530. I had an H-535 a few years ago, and it was a nice guitar, but didn't do much for me. The H-530 though - a thinline hollowbody with 2, P-90s (shades of Gibson's old long necked version of the ES-330), hmmmm, I'm intrigued. I took it for a spin. It sounded great, and had a neck with enough heft/chunkiness to it, to keep my fretting hand happy. I bought the guitar, and it is currently being refretted with Jescar EVO Gold hypoallergenic fret wire. As of now, I'm feeling like I'm in a good place for guitars and amps, and surprisingly, for the first time in a long time, I'm getting antsy waiting for a guitar (my H-530) to get refretted - yes I REALLY want to play the guitar.
My H-530
Last edited by EllenGtrGrl; 06-08-2022 at 03:07 PM.
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no mas = la paz
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"65 isn't what it used to be - most of us are in far better shape today than our parents were at our age."
Nevershouldhavesoldit
Hi, N,
One of the great musical influences in my early musical life was P.Z.-- principal bassist for the Chicago Lyric Opera and one of the top three jobbing Jazz bassists in Chicago up to the early 90's. He played Classical/Jazz/Show gigs until his middle 80's until narcolepsy ended his career. For most of us who were not savants, musical skills/knowledge/tastes do get better with age although some motor skills may not be as sharp as when we were younger. Back to the subject: P owned 2 basses: an 1865 Hungarian 3/4 Classical bass made by an unknown luthier and a Fender Jazz Bass with an Ampeg(?) 15" bass amp. The Hungarian Bass sold for $68,000. in the late 90's to a Jazzer in Japan who flew to Chicago to receive the bass and then drove to LA and took a ship to Japan so he could keep the instrument in his sight at all time. God . . . I wonder what kind of pay scale they have there!
Marinero
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I never bought a guitar because it would make me play better but buying a guitar does increase my playing time so things improve. In the past 3.5 years I have bought 4 nice carved tops and I can tell my playing time has increase exponentially. That said I am one who worked with guitar makers and repair them so I have connection with them from another angle. They are not just tools for me to use. I am basically an acoustic archtop player and mostly just pick up the guitar and start playing.
Jim I know what you mean in that all these things get in the way of playing the guitar in some respects. For myself as one who has given up playing gigs and never did except a few years during and after college almost 40 years ago. In the end as we age my guess is it is better to prepair and downsize to only what we need. However a I got a few chances on guitars I could not pass up. They were priced extremely fair and did not involve any shipping I went and got them in person. Did not go through a dealer and consider it lucky. My guess is you know yourself well and also you are playing one of your own guitars........That is fantastic don't stop.
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Not that I'm in great shape or anything, but all 5 of my 90's father's sibs were dead before my age, and I'm still working ft. I have to keep reminding them of that every time they say "Why do you need a nap? Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
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