Musical Instrument: Guitar or You?

Community Hub 🗨 Just Chatting
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The guitar, of course, is described as a musical instrument.
It’s just a piece of wood with wires attached and has been designed for humans to play music with, but on its own it doesn’t make a sound. There is no music. Hanging on the wall or on it’s stand it’s an ornament. It doesn’t become a musical instrument until someone picks it up and plays.

So that begs the question:
Is guitar the musical instrument or are YOU the musical instrument?

Have a crack at it. No need to get too serious. Could be some thoughtful or maybe amusing answers. :grinning_face:

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A person who plays a musical instrument is known as an instrumentalist.
So no we are not the musical instrument. Next.

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At most, we are only part of the complete instrument, in the same way a spark plug is only part of an engine (and even then I agree with Toby, above)

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….what if the musical instrument is your voice?

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That wasn’t the question :rofl:

My voice and a musical instrument are a multiverse or 3 apart so I could not possibly comment.

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My wife plays piano, so the same thing holds true. Until she sits down and plays, it’s just a huge chunk of wood and strings that takes up most of a room (it’s a baby grand).
I suppose we could put a cloth over it and use it as a high drinks table. We could put photo frames on it. But then it would cease to be a useable musical instrument as she couldn’t then lift the lid and play it.

So of course the guitar/piano/violin/trumpet etc is the musical instrument. It takes someone to play it before it can produce music.
Agreed, the voice is different. The person with the voice is the musical instrument.

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Only 3! You’re pretty good then! :joy:

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Well the definition of an istument is “tool or implement”
So are you a tool.
I prefer Musician myself. a person who plays a musical instrument

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I would consider myself a musical instrument only metaphorically. In that case I would be this:

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I suppose its all just semantics in many ways.:smiling_face:

If I wanted to get all cold and technical , I’d call the guitar ‘unpotentiated’, and myself the ‘agent of potentiation’.

Philosophically, I am the artisan, dancing an endless dance of a thousand visions with my whispering muse.

Cheers, Shane

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Good question David… I think we are the instruments, as a whole not just our voice, in the hands of who is not clear… I’m not religious and I feel in the hands of my own self…but when you think of it a Liuther works to create a guitar…how much do we work on ourselves in order to play it? So maybe we’re the Liuthers of our own selves!

And what about the little birds? They make sweet music too! :bird::bird::bird:

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Ya mi sistren, a riddem pure and true in a rub a dub style.

:dominica:

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For me it would be a combination of both the musician and instrument playing in harmony. Thereby becoming the musical instrument.

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Oh, Sylvia, don’t send me down that path! No I am thinking MY OWN SELF :face_with_spiral_eyes: needs to be stripped down, sanded, buffed, straightened, oiled, restrung and professionally set up. Can you recommend a good Human Luthier?

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Interesting replies everyone.

My view is that I/we are musical instruments. Music is within us. It’s in our minds. We can store it there and we can create it there.
While it’s in there though, it doesn’t make any sound.

Guitars/pianos etc are a means of turning the music in our minds into sound.

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Ergo they are therefore the instruments. We provide the input. Back to square one.

A man can dream of an atomic bomb but the bomb itself is the instrument of destruction. Not the man’s thought.

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Hey, this could go deep. :astonished_face: :grinning_face_with_big_eyes:

The instrument of destruction wouldn’t have been invented if the man hadn’t had the thought.
So is the man’s thought not the ultimate “instrument of destruction”?

Guitars and such like have been invented out of our desire to play music.
So aren’t our minds the ultimate “musical instrument”?

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Hehe, you guys still believe in ‘free will’ and that everything doesn’t just automatically happen? :open_mouth: :rofl:

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How many years do you have to play before everything just “automatically happens”? :thinking::sweat_smile:

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But do we play our minds or do our minds play us? It’s getting a little esoteric to me, but it made me think of this song:

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