Why do people want to treat guitars like a life partner?
Itās not cheating on your guitar if you want to play another guitar, your main guitar wonāt get upset if you bring another guitar home. You can even put them on the same guitar stand.
I have a few guitars, I like em for different things and different reasons. I have one cheep guitar that plays OK but I love it because it was cheap so I leave it in the living room to pick up and play all the time but donāt care if the kids kick it over and it gets a bit of new character.
I also have a beautiful Jerry Cantrell Epiphone which I love because it is pretty and plays hard song awesomely.
My thoughts, exactly. Actually, I have a three-guitar stand and have never heard its inhabitants complaining Those are my favourite guitars, I like all three of them very much and play them regularly.
But on a pure reason note, having just one guitar isnāt a good idea simply because something may go wrong with it and youāll have to ask a luthier for help; if the repair/maintenance job takes a week or so youāll be bereft of your instrument for a period that would be totally unacceptable for me.
Besides, itās nice to have several different sounding instrumentsā¦
It has a lot to do with marketing, I think. Content creators comparing different guitars in videos, creating the desire to find THE one guitar, that is right for me.
Hmm, if there is something better, which would in theory be the perfect guitar for me? Does that mean that the guitars I already have, are wrong guitars for me?
I think, itās situational. Many guitars can be right for me. Maybe I like playing one guitar today and tomorrow I feel like playing the other one - etc.
Creating the desire to find THE one guitar, which is right for me, will of course help selling guitars - and thatās fine. There could always be something better, something different to try.
In the end, for me, itās most important to play a guitar that makes me happy. Whether, according to YouTube videos, thatās the right or wrong guitar - does it even really matter?
@JokuMuu yeah my post was mostly ironic / satirical. Most of those YouTube vids are more about clicks and sponsorship.
Every starting out guitarist is wondering what to get, before they just realise the x+1 law
Personally, I hate advertising. And I donāt hate anything so this says a lot about where Iām at.
Other than that. I donāt feel I gotta catch them all.
Thereās always something thatās better or different.
Iām where Iām at. I got three guitars I play. I play them all and it donāt really matter which one I choose today as I like all of them.
Iāve chosen my guitars by how good they sound and how well they play.
Are these guitar my life partner. Who knows. Maybe someday Iāll find one I like better but Iām in no rush to go find that guitar since I enjoy what I have. If something comes along that really grabs me I suppose I could splurge, maybe I wonāt as it donāt matter. I like what I have.
If I play this one today, I donāt feel Iām neglecting anything. Theyāll all get played in the end.
I play today how I feel today. And I for sure donāt let a gob of advertisements dictate what Iām gonna play today. Nor instigate GAS in me.
Disclaimer. When I was looking for a guitar that sounded good and played good, to me. I did watch the youtubes, I did watch the ads. But I had a goal in mind and I think I knew where I was going with my choices. All the youtubes and advertisers say thereās is the best. The only thing I do know is that people want to make money off of me. Itās up to me to not be taken in by this tactic.
I know what I want, I know what I need. I know what I like. All I want to do is satisfy me. Others can like it or not like it. It just matters that Iām happy with the choices Iāve made.
Besides, once ya know the grass is always greener on the other side, ya just kinda give up unless your made of money, which I am not.
Enjoy what tools you have in your tool box. If ya gotta have a new tool, go get it (if you can). If your happy with the tools you have, go to work! Play which ever guitar you want today. Play today how you feel today. There is no neglect involved.
You get this kind of marketing for everything. One bike to do it all. One boat to do it all. One car to do it all.
Even if you are the sort who has no problem buying another because you like it, itās still worthwhile to understand the flipside of the question, āWhich guitar is right for you?ā Do you know which guitar is wrong for you? What do you like or dislike? Everybodyās gotta figure that out eventually. And itās probably better to figure it out before youāve spent your money.
Did anyone else go through a stage early in their learning where we thought the guitar was the problem?
āThis is hard, it must be the guitar!ā
I went through a few guitars at that stage. Of course, it was never the guitar.
I think, at the begin, really any decent, well playing and comfortable instrument works fine. Finding the fit is sometimes a little issue. I like smaller acoustics, for example, but didnāt know that for a couple of years. As I play, I learn more about what I want in a guitar. String spacing, scale, body size, tone. With this, I would like a guitar that fits those interests. However, they are still evolving and may always evolve. That is where a few different guitars come in.
Right now, I have a nice steel acoustic that is a bit bright to my ear, but otherwise plays very well and fits me well. Someday I will replace it with a warmer or darker sounding instrument, but since I really am not yet capable of optimizing the sound I get out of this guitar while I play, there is no real reason or need to change. If it was hard to play for some reason, that would be more important.
The advertising tries to capitalize on our wonder at the newness of guitar, the idea that we need certain tones as if some are better than others, and that the subtle differences in instruments are somehow much more important than they are.
But as a fan of āArabian Nightsā, if the Caliph can have a harem of 1000 wives, why canāt I be the āSultan of Swingā with a harem of ā¦ ahemā¦ severalā¦ guitars???
I canāt blame this on anyone else, BUT I recently was really torn between two very different styles. One was a Blue Epi SG & the other was a green Guild Surfliner Deluxe. Iām so partial to blue guitars & so went with the Viper Blue SG. After, I got buyerās regret & was lamenting about the Guild that got awayā¦ guess what was my gift for Fatherās Day? Yep, my wife & kids bought me the green Surfliner! They both feel, sound & play so differentā¦ & I totally love āem both!!!
So, the moral of the story, carefully choose your loyalties & adhere very strongly to them (but donāt make guitars one of the things youāre loyal to only one!!!)
I bought big dreadnoughts for my first guitars. Didnāt start thinking that type of guitar is bigger than I like until I started playing it a lot and I started to get uncomfortable. I did buy a smaller bodied acoustic eventually and itās so much easier to hold and I want to play it more. Which is kinda the point, right?
Being that blues is the guitar style I want to play most, Iām pretty sure Iām going to wind up with a steel resonator eventually to get that swampy twang sound. But I donāt play blues well enough for a single-style guitar just yet. Iāve only just started to dabble with the blues style so far. And for that, I usually use my Epi Les Paul, which works well for electric blues.
What gets me is that this is such a fundamentally silly question that some stranger on the Internet is unable to answer.
What guitar is right for you? Why, the guitar that looks good to you, that feels good to you, that makes you want to pick it up and play it. And thatās going to vary from person to person. For one person itās a white Strat, for another itās a black Les Paul, for another itās a blue SG and a green Surfliner, or a red superstrat, or even an acoustic.
And guitars are so versatile. Unless youāre trying to play a song that requires specific hardware - 24 frets, a 7th string, a Floyd Rose - you can basically play anything on anything. If you like the look of the gothic superstrat and want to play jazz, get the gothic superstrat and play jazz on it. Telecasters have even used to play everything from folk and country to heavy metal.
Really, we donāt need strangers on YouTube telling us what guitar is right for us as much as they need us as they keep churning out content in the hopes of getting views and hoping to keep the Algorithmās interest.
The problem is that enough of us fail to resist and we click on the video and therefore more similar videos get made. We need to get better at not being drawn in by clickbait!
In my case I think I could narrow it down to one acoustic and one electric if I needed to but itās taken a few guitars to get to that point. Iām never going to be a virtuoso player so I really donāt need a specific model of guitar for each different song I play.
I suppose thereās a couple of different ways to get to the place Iām at. Buy a guitar that speaks to you in the shop and doggedly stick with it so it becomes an extension of you. Alternatively you try several and over time work out the characteristics that suit you (which is the route Iāve followed, not deliberately, itās just worked out that way)
Donāt misunderstand me, if having lots of guitars brings you joy then go for it. There isnāt a right answer to this.
I completely agree, both about needing better restraint with regard to click bait and about the guitars.
Sometimes you may need to experiment to find what works for you, and sometimes you happen upon it.
I found my main guitar partially by chance. I wanted a guitar with two pickups and independent volume controls so that I could turn one of the pickups off to recreate the keyboard-like sounds Tom Morello plays on some of his songs. I ordered two such guitars, and one of them clicked: the Schecter Hellraiser Extreme in my profile pic. I love how it looks with the dark red cherry burst flamed maple top and a matte finish. I love the black chrome hardware. I was always a dark, rosewood fretboard guy, but after seeing the yellow maple fretboard in person I fell in love with it. I love how the neck feels in my hand and how comfortable it is to hold and play. I donāt love how heavy it is, at 8.5 lbs, but nobodyās perfect.
I feel like I have too many guitars at 6, but each has a role. I have my main guitar, an SVK I got because I fell in love with its orangish yellow flamed maple top as a backup, my very first guitar (a cheap Jackson Dinky) for Drop-D songs, a Fender acoustic-electric to have an acoustic, a 7-string Schecter Jeff Loomis for when I thought I would need it for a band, and a 7-string Strandberg Boden for the same band that has become my travel guitar because itās headless and so portable. I donāt play all of them, but I love all of them for what they bring and what makes them unique, and while I could probably part with a couple if I had to, I really donāt want to.
Iād love to add a headless 6-string at some point, maybe one with a floating bridge, and then my collection would be complete. I think.
Funnily enough this is pretty much where I am with a HILS HN5 headless being my electric of choice. At a push I might buy another without a trem for alternate tuning but Iām really happy with my HN5.
I can come up with a justification for my other electric guitars, theyāre all different (a Tele, a 335 etc) but for my skill level (now and in the foreseeable future) I donāt need them. If I needed the cash it wouldnāt cause me great pain to sell
Hahaha, Iāve been good.
Iāve only added one guitar in the past 5 years, the Fender acoustic-electric, and that one I got as a gift.
Itās far too easy to get caught up in looking for the next best thing, but Iām at a point where Iām really happy with what I have and know that my time is much better spent learning to better play the gear I already have.
Those are my favourite guitars, I like all three of them very much and play them regularly.
