Are your instruments an "extension of your soul"?

Lerxst

Lerxst

spaghetti and blankets
On another forum, non-guitar/music, someone was soliciting for help in suggestions to pass along to the OPs family as they wanted to buy him a guitar for Christmas.

Many of the responses from players on the forum were pretty dead set against encouraging anyone to buy an instrument not hand selected by the recipient because as they put it, 'the guitar is an extension of my soul as an artist and only I can choose the ones that express what's in my soul..."

I call shenanigans
 
Buying a guitar is not the same thing as getting married.

If that were the case, then people on this forum of yours would probably equate all of us with polygamist cult leaders.

I do feel like a good instrument can be a good therapist; someone to sit and have a great conversation with for an hour or two and help get a better sense of what's working in your life and what's not.

But whether we're going with romantic relationships or clinical ones as our simile... It's pretty rare that our firsts end up our bests. It takes time and effort to figure out what works, and a good instrument will inevitably change you.
 
from the OP....i'm presuming this is the person's first guitar. in that case i would get him/her something that plays reasonably easily. sore fingers have turned away many a first timers from the instrument.
 
mongooz said:
from the OP....i'm presuming this is the person's first guitar. in that case i would get him/her something that plays reasonably easily. sore fingers have turned away many a first timers from the instrument.
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Nope...it's an additional guitar but one intended to be nicer than he already owns.
 
Lerxst said:
Nope...it's an additional guitar but one intended to be nicer than he already owns.
Click to expand...
in that case, i would think that buying a guitar as a "surprise" would not be the best idea, unless you KNEW exactly what the person wanted. i've had presents given to me that i was not consulted on at all, and they ended up being given away.
 
I've heard too many great guitarists express their "soul" very well on a cheap guitar to believe that it's the guitar (within reason) that inhibits the expression. The greatest impediment to the expression of my musical soul is that I haven't yet learned enough to do it.
 
That's going a little deep. But who knows? Maybe the wand picks the wizard? Maybe we should all shop at Ollivander's guitar shop.

Wands_display_at_Ollivander's_Shop_(1991).JPG


But seriously, if the instrument is good enough to allow for decent play, should work for reasonable levels of expression. That said, if buying in person is an option, I prefer it.
 
My guitars help me, if one wants to be fanciful, communicate what is in my soul, but I don't see it as some mystical avatar of my soul, creativity, or anything else.

Then again, I used to not trim my guitar strings because I didn't want to destroy the soul of the string, so I'm a bundle of contradictions. :hippie:
 
That's going a little deep. But who knows? Maybe the wand picks the wizard? Maybe we should all shop at Ollivander's guitar shop.

View attachment 24480

But seriously, if the instrument is good enough to allow for decent play, should work for reasonable levels of expression. That said, if buying in person is an option, I prefer it.

My experience as a middle aged guitarist supports this. I shopped long and hard for my first electric. (My first was an inexpensive acoustic my wife bought for me). I did experience different enjoyment with different instruments I tried at the store, and settled on the one that seemed to click with me the most. I learned on that guitar, learned how to play clean barre chords on it, which for me was nearly as good as meditation for bringing me present, played with my eyes closed learning songs and trying to express, and feeling like I was. I still love that first guitar. However, I play a different one more often now. It is a pickups thing mostly. And lately, I have been into a different sound.
 
I'm going to say one thing that should be an obvious:

If the beginner wants a classical, don't buy a dred.

If the beginner wants a strat, don't buy a classical.

If the beginner wants archtop, don't buy a superstrat.

If the beginner wants a superstrat, buy a nice watch or coffee maker instead.

Within reason, and all else being relatively equal, get what suits their ambitions. Learning a new instrument is tough enough, incentives and disincentives make huge differences.
 
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Gary Blanchard said:
My guitars help me, if one wants to be fanciful, communicate what is in my soul, but I don't see it as some mystical avatar of my soul, creativity, or anything else.

Then again, I used to not trim my guitar strings because I didn't want to destroy the soul of the string, so I'm a bundle of contradictions. :hippie:
Click to expand...
I've never heard of that and l'm a hippie too. Lol.
 
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