Emotional content of an instrument

[apreswho]

This is sort of an abstract topic i suppose, maybe even the wrong sub-forum but i think we associate "vibe" and "mojo" and things like that often with vintage instruments so im just going to roll with it...

As musicians, gear nerds, generally socially and emotionally unbalanced arty types we tend to get attached to instruments, to pedals, amps for no rational reason. We keep things around because we "should," and while i've known a few amount of players that seemingly buy gear just to sell it, i've known at least twice as many that still own instruments for nostalgia based reasons, like keeping the subject of a photograph rather than taking the damn picture to begin with.

Have you ever picked up an instrument that you just immediately felt inspired by? Songs seemingly just poured out of it effortlessly. Maybe it was a guitar you loved, maybe it was a guitar you had no interest in. I've got a guitar that is just my absolute favorite to play, its well built, the neck profile suits me perfectly, and it just ticks every single "mojo" box...but i just have never written a damn thing on it. Almost makes me want to sell it! Similarly, i've got another vintage instrument worth relatively little due to the model/shape its in/etc etc that i've done nothing but write on. I dont mind playing it, but if it walked out of the house tomorrow i wouldnt be terribly upset. I've got a guitar i cant sell because...i dont know why because. It just lives in its case, in a closet. i know this is a sin and it was meant to be played but its mine dammit!

Do you have an instrument you dont use ever?
Do you have a guitar you hate but is creative gold?
Do you have your dream instrument but its intellectually void?

and of course accompanying photographs are always encouraged!

[zhivago]

Interesting subject.

I do get attached to my musical instruments, but I actually don't have that many (I have three).

The one guitar that came close to what you are describing is my '56 Les Paul Custom. I say close because when I got it it had the original super-low Fretless Wonder frets.

Once I had it re-fretted then yes, it became the guitar you describe, If I could only have one electric guitar ever, it would have to be that Les Paul.


To answer the other questions...

Do you have an instrument you dont use ever?

No. I haven't got the space or time for something like this. As life progresses and I get busier, my playing time is more and more precious, so I cannot justify keeping guitars I don't use or don't inspire me.

Do you have a guitar you hate but is creative gold?

No. All instruments I keep are the best I can find/afford/justify owning.

Do you have your dream instrument but its intellectually void?

I do have my dream instrument as far as electric guitars go, and it was all that I ever imagined it to be. Intellectually void it is not

[adamrobertt]

I have honestly never felt this way about any gear. I parted out my first guitar for experimentation. I built a guitar for the first time and then sold it. There have been guitars that I like more than others, but I've bought and sold a lot of them over the years and I can't say I really felt emotionally attached to any of them. It's just a hunk of wood with some wires in it, a tool to get a job done, a means to an end. I've even owned vintage gear that I didn't get attached to. IDK, I guess I'm not wired that way.

[mgeek]

when I get a new guitar or synth or whatever, songs come out of it, and that feeling doesn't necessarily last.

I'm trying to force myself to keep strings on things when they first arrive and just play them rather than immediately taking them to bits and doing the fixes they all seem to need, for exactly that reason.

[raphaël]

I feel this way all the time.

But guitars I hate, I hate playing them...so I try to never buy a guitar I hate .
I also try to reason myself sometimes, with the "just a piece of wood and wires" thing, but it never last long.

With experience I've learned to split my guitars into 4 categories:
- my main guitars, I mean those I play live or in studio, are my tools...they don't really inspire me to create a song, but they inspire my play and my will to play...these are my parts Jag and my partstang.
- my Framus guitars are my toys, they inspire me to create songs, they inspire me to play differently...but they are not my tools. Some cheapo acoustics are very insipring to me too...
- the guitars I love but never play are my precious...like my '66 MM...don't know why, I love her deeply but...I'm keeping them for now, hoping for a new dawn with them.
- the guitars I hate are here to be flipped and to find the next guitar I bound with.

It's hard, I get attached to every guitar I play...needs time to figure in which category I put them !!!

[marqueemoon]

I have a mid-90's American Standard Tele that I love to hate. It's one of the most characterless guitars I've ever played, but I guess I have to work harder to make it interesting. It has a stupid bridge that cuts into my hand and stupid straplocks that I am too lazy/cheap to replace with regular strap buttons. It's a great live guitar. It can slice through anything. At this point I have a weird attachment to it.

[ifallalot]

I won't get rid of my first guitar even though its just a 90s MIM Squier. I've swapped out parts down to just the wood but I've kept everything. I go through phases of wanting to upgrade it but then I just end up buying something else

It is currently in a case under my bed

[julius2790]

This old guitar is the only thing I own that I couldn't do without. It's a 1933 L2 which belonged to my Grandfather (at least a local luthier matched the serial to an L2. It doesn't look like an L2 to me) . He used to play in juke joints up down the Southeast as a young man. He gave it my dad who learned to play and then gave it to me when I started playing at around 11 or 12. It smells like my Grandfather's house and there are grooves on fretboard worn in from his fingers. It's pretty special to me and I recently had it restored. Worth every penny and sounds fantastic!

[Larry Mal]

"Do you have an instrument you don't use ever?
Do you have a guitar you hate but is creative gold?
Do you have your dream instrument but its intellectually void?"

1) No, but I do have so many guitars at this point that I can haul one out and it's a little miniature "new guitar day" since I haven't spent any real time with it.

2) Nope. The variable is me, if the guitar can be made to play halfway decently, and all my guitars are good, then what I bring to it on any particular day is very different. Sometimes my mindset doesn't work with a particular guitar, but so it goes. The guitar is always a static factor, considered.

3) No, at this point I've satisfied a lot of my wildest dreams, and they weren't wrong, any of them.

Sorry to be so boring.

[FightingPlankton]

i have one guitar that's never going anywhere...not because its a guitar, but because it was painted by an amazing artist who i loved very dearly.
It never gets played because i dont want to ruin the painting and partly because the neck feels like a tree cut down the middle.

[Shadoweclipse13]

My first guitar never gets played. I've changed out the pickups several times, and it was my only guitar for 8/9 years. My parent's bought it for me when I was first in high school and wanted to learn to play, and almost everything I learned, I learned on it. It needs new frets (or a re-crowning) and some love, but I never play it. I'm between "I should sell this to some kid wanting to learn for like $30" and "it was my first guitar, that my folk's bought for me, I should keep it". It's kinda frustrating. Anything beyond that one, if I don't like it, I won't keep it. I've gotten away from letting sentimentality rule my decisions. It's very liberating to be able to let go of things.


Abilene-branded (Samick) Strat copy. It cost $145 in 2001. The pickups have since been changed to GFS humbucker-sized goldfoils, and the control circuit revamped.

[spacecadet]

Bought my FMS AV65 JM thinking it was my dream guitar... never play it. Just can't bond with it. But can't really bring myself to sell it either. So it just sits there and I pick it up and look at it sometimes.

Otherwise I have three guitars that are all pretty equal in my eyes: my AVRI JM, my CIJ JM and my 1966 Mustang. Each one has an emotional connection for different reasons - the AVRI was an anniversary present from my wife, and I've customized it a bit and also done some nut work to make it play really well. The CIJ JM I have totally gutted and replaced *everything* on, so at this point it's 100% my guitar. And the Mustang is my only vintage guitar, and it just has some amazing wear from the single previous owner, who was obviously a player. All of these guitars are really easy players too.

This is kind of stupid and also kind of not, but I also have a Squier Telecaster that's a signature model of the singer and guitarist of a band I really like (the Japanese band Scandal), and the first time she ever played the prototype was at a concert I was at. So whenever I play it or even look at it, I remember that concert. It's not a great guitar but it's ok. But I have it really *only* for the emotional connection. It's almost more of a memento of that night.

I have several other guitars that are just kinda there; I like them but I don't really feel a bond with them. But I wouldn't sell them either; one was also a present, one's just too cheap to even be worth selling, and one's my only bass. And it's a cool bass.

My AV65 is my biggest disappointment, and the fact that it disappointed me actually makes me somewhat angry at it too. It's not a bad guitar and I'm sure someone else would greatly enjoy it. I can appreciate it, I just don't like playing it, and that makes me feel like the way a parent must feel when their son goes to jail or something.

[sunburster]

Bought my FMS AV65 JM thinking it was my dream guitar... never play it. Just can't bond with it. But can't really bring myself to sell it either. So it just sits there and I pick it up and look at it sometimes.

...

My AV65 is my biggest disappointment, and the fact that it disappointed me actually makes me somewhat angry at it too. It's not a bad guitar and I'm sure someone else would greatly enjoy it. I can appreciate it, I just don't like playing it, and that makes me feel like the way a parent must feel when their son goes to jail or something.

I've seen you write a similar tale about that AV65 a few times here. Pardon my frankness but you really have to sell that AV65 already! I doubt you'll be anything but much happier once it has gone. It sounds like it's nothing but a source of negativity for you. Get rid of the negative artifacts! Every guitar I didn't bond with, I sold. I don't miss a single one, and the day I box one up and send it off I feel a huge weight off my shoulders. Plus I have some more spending money for something new. It's a win-win.

In regard to the topic at hand, sometimes I associate the date of manufacture of my guitars with certain events in my life, and think of them when I play the guitar. For example, my Sherwood Green AVRI62 Jazzmaster was made in September 1999 (well, the body was). That was when I was starting college and living on my own for the first time, far, far away from home. And I had a car soon after that was also Sherwood Green! I remember those days, and driving around in that car, whenever I pick up that guitar. It just takes me back.

[Embenny]

Yeah, I've had some guitars that I hung onto because they sounds right for me "on paper". But the guitars I play on a regular basis are ones that inspire me to write music on. My best guitars had new riffs/song ideas come out the very first time I picked them up. Whatever combination of the feel, the sound, the looks, etc, just inspires something in me.

It's taken me a long time, but I've finally been offloading the guitars that I just don't like to play.

[sunburster]

My best guitars had new riffs/song ideas come out the very first time I picked them up. Whatever combination of the feel, the sound, the looks, etc, just inspires something in me.

Yeah, this happened to me with all my fave guitars. Funny how that happens. If I've played a guitar for several months, and think back to what I've written on it, and it's either nothing, or nothing good, I know it's time to move it along. Definitely something I consider when deciding whether or not to sell a guitar.