Larsongs wrote: ↑Fri Aug 26, 2022 9:16 pm
Why is downsizing a good idea? Why get rid of great Instruments & Amps you like that you worked hard to get? I don’t get the minimalist downsizing as a mindset? Are you all afraid it’s the end? Or just have no interest in having great Gear & playing anymore?
Well, in a bid to make my gear
actually accessible, rather than just piled up in a heap, with the guitar/amp/keyboard you want to retrieve always buried under or behind several other big lumps, I've just moved from a small storage unit (£60 a month) to a larger one (£132 a month). I also invested in a bunch of shelving units I could've done without having to assemble, if not just buy.
It now occurrs to me that if I still have the larger unit in a year's time I'll have spent close to £1600 - not counting the shelves - on what can only be described, for someone in my position - I'm not in a band, and I may never be again - as sheer self-indulgence.
If I was still renting a flat, that money would've been better spent on a flat with more space, but it feels a bit like I'm renting a bedsit (with no power supply) for my musical gear, while not being any closer to actually being able to use it.
Going off at a tangent, a friend once told me about someone he knows who has had a succession of high-end acoustic guitars which he (says he) buys on the best deals he can find, then sells the current one to fund the next one. This guy's view is that getting to know a different guitar on a temporary basis is just fine. Then he moves on to the next one.
I'm gradually coming round to this guy's perspective, in theory at least. For years I had an electric, an acoustic, and a bass, and it never occured to me that I didn't have all my bases covered. Over time I've built up a collection so large it now needs its own bedsit at £132 a month, aka a used Johnny Marr Jaguar a year. As if that wasn't bad enough, I have some guitars and amps that I've never really used, despite having convinced myself that I need to own them.
For me at least, I think it's time to start letting go of the collector mentality and try to pare things back as far as I reasonably can. Selling a significant amount of gear would give me a slush fund which would allow me to have a revolving 'guest' guitar if I felt the need, as well as a smaller, cheaper storage unit. Win-win, except for probably having to take a big hit on some of the shelving units I've bought over the last couple of months.
Not the greatest time to sell expensive guitars, what with the economy tanking for most, but beginning to let go would do me a power of good. Either that or find a new place to live that come with a music room.