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Old 03-06-2012, 02:24 PM
him him is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: North Dallas
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Quote:
mseso I wouldn't agree S6 Original Cedar is beginner guitar. Why so many people are saying that?
It's a class affiliation thing. Here's the deal as I see it....

In class A you have this reality:
Musical instruments are casual recreation with a tiny sliver of "the dream" of getting really good and making it big. They are like basketballs in that.
$100 is a lot of money. Several times what a basketball costs.

In that world, a $350 instrument is a vast luxury. If you look at it in terms of fractions of salary, that is half the monthly take-home pay of some workers.

That's why retail stores in the US typically have more guitars that cost under $300 than over.

In class B you have this reality:
Music is a shockingly inexpensive hobby. Compared to boating, flying, travel, photography, or just about anything else you are likely to do, music is cheap. It has no "future" but you can spend as much as you want on it and you won't come close to the per-hour cost of learning to fly or sailing even a 30' sailboat.

In that world $350 is a day or so of take home pay, if that. It's money that can be spent on a whim without any change in lifestyle or bottom line. It represents a good minimum starting point for a guitar...yeah, you can spend less, but why bother when you won't notice the difference in your finances? (Just to scale things: A Seagull guitar costs as much as a SINGLE lesson on how to fly an airplane can....)

That's why there are so many "diminishing returns" guitars... instruments that cost north of $1000 but are no better than $300 instruments.

Threading through all of that you have the pro musicians... teachers, salespeople, local gigging musicians, and so on who both benefit from (there is no way Seagull-level guitars would cost as little as they cost if Godin didn't sell tons of them) and are harmed (high end prices pushed up, a flood of junk and gimicky stuff to sort through at all levels) by the rest of the market.


So if you take an S6, for some it's a high end luxury item, for some it's a minimal starter instrument, and for some it's a professional tool. All views are correct even though they are contradictory.

Last edited by him; 03-06-2012 at 02:33 PM.
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