Quote:
Originally Posted by rpguitar
I just found this quote in the long thread. Wow. Really? My reaction is, I doubt it's actually "most," and second, if true, they are playing far more expensive instruments than most pros. Good for them, but does that make sense to you?
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Yeah, so it is true. I am not sure that it is true in every music department across the country, but a confluence of events creates this "phenomenon." I attend CofC (College of Charleston) and there are a lot of trust fund kids; I know lots of students that live in houses (houses, not apartments) that their parents bought (not rented) for them for use while they are in school. Lots of students live in beach houses and drive Land Rovers. Certainly not all, not even a majority, but enough that it is quite noticeable. So a good potion of the student body is wealthy. Second, our tuition is pretty low. Not as low as it was in the 1990s, but still pretty low. This means that a lot of students wind up with a surfeit of financial aid. I know several music majors that have bought really nice instruments with money they borrowed.
So yes, lots of, maybe most, students have nicer instruments than true professionals, at least in the guitar world. I don't think that this holds true for violinists and cellists. There does seem to be a hard cap for students at around $10k (I seldom see students with instruments much over $10k). This buys a lot of guitar (classical or archtop) but it barely scratches the surface of the violin and cello market.
Like I said in an earlier post, I think I am going to do a tour of music stores in the SE over Thanksgiving and try to put my hands on as many guitars as possible, hopefully, one will jump out at me.