What does owning your xx brand guitar mean to you?

[Parlorman]

I feel like I’m a caretaker for my guitars, particularly the vintage instruments. I’m honored to maintain and play them. I like thinking about everyone who’s played them and the songs they played.

[Skarsaune]

Originally Posted by YamahaGuy

.. Anyway, from the bottom of their line to the highest end ones I've ever played/owned, I have never seen/heard/played one that wasn't well made and that wasn't a dud...

Read that sentence again; I don’t think it says what you meant.

[Photojeep]

For about the last 30 years or so, I had wanted a Gibson. Interestingly, even though I don’t play electric guitar, the guitar I was wishing for was a Gibson Les Paul Custom. I really didn’t know much at all about it, I just wanted one. In black. With three pickups. And gold hardware.

I never owned one but once I got past my “electric phase” I began to dream of owning a Gibson Hummingbird Pro. I’d played one at GC a number of years ago and fell badly for it.

Fast forward to a couple years ago And I learned about the new J15, played one and started dreaming of owning this new model. I could never justify the expense of such a fine instrument so it remained a dream. When my father passed I came into a bit of money and decided I would spend a portion to own a real, live, Gibson acoustic.

I guess for me, owning a Gibson has meant the fulfillment of a long held dream.

Best,
PJ

[musicman1951]

My first thought was, "not much," but maybe that's not true.

I dreamed of owning a Martin in my youth, but I purchased my first Martin about 50 years ago, with a handful of trades to other Martins along the way. I do like owning a guitar from a company with Martin's history.

I love my Lowden for what it provides, but I would love it just the same with another name on the headstock. It's the magic I love, not the company.

[Lakewood_Lad]

I like having nice guitars.

[DCCougar]

Originally Posted by palsed

So what does your favorite brand mean to you?

My guitars feel and sound great. I don't know that they have any particular meaning.

[cdkrugjr]

Originally Posted by YamahaGuy

The tuning fork logo company began making instruments long ago. I don't quite understand why some people dismiss them and their guitars so quickly claiming it's a motorcycle company.

Pretty sure the motorcycle people dismiss them as a "Guitar Company."


They're my First stop when shopping for a keyboard...

[zombywoof]

As Parlorman said, I do not feel as much like the owner of many of my guitars as their caretaker. Some speak eloquently to a specific time and place while others we will never see the likes of again.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by palsed

I was thinking today about what owning a Martin means to me. I worked hard to save for it. I am in love with the tone. They history and nostalgia and significance in musical culture makes me feel part of something special.

So what does your favorite brand mean to you?

I wish I played well enough to do my guitars justice, regardless of their brand.

I think identifying with the brand of the guitar, instead of the music that can be made with it, is sort of compensating for a lack of playing skill by creating a sub-topic within the topic of music. So yeah, in other words, people that focus on brand instead of music, probably don't play that great and can't really connect with others on that level. Of course I could just be a grumpy old guy on a rainy morning too.

Which brings us to the question - do you have to play "good" to enjoy guitars? No of course not. I guess talking brands is just a conversation starter of sorts.

[YamahaGuy]

Originally Posted by Skarsaune

Read that sentence again; I don’t think it says what you meant.

* was a dud * (thanks -- I went back and fixed it)

[UncleJesse]

Originally Posted by RalphH

^^^Well funnily enough, I was riding a Yamaha motorbike when I had the serious crash that led to me getting back into a guitar as a part of my physiotherapy to recover (I'd played through my teenage years but had long since stopped playing by the time of the accident so I decided to use some of the compensation money to buy a guitar).

Perhaps I should have bought a Yamaha guitar with the compensation payout instead of a Gibson, but maybe it would just have been too ironic!

When I got into a head-on collision in my Ford Taurus SHO I turned around and bought a brand new Ford. I figured since it saved my life once, I should honor that

[UncleJesse]

Martin was always what I wanted. Growing up my dad always wanted one but didn't end up getting his D18V until 2001. I bought an X series when I was gigging with one of my early bands. Fast forward a while and I started getting back into acoustic guitar and for my 40th I bought a new HD28. A few months later a CEO7, and this year I got a custom OM28. They just feel right in my hands and there's something about a great American product that I can't describe. I'd love to get into the smaller shop builders in the next few years.

[fazool]

Not my favorite guitar brand but certainly one of my absolute favorite manufacturing companies. I've owned several Martin's (and will again).

When I have a Martin, I like being connected to that incredible four-generation legacy and one of the oldest continually run manufacturing companies in America.

That stuff is important to me so it gives me a really good feeling to "be part of it."

[mawmow]

I am not thinking of my guitars as brand names but in term of sound and comfort.
I love my low cost Eastman AC122ce and Seagull Performer CW QIT as
much as any of my Martin OOO-18, Taylors 322 and 412ce, Gibson L-OO TV
to name some.

[Deliberate1]

I grew up in Lewiston, Maine in the 1960’s. At the time, it was a typical New England mill town where thousands toiled in shoe shops and textile factories for little more than $2 an hour. The refuse from those plants dumped directly into the Androscoggin River, which was identified as one of the 10 most polluted in the entire country. I smelled that flowing cesspool nearly every day on my walk to school, and marveled at the buildings along its banks whose paint was stripped bare from the clapboards by those acrid vapors. It was the kind of place that you loved only because it was home.

In time, the mills and shoe shops shut down, and state and federal law prohibited the paper mills up stream from venting their poisonous spleens into that poor river. And I moved away.

Last year, at 63, I bought my first guitar. And started taking lessons. And I found this extraordinary online resource. My headlong dive into all things guitar included something called boutique guitar shops. And a name that I knew from the past, Dana Bourgeois, was frequently mentioned, and always with great respect. I remembered that name, and perhaps the man as well, from my days in law school and the contra dance scene in Portland, in the early 1980’s. I knew him as a fiddle player back then. And I, as a long time woodwinds guy, occasionally played penny whistle at dances.

I thought nothing more of Dana until his name surfaced in the course of my immersion. And I discovered that the legendary boxes he was making were crafted in one of those behemoth mill buildings, not far from the Androscoggin River, that I would walk by on my trips “down town” as a child. It thoroughly fascinated me that he had resurrected and brought back to life at least a fraction of that old, long neglected mill building on Canal St. More than that, I was surprised at the civic pride I felt knowing that world class guitars were being made in my home town, a place I thought to be distinguished by its lack of distinction.

Eventually, I felt I needed to honor that effort, and acquired a lovely 12 fret Slope D in torified Adi and mahogany. And every time I take it out of its case, I think, we both grew up about a mile from each other. But that is only one reason why this guitar, and its maker, means something to me. It just happens to make amazing music. Dare I say, the sound of home.
David