Does Anyone Ever Feel Like Selling The Guitars And Vegetate?

[Paddy1951]

Originally Posted by RobKay

I've played the guitar for many years and reached a reasonable standard of playing but everynow and then i just feel like getting rid of the lot and just watching tv or something, does anyone ever feel the same?

Rob(uk)

Just to be sure...

Shifting to a vegetative state and selling your guitars are two different actions, one not dependent on the other.

I have learned that any action that could result in significant regret is not one that should be done quickly or in a poor state of mind.

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by Jaden

I’m kind of sorry to read this but it makes perfect sense. I’ve also been a part of an audience that is not worthy of the musicians. Many times. Musician = pearl; audience = swine.

The best guitarist I’ve ever seen was a solo musician, an unknown and unrecorded save for 40 years experience, just passing through town he made an appearance at an acoustic jam night.

As soon as he started playing (he was all over the fretboard and body of the instrument in a percussive way akin to T Emmanuel) most of the audience began talking and he could barely be heard.

Most of the audience was there to socialize and get drunk.

Music can be sublime - most audiences are far behind in sophistication.

There is that "why doesn't he sing.." problem again. I bet that if he sang, he would have had that audience.

Tony

[GoneTroppo]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

To answer your question, no, that sounds appalling. That’s like volunteering for a lobotomy because having a fully functional brain is too much responsibility.



You must like television FAR more than I do to even conceive of such a question.





Wade Hampton Miller

Too funny Wade!!! And I agree...

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

There is that "why doesn't he sing.." problem again. I bet that if he sang, he would have had that audience.

Tony

Right. He was one of those guitar geeks who had a low, dark voice that didn’t emanate confidence or project well; as soon as he started playing the room became electrified with excitement, which caused the women* to start talking about a million different things.

*reverse the gender of the performer and those audience members and the result would probably be the same.

[Steve DeRosa]

Had some kind of guitar in my hands ever since I got that little plastic Mickey Mouse guitar for my second birthday...

Been through the garage-band thing, the coffeehouse thing, the wedding-band thing, the studio thing, the theater thing, the arranger thing, the worship-leader thing, the hired-gun thing, and a few other things over the last six decades...

Been through an extended lean stretch, when the only "playing out" I did was at my students' homes during their lessons...

Right now my wife and I are part of a band with some fellow AARP-age folks who have also been through the scene, to one degree or another...

We get together 2-3 times a week to practice, take gigs on our own time/terms, and have one heluva time doing it - did our first half-hour TV show in April, with more to come...

For some it's a means to an end, for some it's a hobby. for some it's another item to check off the bucket list; IME for real musicians it's a lifelong passion, plain and simple - as much a part of your essence as any other element of body/mind/spirit...

In answer to the OP, never - and, barring major catastrophe or final demise, not in the foreseeable future either...

[gmel555]

No. Not only do I not feel like it, I never have the thought. Having spent the last 2 years serving as legal guardian of my father and visiting him 3 days a week in a nursing home, I sometimes ponder being in a similar situation. My hope is...if it comes to that for me, that I may still be blessed with the ability to just simply strum a chord or pluck a single string and still have the hearing to appreciate the resonance, reverb or at least a little bit of the beauty of simple note or chord.

[Skip Ellis]

[QUOTE=Steve DeRosa;6123938]
For some it's a means to an end, for some it's a hobby. for some it's another item to check off the bucket list; IME for real musicians it's a lifelong passion, plain and simple - as much a part of your essence as any other element of body/mind/spirit...

I don't see it that way - always been a means to an end for me - nothing spiritual or passionate about it. It's just something that I do but I could do other things like draw a picture or build a piece of furniture, but there has to be a concrete reason to do it.

Oh, and I do consider myself a real musician - been doing it for almost 60 years and made a substantial part of my living from it.

I see a time, in the not too distant future, when I'll start thinking about parting with my good guitars and getting a beater to have in the nursing home so the employees won't have anything expensive to steal when I go.

[M Sarad]

I think of this often. I can sell most of my collection and put in new sprinklers, pay off my mortgage, got to Oktoberfest.

Why must I have a Dread, two OMs, L00, Classical,Weissenborn, three ukes, mandolin, three Strats, a Tele, two PRS, SG, LP jr, Melody Maker, two Tweed Deluxes, Deluxe Reverb, PRS 50 watt H,GK ,lap steel, 2 basses, five speaker cabinets and a suitcase full of pedals?