More Than One Guitar

[TBman]

I have a few and I only want one more....

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by DukeX

4 acoustics, 2 electrics, 3 amps.

If I wasn’t married I’d have more.

I am, and I do - of course, it helps if your wife also plays...

[The Bard Rocks]

Originally Posted by calvanesebob

I have never owned more than one guitar at a time, except for once. I owned 2 acoustic guitars, and it drove me so crazy that I sold one to an open mic buddy who happened to need a guitar.

If I started playing one, I felt like I was cheating on the other one or something...

I know it sounds crazy, and I don't know why I feel this way. Maybe I am crazy...LOL

I have been thinking about getting a Stratocaster, but I already own a Martin D-28 which I love. I never tried to own and acoustic and an electric guitar at the same time, so I don't know how I will handle it...

Any advice from any other crazy people out there?... LOL

Sounds like a marriage. A successful one.

[blindboyjimi]

If you play piano, you’d most likely have just one. And if I were a professional and employed a tech, I may just have “the one”. If I needed money, I’d for certain, have just one. But luckily, I have very few hobbies outside of guitars and I like vintage guitars. So how does one go from a player to a collector?

Being a blues guy one may want an early 30s L-00, and maybe a mid 30s 00-17 as Mahogany topped guitars definitely sound cool in a quite unique way compared to an L-00, maybe an 00-18....but with a twist, like a 12 fret 00-18H from the mid 30s since the other 2 are both 14 fret, and speaking of 14 frets, an 000-18 with an Adirondack top has a lot more power, bass and is smoother yet still quite bluesy and funky...what about a mid 30s 000-18?

Yet, after a long hunts and wild goose chases and getting the best I could afford, you wouldn’t want to practice on the vintage guitars, and put on the mileage. I am not Vince Gill. Today, I played the same 4 measures for 90 minutes over and over until I got it to speed. Waterloo’s are actually quite amazing at reproducing that era so I’ll take one of those, but make it a 12 fret and Maple so it’s a bit different from all those old Mahogany guitars.

My all time favorite modern Martin is a 12 fret, wide necked, short scale OM-bodied guitar that would for certain be the guitar I’d choose if I could only keep one. I’m at 6 now and they’re all short scale and Mahogany or Maple. What if I want to play some classical, fingerstyle or dropped tunings with lush overtones....maybe Rosewood?

Ok, so a classical..or 2, since I actually love my practice guitar almost as much as my fancy one and one is a cedar top while the other spruce topped so might as well keep both. So now I’m at 8...The fingerstyle guitars would be classic for an OM-18, an OM-28 and a 12 fret 000 in long scale with a cutaway and that gets me to 11. One could stop there but just for completion sake what if one OM-28 was dedicated to DADGAD, DADF#AD and Slack key DGDGBD tunings. They really do best with a specific set up and strings for such slack tunings. Finally, the newest to me is a dreadnaught. Of course, I could learn to flatpick on any guitar, and I have a world-class OM for that, but 3 OM-28s are too much repetition in a collection and it’d be fun to grab a classic Dreadnaught in Rosewood with a beefy 1 11/16” neck to really have some fun even for a Blues fingerpicker, fingerstyle, occasional slack key player, who dabbles in classical and wait for it...Bluegrass? (So far it’s WAY harder than predicted). That leaves me at 13 in the home with 2 more away on consignment. I feel pretty good as I’ve resisted the resonators, the jumbos, and the archtops in the For Sale section....but seriously, you can only play one at a time and all I need is my 2007 000-18NB which has already had a re-fret, a fret dressing, a bridge re-glue and a neck re-set...yep, I play them all but this one the most.

In order mentioned:
(1) 1935 Gibson L-00
(2) 1937 Martin 00-17
(3) 1937 Martin 00-18H
(4) 1936 Martin 000-18
(5) 1937 Martin 000-18 (for sale since the ‘36 was the only year for the Brazilian fretboard and bridge)
(6) 2018 Waterloo WL-12 Adirondack/Maple
(7) 2007 Martin 000-18NB Italian/Mahogany
(8) 2004 Cervantes Master C Signature Cedar/Brazilian classical
(9) 2007 Steven Walter Millennium Spruce/Brazilian classical
(10) 2013 Julius Borges OM-18
(11) 1989 Franklin German/Brazilian OM-42 style
(12) 2005 Bruce Sexauer 000-12c Italian/Cocobolo
(13) 1980 Franklin OM-28 German/Brazilian which stays in altered tunings
(14) 1979 Franklin Dreadnaught German/Amazon Rosewood
(15) 2000 Bill Tippin OMT Sitka/EIR (for sale as this was the previous flat picking monster guitar)

[BillyMays]

I have no desire to have just one guitar. Every guitar has a purpose and special "talent". My current problem is that my most collectable guitar is also the best playing. I want to shred the heck out of it, but I fear scratching it....what a quandary!

[Ray175]

I have 11 guiitars, a Martin 6 a Martin 12, a bass a mandoline and the rest are various electrics - vintage Gibson archtop, semi, vintage strat, Gretsch and a few others. Each of them draws out different playing approaches from me so when I find an idea that one guitar has "generated" I try it on other guitars in a different musical idiom - I finf it's just another route to creativity..

[egordon99]

I play all the guitars in my signature on a regular basis. I also have two pianos and a bunch of synths that also get played regularly.

I also am probably going to add another Martin to my stable shortly. It will also get played regularly.

The only time I owned one guitar was back in 1987 when I first started playing.

[mawmow]

Well, each one follows his own way...

I play for my own pleasure but would get bored playing always hearing same sounds :
As I would not change strings every week, I own many guitars that sound different.

[RP]

Hey OP, why not keep your guitars in separate bedrooms and try not to make too much noise when you're playing one or the other...

[ataylor]

Guitars are like camera lenses. One can absolutely get wonderful photographs with a single lens, whether it’s a fixed prime lens or a basic zoom, but just as many photographers want to be able to select from a range of lenses based on a certain subject or setting, some guitarists find it useful having different guitars for certain sounds or songs to expand their sonic palette.

Sometimes these differences are pretty visible, like a photographer who might use a huge, long-length zoom lens for photographing wildlife, only to switch moments later to a wide-angle prime lens for a landscape shot. For a guitarist, this might be a switch between an acoustic and electric guitar for different layers of contrast in a recording.

Other times it might be more subtle, like a photographer who has a range of prime/fixed portrait lenses in his bag and carefully makes his selection based on small changes in distance and available light. This might be like a guitarist who has a number of acoustic guitars with small differences in body shape and/or tone woods and values each for subtle differences in how they play and sound.

But as I mentioned, there are likely professional photographers out there who largely use just one lens and get a range of stunning shots, just as there are guitarists who have been prolific and versatile with a single guitar.

No wrong way to do it!

[Geof S.]

About a year ago I downsized from over 20 to 8 acoustic guitars. Or, to be more accurate, I downsized to 5 acoustics and then bought 3 more, leaving me with 8.

At this point, I am unlikely to reduce that number by much because I am very happy with the guitars I have left. (I have one guitar I am still on the fence about keeping.)

It is true that 2 of the 8 remaining guitars get most of my playing time, and that one of them (the classical) is rarely played these days. But I have desire to sell any of them, and like having them available. Variety is the spice of life!

From a practical point of view, 8 acoustic guitars are more than I can justify. But playing guitar is a form of recreation for me - not a business - and I feel no need to be practical about it.

[Mandobart]

My guitars are all pretty different from each other. My first guitar, a 70's Applause is on loan to my daughter so I never play it. Then there's the Ovation 12 string, my Eastman archtop, Altamira Sel-Mac copy, Martin HD-28 and round neck wood bodied resonator. Then there's a whole mess of other stringed instruments....

I tend to get (somewhat) attached to certain inanimate objects without anthropormorphizing them. It would never occur to me that I was "cheating" on all my other instruments when I'm playing one. I don't feel like I'm cheating on my Harley when I'm driving my pickup or my Subaru either. I can't haul wood or commute in the snow on my bike.

[rstaight]

Originally Posted by DukeX

If I wasn’t married I’d have more.

That says it all.

[stormin1155]

You know there's something I really admire about you (the OP and others with just one guitar). You have focus. Your guitar has a purpose. You are probably a better player and know more songs than I do.

I honestly can't tell you how many guitars I have. I can tell you how many are hanging in my studio, and a few more in cases, and a couple downstairs, and a couple in my shop, and a couple I leave at church. But then there is this back room stacked full of stuff, and I have no clue how many guitars are back there. I accumulate guitars to fix up to give away to kids, I have various projects that I hope to get to someday, and some I've just forgotten.

It's stuff... stuff that I enjoy. I enjoy playing them. I enjoy tinkering on them. I enjoy just looking at them. And if somebody needs a guitar and can't afford one, I'm sure I have one to give him/her.

[Don W]

Originally Posted by Earl49

If you look in my tool box, I have Phillips screwdrivers ranging from size 00 to size 3 and lengths from 2" to 18". Each serves its own purpose and fulfills a niche - the right tool for the specific job. Am I cheating on one screwdriver when using another that better fits the situation? Philosophically maybe so, but I am not worried about it.

Each of us has to get to our own comfort level, and I'm in no position to judge. Yours may be one guitar, mine might be a dozen (although steadily declining) and someone else might "need" 30 guitars. There are acoustic, twelve string, classical, resonator, baritone, electric, bass, etc.....

True...very good.