Do you ever get anxiety over guitars being finite?

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by tommieboy

I don't think Willie Nelson would agree with that.

Tommy

Hi tb
End of life from being beaten up is different than 'played-out'.

[maplebaby]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Hi Deputy

I don't give amazing players credit for being experts about guitars. On James Taylor's most recent videos on his guitars, he was amazed that his Olson has a wider neck than all the rest of his guitars.

James doesn't even 'know' a 1¹¹⁄₁₆" nut from 1¾".

In his video about stretch tunings…tempered tunings, micro-tunings, or as Peterson tuners call them 'Sweetened' tunings…are different for every guitar unless your imperfections in the neck of your guitar, and your finger pressure on the strings are identical to James.

This is only a couple examples from one highly popular player who makes a comment that ripples through the guitar community as truth when it's really lore.

I'm never going to wear my guitars out in my lifetime, and most others are not going to either. There are people running around trying to find 70-90 year old acoustic guitars BECAUSE of their tone.

So I wouldn't try to avoid putting more hours on your instruments. They are built to play and last for a lifetime. Play and enjoy them.

100% this!

I guess i should say something positive before i make a less than positive comment about an icon. I have bought my share of JT music, spent my fair share of time listening and even paid for concert tickets once.

That said, could he, or someone, not tune the guitars in the videos that mean so much to him, that i'm sure a team of people took at least a day to shoot audio and record video.

My tuning OCD wouldn't let me enjoy him playing them because I couldn't get past that they were out of tune. It was surprising to me.

[Kaydee]

If you must worry about something ,worry about the people you care about and the ones who care about you.The rest is just “stuff”.

[birdsong]

My interpretation of "played out" had to do with sound, not the physical condition of the instrument. A lot has been said of a guitars physical condition over time but, again I don't think that's what he was referring to. Of course this will affect the sound but I still contend JT is focused on "sound" and sound only.

And as someone noted eralier, of course the sound changes over time. So JT's definition, one presumes, is that some of those changes to a guitar's sound over time = "played out".

Well, that's just one person's opinion of what constitutes 'played out'. But it's conflated with variables either he isn't considering, or if he does, he's not telling us.

What first comes to my mind is, how is his hearing? Not only do guitar sounds change over time, but of course, our perceptions of said sounds. This topic has come up in my line of work, which often involves bird surveys which are 90% aural. Over the years, many of those surveys were taken on by an aging population, many of whom cannot hear higher frequencies (where many birds sing). I can't hear half of them. I had to stop doing such surveys for this reason. But many folks won't admit it to hearing loss..........

I buy guitars and enjoy whatever it is I can still hear. I've got some fancy instruments now, which I bought on spec based on comments here. Purely to give them a try, after which, I'll recycle for something else. But I know, based on what I read about a given brand/model/wood etc, I'm not hearing what others are. But I wouldn't consider the guitar "played out".... yet I can see how someone else might........

John

[Deputy289]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Hi tb
End of life from being beaten up is different than 'played-out'.

LJ,

I’ve valued your input on this topic. As someone who clearly knows a lot about older guitars, is the key to longevity as simple as frequent string changes and watching the humidity?