As I look around the house, I find the following guitars: my Les Paul, my Stratocaster, my Gretsch hollowbody, a Danelectro electric 12-string, an Epiphone Les Paul Special, a Jackson Dinky, my mother’s Martin, an Applause acoustic/electric, my Hohner beach guitar, my wife’s mother’s antique Regal acoustic guitar (named Floyd), a 1950s Regal lap steel guitar, and a half-size Dean child’s acoustic. These are just the ones currently in the house. There’s also an Ovation Ultra acoustic/electric in my apartment in Switzerland. And historically, I’ve also owned an early 60s Fender Mustang, an odd single-pickup Gibson SG, an Epiphone 12-string acoustic, and several classical guitars, including a rather nice Alhambra at one point. And there are surely others that I have simply forgotten. Why so many? What gives? Since any good question has multiple answers, here are a few that come to mind:
First, we will reach the physical limits of a cheap instrument pretty fast if we are serious students, so those first, inexpensive guitars we buy don’t tend to last very long. We simply need better gear to keep progressing as musicians.
Second, certain genres of music require specific guitars. You have to have the right tool for the job. If you are playing classical guitar, for instance, as I did for a while, it must be a nylon or gut string acoustic with a fairly wide fretboard.
Third, there is hero worship — or talismanic magic, I suppose. We buy the guitars our guitar gods play to emulate them, in the hope that some portion of their powers will flow into us through the instrument. My black Les Paul is my homage to Peter Frampton, and my Fender Mustang was my prayer to Todd (is God) Rundgren.
Fourth, we try on various guitars as we search for and forge our own distinctive, individual sound. My Stratocaster sounds nothing like the Les Paul, which sounds nothing like the Gretsch, which gives me a wide sonic landscape in which to find and develop the sound the best resonates with me.
Fifth, playing in a band requires us to have multiple guitar tones at our disposal. We need a range of guitars so we can best mesh with and complement the instruments the other people are playing and the tones *they* are employing.
Sixth, there is the visual component. Depending on the musical/visual style I or my band is going for, less traditional and more wild body shapes and paint jobs might be needed. For example, visually the Jackson screams “metal” in ways the others cannot possibly match.
Seventh, some guitars are stand-ins: my Ovation is my study abroad guitar and the Hohner is my beach guitar. They are my knock-abouts, the ones I play in places I dare not bring my Martin.
Eighth, and I sense we are getting closer to the heart of the matter here, some guitars seem to be short-lived novelties, the products of boredom, of getting stuck musically and struggling for some new direction. For instance -- and it saddens me to realize this -- I have played the lap steel and the electric 12-string less than ten times each, and that was many years ago for both.
And finally, there is the sheer avarice and conspicuous consumption that comes with late capitalism and disposable income. We acquire and collect guitars simply because we can, because we have seen others do it, because if one is good, two must be better, because having multiple guitars is a status symbol, because we are showing off, because we are victims of the advertising we seen in Guitar World and Guitar Player magazines and websites too numerous to mention (especially when we are young and most impressionable), advertising that insist we cannot be good players without a ridiculous amount of gear.
The same is true of amplifiers and effects pedals, of course, which we also collect en masse. I recently threw away one old amplifier and gave away two more, but I still have three in the family storage unit and one here in the house. The number and type of effects pedals in my possession has likewise ballooned over the years.
All of which brings me to this: I wonder about how many times I have bought new gear in an attempt to assuage my guilt.
I can remember times when my guitar sat in the corner gathering dust for a whole semester, neglected as I pursued other interests (ahem) or as I foolishly allowed myself to become overcommitted and overworked. And I can remember times when my progress seemed to stall, when I didn’t want to put in the work anymore, when it just seemed too hard. And I can remember that rather than addressing the actual issues and fixing these problems, I went out and bought new gear instead, as if *that* was the problem and *that* could be the solution. Since I couldn’t or wouldn’t put in the time and make the changes necessary to address the actual problem, I would throw money at it instead and distract myself with a shiny new toy. Repeatedly.
I do this less nowadays, thank goodness, but the (al)lure of new gear is always there. What I am trying to remind myself is that one good guitar is enough, that no amount of gear can substitute for focus and commitment, for putting in the time and doing the work.