Elsewhere in another universe, Carlson wrote:How many handbags does a woman need?
My wife has SEVEN...!
That seems to me to be six too many.....
Well?
1. If you play guitar, how many guitars do you have?How many guitars does a guitarist need?
I have SEVEN...! (I think, although this could be plus or minus some amount)
That seems to me to be six too many.....
Well?
2. How many guitars do you think you need?I think it's reasonable to have at least one acoustic, one single-coil electric, perhaps one electric with a humbucking pickup, one either lap steel or pedal steel, and maybe one hollowbody although a lot of what a hollowbody does can be approximated with a Telecaster if you know what you are doing.
2a. Any particular reasons? (The usual remark that non-musicians make is that you can play only one guitar at a time.)These are fairly different instruments.
3. How many guitars would you like to have? What guitars are these?No particular number.
A light, resonant Stratocaster-type model,
Also a pedal steel.
4. How many amplifiers would you like to have? Examples?Recently I played a Princeton Reverb after watching a video of Jim Campilongo play. There really does seem to be a different sound you can get out of these compared to how you can get a Deluxe Reverb to sound: a grittier tone.
5. Assuming you agree with this next claim, why do you think guitarists usually have more guitars than amps?One time I read in an interview that Townshend said he chose his guitars based on his amps (usually HiWatt), not the other way around. This was pretty surprising for me since, like most other guitarists, I've tended to focus on the guitar first and considered the amp to be secondary. There are obvious reasons for this--the guitar is in your hands and the amp is not so the guitar is what you tend to focus on--but this particular reason has to do fundamentally with extra-musical concerns.
If you were really interested in getting different sounds that fit the music you wanted to play, you might be far better off getting different amps than different guitars. EL34s or EL84s do sound different from 6L6 or 6V6. Vox has a particular midrange. Fender is almost the complement of that sound. I once played a National amp, and it almost sounded as if I were playing underwater because of its reverb. The most interesting reverb I played through was an old Vibroverb. I've never played through a Magnavox though.
I should have gotten a Sovtek when they were cheap.
6. Do you think acquiring guitars is a way of postponing the task of learning to play them better, or does acquisition spur the process?My point in asking the question is that I've seen plenty of guitarists who acquire lots of gear---they even joke about it with the term "gear acquisition disease"---and who are quite bad as guitarists. These people love these objects, not unlike the way wine connoisseurs love wine or antique followers love antiques. At the same time, I think a kind of substitution has occurred. Instead of sitting down with the instrument and learning how to get a new sound with the equipment they already have, many guitarists go and buy another piece of equipment.
There is something very seductive about this. You go out and get another object, and all of a sudden, you immediately have a new sound to play with. This is why guitar pedals are so popular.
About a year ago, I heard Bill Kirchen play his signature piece "Hot Rod Lincoln" (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77Rl1zNIpzg ). There are more musically interesting pieces that he plays (e.g., his cover of "The Times They Are a-Changin'" or "Just Like tom Thumb's Blues"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB2ugtcz ... re=related ) but "Hot Rod Lincoln" does illustrate that with the right technique, you can get all sorts of different sounds out of one guitar. 90 percent of it is in the hands.
Kirchen makes his Telecaster sound like a Gretsch, a Stratocaster, a Les Paul, an ES-335. It doesn't sound quite like a banjo, but you can get the idea of a banjo from how he attacks the strings.
The clip shows him playing a 1959 Telecaster that he's had for about 40 years or so. It's been his main instrument and the one that he played in public most of the time.
Jim Campilongo is similar in that he has a 59 Tele that he uses most of the time as well. (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YF8KGSiXLY )
Obviously there is no one right way to acquire and play instruments, but I admire an approach that is as spare as what Kirchen and Campilongo have.
7. What's the most you've spent on a guitar?A more interesting question is what is the least I've spent on a guitar, and that is $20. A very noisy instrument, made of plywood, but wonderful for slide. Later I bought a Telecaster copy for $80. This was the first Fender-type instrument I acquired. It's far from perfect, but at the time it was something of a revelation.
8. What's the most you can imagine spending to buy a guitar?12 years ago I played a 1959 Esquire that was going for 3K: light, complex sound. Should have gotten it.
9. What's the most you can imagine spending to buy a musical instrument and which instrument would that be?10. How many pairs of shoes do you have?11. How many handbags?12. Do you tend to acquire things?