Comments on Emerging Worshiper: Nietzsche and Gear Lust

Totally. Good gear definitely enhances emotional e...

2009-01-09T02:02:05.381-08:00

Totally. Good gear definitely enhances emotional experience and expression.

And you're right, it can make a difference in wanting to play and wanting to practice. I had a guitar student once who struggled for months trying to get good sounding hammer-ons. He had basically given up on them. Then one day during a lesson I took his guitar and adjusted the saddles on his bridge to lower the action. Suddenly his hammer-ons were ringing out and sounding great! All that time he had thought he just couldn't master the technique. But it wasn't him at all. It was his gear.

I beleive that your emotions can travel better whe...

2009-01-06T11:52:00.000-08:00

I beleive that your emotions can travel better when your not fighting your gear, and good gear lets you focus more on the music.
And i agree about the used stuff.
the only thing i have that was new is my amp, and it was a gift from my wife.
Ive gotten killer deals on guitars from pawn shops and threw news paper and creigslist.
even though i am still a weekend worrior when it comes to playing, my first real guitar was a gibson
L6S, and what a diffrence in wanting to play, wich made it less like practice and keeped me serching for those great guitar sounds i had heard and songs.

Well put. Buying gear to impress your friends is t...

2009-01-05T01:42:05.143-08:00

Well put. Buying gear to impress your friends is the wrong motivation. And worship is definitely not about gear. If you are seeing heart issues in your band related to gear, then I salute you for setting the right example! But even though I loved my first Squier Strat, my playing did see improvement when I moved up to a better guitar.

hmmm... mixed emotions about this one. A lot of wh...

2009-01-04T04:42:00.000-08:00

hmmm... mixed emotions about this one. A lot of what you say is true, but a real musician is going to blow you away on any instrument they pick up. Junior may enjoy impressing his friends with the cool sounds his multi-effects unit can make, but he's got to find the discipline and hunger within if he's going to learn. How many great musicians speak with humor and love of that first cheap instrument they learned and discovered new worlds on? In my motely praise band I've started plugging straight into the amp too, not because the sound is so amazing, but I'm tired of tripping over the other two guys' pedal boards, and want to set an example that it's not all about the gear.