5 Ugly Truths About Being A Guitar Player

Have I done this before? I haven't? Ok. This I guess it's time that I write it.

5. Choices. 

Ok, This doesn't seem like a ugly truth, but when you are starting out choosing your first guitar is a major decision. It doesn't seem like that big of deal, but when you start to look back after a few years of playing, you realize that your first guitar, and what you chose to do with it, influenced what and how you play now. I began playing chords on a (hand-me-down) classical style guitar that was strung with steel strings. I hated it. So my first guitar that I got to choose was a Strat copy. I was just so happy that it was that old guitar. I've favored electric guitar for must of my playing, but for years I primarily played chords and was intimidated by lead riffs.

4. Everyone Plays Guitar

Obviously, not everyone plays guitar. However, in the group I play in, we have three guitarist. As you can imagine, the mid-range can get a little muddled. Not only does this multi-layered sound make everyone find there "place" in the sound, but it can easily cover up those accents that you've developed, turning your playing into background noise. That's only if you are in a group to begin with. Try breaking into an band by saying "I play guitar". They probably have a guitarist (or two) and the drummer and bass player also play guitar and sometimes the singer will play guitar on some songs. In fact, that's how I learned to play drums. My buddy asked if I wanted to join his band. I told him that I played guitar. His exact words were, "Great, you can play drums!"

3. Ego!

This one is more straight forward. Guitarist can be big-headed ego-freaks that love hearing themselves. I definitely fall into this trap. Most of us come by it pretty honestly. We want to be able to hear what we sound like when we play. What ends up happening is after hours of hearing ourselves in our bedrooms by our selves, we want to hear the tone that is in our heads. Many times this is near impossible to reasonably replicate live. I've been in situations were bands have a constant battle over the sound. You have guitar-one and guitar-two playing. Guitar-one want to hear himself better so he turns up. Now guitar-two can't hear as well and he turns up. This continues until everything explodes. I read an interesting post about how we perceive tone and that much of opinion of our sound in the result of the volume. The intensity of the sound makes us perceive the sound as "bigger" or "fuller" when actually it's just louder.

2. Gear

If you are a guitarist and you disagree with this point you may suffer from GAS, gear acquisition syndrome. As most of my audience can attest, music gear can become something of a obsession. I write 500 words on it three times a week and can continue forever, probably. I honestly love finding out about new gear and experiencing what that gear does. Only a fraction of what I write about actually ends up in my rig. Sometimes products under-deliver. There are all sorts of debates about what you should and shouldn't use, but at the end of the day, it is all up to you. What guitar/amp/pedals(if any) you use depends on the sound you want. It's that sound in your head that keep you going back to the store and online to find that next piece of gear to help you achieve it.

1. It Never Ends

That's right. There is no end in sight. This is not as much as a problem for guitarist as it is for everyone else. We are always adding gear, playing loud, practicing. When we aren't we are talking/reading/blogging about it. The people around us that don't understand our disorder. It's almost cult-ish. When two guitar players get together, they can talk about without end about what it is that they like or think about music or gear. I've been know to bend an ear or two when I don't have a fellow player to talk to. My wife is a patient listener most times, but even she can hit the eject-button. The ugly fact is that the condition is chronic.

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