Re: Why we all need a few cheap (squire type) guitars

1946dodge · Post by **1946dodge** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 4:01 pm

OK so you have a nice collection of great guitars that you all but want to sleep with.
You want to play them yourself and keep them nice for yourself.
You worked hard to get them and that's it.

So you have company and they bring their kids.
Kids are great especially when you bring them to the guitar room.
And of course they would love to try one.
If you were a kid you would too.

But kids are not as coordinated as adults and they bang stuff around.

So you bring out the squiers, the hondos, the stuff you dont mind bringing to a party with alot of drunk people in case something bad happens ot one of them.

I make a habit of buying some cheap stuff all the time.
I like to fix them up, frankenstein some of them (take parts and make a guitar) and I play them sometimes because they are funky too.

And when we have company I let the kids have a great time with them. It keeps them quiet (well they sit still anyway) and I can enjoy my company.

And sometimes when I have gotten tired of a Jay Turser or a squier I got cheap and fixed up,

I give one to a kid. It puts a big smile on their face and they are off, to someday become a crazed adult like us who are blissfully happy
when we come home from work and want to just make alot of great noise.

And of course if you are a pro, and some of you are, you get a kid into this and you get a customer for lessons, or even maybe find one with talent.

So the next time you come across a hondo copy of a strat with its hockey stick peg head and you arent really thrilled with it, and it is cheap enough, grab it and keep it for such an occassion.
They make great gifts too.
I gave a squier strat to a friend of mine who turned 60 and never played a guitar but always wanted to.
He was very happy and so was his kid.

Cheers
Ed

mewithoutus · Post by **mewithoutus** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 4:25 pm

here here!!! awesome topic ed. i agree.

i had a squire tele i used to let my friends play with so they wouldnt band around my jagmaster. one of them really wanted to start to learn guitar but he couldnt afford to buy a guitar because his family is less fortunate...

so i gave him the tele and a practice amp. he almost cried. good times.

music is the glue, man.
chris

1946dodge · Post by **1946dodge** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 5:15 pm

Wonderful mewithoutus. For a few bucks you gave him something that lasts a lifetime.
And you are right - music is the glue.

Music is permanent - it can never be outsourced. Once a song is written it is a permanent statement for all time. It can be copied, modified but it is different when played by each person.
It is the form of art that is most intimately connected with the nervous system - it is the most intense artform there is.

My son once said that music was his religious experience - his only one. He is a musician.
take care
ed

aen · Post by **aen** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 9:08 am

1946dodge wrote:
My son once said that music was his religious experience - his only one. He is a musician.
take care
ed

I agree completely, I'm actually weorking on a song on the subject currently.

Maggieo · Post by **Maggieo** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 9:19 am

aen wrote:
1946dodge wrote:
My son once said that music was his religious experience - his only one. He is a musician.
take care
ed
I agree completely, I'm actually weorking on a song on the subject currently.

+2 on that.

Some people go to a church; I watch The Kids Are Alright.

aen · Post by **aen** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 11:13 am

I'm also working on my typing skills.

JazzBlaster · Post by **JazzBlaster** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 12:55 pm

My first guitar was given to me by a friend with an amp for the cash I had in my pocket at the time... $6

burker · Post by **burker** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 5:16 pm

Yeah guitars are the best gift, people really appreciate them, especially when theyre going through hard times, fixed up a guild electric for one of my friends to use in his punk band (he broke it a week later....)

1946dodge · Post by **1946dodge** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 8:34 pm

burker, a Guild electric is not a cheap guitar.
How did he break it?

burker · Post by **burker** » Sat Mar 17, 2007 9:32 pm

1946dodge wrote: burker, a Guild electric is not a cheap guitar.
How did he break it?

yeah I know, I got it stripped of any hardware and electronics as part of a trade, I had all the parts I needed to set it up as a basic rock guitar, just one bridge pickup and volume knob.... so it was basicly free (as I got a great deal on the trade.) he broke the headstock off.... :-\ ah well.

such is the danger of a guitar in a punk band....

scottme · Post by **scottme** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 4:20 am

Great post Ed.

I hope I can do the same sometime soon. It's certainly good kharma, or at least healthy for the soul.

StevenO · Post by **StevenO** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 9:27 am

scottme wrote: It's certainly good kharma, or at least healthy for the soul.

MeWithoutUs's Kharma got him beat up by a gang of asians.

aen · Post by **aen** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 9:33 am

GAH! I'm glad mine didn't. I gave a bass away, and the kid was so excited to tell me he "almost had that one queensryche riff"

1946dodge · Post by **1946dodge** » Sun Mar 18, 2007 1:12 pm

stevenO: MeWithoutUs's Kharma got him beat up by a gang of asians

The idea is when you give something to someone, it is a gift and you dont all of a sudden want it back and hire a gang to get it back.
The guy who gave him the amp sounds like a mafiosa.

Robert R · Post by **Robert R** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 12:18 pm

I have a 3/4 size student guitar that's pretty neat. ( one humbucker-two knobs). That's the one the kids get to mess with.....I paid 100 bucks for it and it's paid for itself a dozen times.

A few years back, I let my business partner stick an old Les Paul Studio up on the wall with a price tag of $300 on it, (fixed broken headstock and all) when we knew one of our favorite students was coming up from the teaching studios. He flipped and bought it in a heartbeat. I was standing next to him when he finished paying the layaway and he said "Jeez, whoever let this go for three hundred bucks is an idiot".