Comments from non-guitarists about guitars

[PuckishGuitar]

As goes the statement below my profile pic, I have long since learned not to question my wife’s shoe and handbag collection, and she doesn’t question the music inventory I have. We do like to share some about our latest acquisitions with one another, point out why we like this aspect of the item and where we think it will fill a niche need, and generally enjoy some of our passions with one another.

For the most part when we have other guests over, the conversation basically goes “lots of guitars, huh?” “Yep I like to play, hobby of mine and one of the ways I feel most creative” and that is about it. The only time it goes further is if the person is a guitarist or knows another enthusiast, where we’ll talk shop for a few minutes and share some details of the gems or latest acquisitions of our collections, before getting back to the main event.

 

[OmegaSlayer]

Had a similar experience many years back when I was discussing a similar topic with an acquaintance that didn't play. He was debating that John Mayer was the greatest ever for similar reasons and that he could "do it all" and referenced Mayer's Van Halen cover (i think Panama?) and playing with Double Trouble. This was a couple years before he toured with the Dead. I tried to explain that while he's an excellent guitarist and musician, he's paying tribute to those guys and not really making those performances his own. Mayer can cover SRV and Van Halen all day long, but he's not influencing people the same way. He countered that "yeah, but women also like his music better than those guys before him" and mentioned how his girlfriend wanted to go to a John Mayer concert and would never see Van Halen. I said "maybe it's the whole heartthrob angle? he's very popular with the ladies and in the celebrity gossip circle" and he's like "nah, she's going for the music, Mayer's the best"...whatever, dude.

Good his gf didn't went to see EVH or she would be back home pregnant ^__^

 

[Soya]

Anyone looking at my guitar wall = "I thought you were a drummer"

 

[JSanta]

My wife is a saint, I should add that bit in there first. I only play Gypsy jazz, so my guitars mostly look the same. Having had multiple conversations trying to describe scale length, pliage, bombe moulding, etc.., she's finally gotten to a point where she'll sit down and listen, and that's where I think she kind of gets it. But in the same vein, I get that it looks silly on the surface.

My favorite recent playing memory is when Stephane Wrembel was staying with us while he was touring, and we were playing I'll See You in my Dreams together (him of course taking the solos) and she said that "for a minute there, I thought you were playing incredibly, but then I remembered who is staying with us", that got a good laugh from all three of us.

 

[_MonSTeR_]

I also dislike the "Can you play -insert random song here-".

This is a pet peeve of mine too. I find it really intrusive and judgemental, especially when it's typically fairly obvious that the musical tastes of me and whoever is asking are not really going to overlap...

 

[Rosal76]

Not really comments but questions I've been asked over the years concerning guitars.

"Did you really pay that much for that guitar? Do you play professionally?"

"Is there really a reason you don't want your guitars to leave your house?"

"Why is that you enjoy playing certain guitars more than others in your collection? Aren't they all the same? I mean, they all have 6 strings".

"Does having a thinner guitar neck really make you play better/faster?" Asking about the Ibanez Wizard/Super Wizard Prestige necks.

"What kind of music do you play on a 8 string guitar?"

From a sarcastic bass player. "Oh yeah. I bet you have tons of fun adjusting that Floyd Rose thing on your guitar".

 

[Drew]

Something like 15+ years ago, while talking with a girl I'd just met at a bar who was a friend of a friend at a friend's birthday pub crawl, while wearing the absolute peak of 2007 fashion, a Sevenstring.org t shirt - "Um, how many strings to guitars normally have?"

She went home with me, so I let it slide.

 

[CanserDYI]

Something like 15+ years ago, while talking with a girl I'd just met at a bar who was a friend of a friend at a friend's birthday pub crawl, while wearing the absolute peak of 2007 fashion, a Sevenstring.org t shirt - "Um, how many strings to guitars normally have?"

She went home with me, so I let it slide.

Who's leg do you have to hump to get an SSO t-shirt??

 

[Drew]

Who's leg do you have to hump to get an SSO t-shirt??

We did a run in maybe... 2006? Long enough ago that I either wore mine out (I bought two) or donated them to goodwill. So, assuming they're not rags by now, all I can tell you is "not mine."

 

[Thesius]

When they find out how long I've been playing they usually say I must be really good.

I suck

 

[TedEH]

"Is there really a reason you don't want your guitars to leave your house?"

Easy answer: they're made out of wood, and wood is really susceptible to environment, temperature, humidity, etc., so keeping them at home avoids damage, finish cracks, fret sprouting, things warping, etc.

Either you convince them, because it's a good answer, or they tune out, and you don't have to answer any more questions. Win-win.

 

[Spicypickles]

My GF says the same thing to every guitar I show her (or own) that you can see the wood is a "grandpa furniture" guitars. If she can see the wood, it looks awful. 3 out of 6 of my guitars are solid, and those are the only ones she thinks look any good ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My wife is the exact opposite, loves figured tops and doesn’t like stains or finishes of any kind.

Funny enough, she used to play and I finally saw a picture of her gear back in the day - all solid colors, apart from one blue flame rr5

 

[budda]

Something like 15+ years ago, while talking with a girl I'd just met at a bar who was a friend of a friend at a friend's birthday pub crawl, while wearing the absolute peak of 2007 fashion, a Sevenstring.org t shirt - "Um, how many strings to guitars normally have?"

She went home with me, so I let it slide.

No pink polo no care.

 

[jaxadam]

We did a run in maybe... 2006? Long enough ago that I either wore mine out (I bought two) or donated them to goodwill. So, assuming they're not rags by now, all I can tell you is "not mine."

What I really want to know is, what happened to *the hoodie*.

Spoiler

 

[Pingu]

My partner when I got my second Mick Thomson model: Oh and it's the same brand as your other one. It's a Seven!

 

[Dumple Stilzkin]

Had a similar experience many years back when I was discussing a similar topic with an acquaintance that didn't play. He was debating that John Mayer was the greatest ever for similar reasons and that he could "do it all" and referenced Mayer's Van Halen cover (i think Panama?) and playing with Double Trouble. This was a couple years before he toured with the Dead. I tried to explain that while he's an excellent guitarist and musician, he's paying tribute to those guys and not really making those performances his own. Mayer can cover SRV and Van Halen all day long, but he's not influencing people the same way. He countered that "yeah, but women also like his music better than those guys before him" and mentioned how his girlfriend wanted to go to a John Mayer concert and would never see Van Halen. I said "maybe it's the whole heartthrob angle? he's very popular with the ladies and in the celebrity gossip circle" and he's like "nah, she's going for the music, Mayer's the best"...whatever, dude.

Yeah because Van Halen was never swimming in hoo nanner for countless years. Men and women alike were all over Van Halen.

 

[mastapimp]

Yeah because Van Halen was never swimming in hoo nanner for countless years. Men and women alike were all over Van Halen.

To be fair, around the time we had this conversation I think Eddie was missing several teeth and had that crazed vagrant look. Glad he cleaned up in his last 10 years or so.

 

[shiyu]

My Aristides garners attention from time to time. People really like the color. If they're curious enough I tell them about how it's injection molded out of a special material, which never sounds as interesting out loud as it does in my head. People seem to presume the little contours on the front serve some kind of purpose, which I don't dare correct them on.

 

[p0ke]

My family don't usually comment anything about my guitars, but the thing that drives me nuts is that my wife keeps telling everyone I play "electric guitar". Which makes it sound like I'm incapable of playing acoustic I've been asking her to drop the electric from it for almost 10 years, but she just won't.
Even worse, sometimes she just says "he owns an electric guitar", which makes it sound like I don't even know how to play it, and besides, you'd imagine she'd have noticed by now that I have more than one of them

Oh and guests never ask anything about my guitars because I keep them in the basement (the guitars, not the guests, lol), so they never see them. Maybe they will someday when I get the basement sorted out.

 

[M3CHK1LLA]

Years ago, a friend and I would jam at work during our lunch hour. He would bring his jackson, and I would bring my ESP.

A fellow coworker, who was a total hillbilly country bumpkin asked us, "how come there aren't any holes in your guitars?"