I'm so grizzled and decrepit that I'm facing something of a conundrum: At what point am I too old to be into guitars?
I realize that one is never to old to play the guitar.
What I'm talking about is new guitar gear daydreams. Gear lust. Guitars as a hobby as well as a vocation. New guitar gear shopping. Did Segovia sit and pore over guitar catalogs into his 90s while he sat on the can?
No way, right?
Segovia sat on the can and read scores, of course. Because he was an intellectual and a classical musician, and by all that is right in the world, he sat on the can and studied music. I have it on good authority that Segovia only read the articles in Playboy and never saw the pictures.
Segovia played the guitars he had until his fingers fell off (I believe I found one from his last concert). The older he got, the older the guitars got, until he looked like wood and his guitars looked even more like wood. Because, well, they were wood. And they outlived him.
I still get paid to lay down guitar tracks. I don't know how long that will last -- looking at a guy like McCartney or Keith Richards (whose body parts should be falling off since he is clearly a zombie at this point after so many transfusions, but I digress) I could be playing for another decade or so professionally, maybe longer. Or maybe less. Heck I could drop dead between the time I order a guitar and the time I hang up the phone. You just never know when you get to be my age.
Then all I will have accomplished is to give my children something to look at and say, "Poor Dad, he never even got to play this." "Well, I want it." "No, I want it. Dad liked me best." "But you don't even play the guitar." "That's ok, my kid will want it." "But you don't have kids." etc.
Point is, it doesn't seem fair to waste fine instruments on someone like me, who can no longer even balance on one leg well enough to be able to press the switch on a pedal without nearly falling over!
Hence, this conundrum.
I realize that one is never to old to play the guitar.
What I'm talking about is new guitar gear daydreams. Gear lust. Guitars as a hobby as well as a vocation. New guitar gear shopping. Did Segovia sit and pore over guitar catalogs into his 90s while he sat on the can?
No way, right?
Segovia sat on the can and read scores, of course. Because he was an intellectual and a classical musician, and by all that is right in the world, he sat on the can and studied music. I have it on good authority that Segovia only read the articles in Playboy and never saw the pictures.
Segovia played the guitars he had until his fingers fell off (I believe I found one from his last concert). The older he got, the older the guitars got, until he looked like wood and his guitars looked even more like wood. Because, well, they were wood. And they outlived him.
I still get paid to lay down guitar tracks. I don't know how long that will last -- looking at a guy like McCartney or Keith Richards (whose body parts should be falling off since he is clearly a zombie at this point after so many transfusions, but I digress) I could be playing for another decade or so professionally, maybe longer. Or maybe less. Heck I could drop dead between the time I order a guitar and the time I hang up the phone. You just never know when you get to be my age.
Then all I will have accomplished is to give my children something to look at and say, "Poor Dad, he never even got to play this." "Well, I want it." "No, I want it. Dad liked me best." "But you don't even play the guitar." "That's ok, my kid will want it." "But you don't have kids." etc.
Point is, it doesn't seem fair to waste fine instruments on someone like me, who can no longer even balance on one leg well enough to be able to press the switch on a pedal without nearly falling over!
Hence, this conundrum.
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