What Playing Guitar Really Means (to you).

[SenorDingDong]

I've asked a ton of my friends what makes a guitarist, or makes someone love the instrument, or even what playing means to them, and I've gotten tons of different answers.

Some say that playing guitar means playing shows, others that it means expression, and some say that it just means sitting in your room and jamming away with a CD.


As for me, playing guitar is just creating; writing, learning, and exploring in a way that I can't do with my physical voice.

So I wonder, what does guitar mean to you personally?

Is it a lifestyle, is it a hobby, is it a love?


What makes it, what breaks it, and what really pulls you to it?

All answers are welcome, as I'm very curious what this piece of wood with wires and strings means to different people.

[ArtDecade]

It's a hobby that I love. My musical tastes lie with swing, surf, and rockabilly/country - and - I love hot rods and tiki bars. Music is a way of bridging all of those things. There is nothing like playing some Ventures tunes while people are putting down Blue Hawaiians and having a good time.

[silverabyss]

It's probably the most best medium of self-expression to exist, evoking a whole spectrum of emotions. And Tom Morrelo sort of put in a way that electric guitar playing is still in it's infancy and has nowhere to go but up and outwards.

[Mechanix11]

Its like a hobby for me, but also its a way to relax myself when im stressed or something like that by the school, homeworks, etc.
Many times i was thinking to quit to play guitar to go and learn drums, but i founded that the guitar is the instrument that goes with me.

[iRaiseTheDead]

I agree with OP its the best way to express things you can't physically say. I also enjoy writing, listening, and creating. Its a great hobby but I also look at it in ways of a career.

[EtherealEntity]

For me it's pretty much everything. Since leaving my teenage band, playing shows has become unimportant to me.
My life goal is pretty much to compose and produce at least 10 records that I am very happy with (and knowing me, they'd probably take around 5 years each haha) and to be able to play anything that I hear in my head on either guitar or bass.
I don't like to look at it as a career because I am sure I could never earn a living and would not like the stress.

[Riffer]

For me guitar playing is a love. It's the only thing that I truely feel connected to that isn't actual family. Nothing can replicate the feeling I get when I play guitar. It's a part of me and I can honestly say that I will always love the guitar until I die. I feel like I always had the love for guitar in me even before I knew how to play and then one Christmas morning it was unlocked by my first starter kit guitar. This also goes for music in general with me. When people say that music is their life, I laugh, because usually it is not on the same level and when I say it. When I say it, I really mean it like it is the last words I'll ever speak.

[Ill-Gotten James]

Music and playing music is a part of my life. I'm as close to my fondness of music and playing music, as I am with my dick. Inseparable. If I lost one of these features of my life, I would be devastated.

[The Uncreator]

I have an undying desire to create, everything I love about music, books, movies, and games revolves around the 'atmosphere'. Thats what it is to me, the ability to create that 'atmosphere' - a world apart from reality where I am free to do what I want, create massive universe's until my dying breath.

Much like Riffer, I believe when people say music is their life they just dont quite understand the level I am at with it. Its everything to me, hell it was the only reason I could find to live for awhile. It will be my last thought, just as it consumes every waking moment of my life now.

[EtherealEntity]

Originally Posted by The Uncreator

I have an undying desire to create, everything I love about music, books, movies, and games revolves around the 'atmosphere'. Thats what it is to me, the ability to create that 'atmosphere' - a world apart from reality where I am free to do what I want, create massive universe's until my dying breath.

Much like Riffer, I believe when people say music is their life they just dont quite understand the level I am at with it. Its everything to me, hell it was the only reason I could find to live for awhile. It will be my last thought, just as it consumes every waking moment of my life now.

Pretty much this, too, especially the first paragraph
I wish I had time to master many creative things, but guitar and production is a lifetimes worth as far as I see it.

And +1 to the rage I feel when some pop fan who doesn't play an instrument and accepts whatever the radio feeds them says that music is 'their life'

[PortalNathrakh]

To me, music is a philosophy. Guitar is just a viewpoint. A viewpoint I happen to love, much as a carpenter may grow especially attached to a certain hammer.

My logic for how music is a philosophy is as follows: music is sound. Sound is physics. Physics is science. Science is mathematics applied. Mathematics were distilled to their most efficient form by ancient Greek philosophers, and used by said philosophers as philosophy. As a musician, I take pride in this Pythagorean heritage, this Euclidean descent.

Ultimately, everything is philosophy, to matter itself. Guitar is an expression of the philosophy of music. And with every pluck of the string, another theory, another Plato's Cave, is created. That's also why I love string theory, as a guitarist: every note I play creates countless universes, and, in the time from sounding the note to muting it, the universes grow to their highest glory, their greatest pride, before being suddenly collapsed.

tl;dr Guitar means becoming a GOD.

[broj15]

I've tried alot of different things in my life, some of which i am ok at, but none that i am actually good at. Guitar and musical stuff in general is the only hobby (although in my mind it's more than a hobby) that i have really excelled at and enjoyed enough to keep at it.

[ittoa666]

It's a passion, as is music in general. I just love it. Nothing else makes me as happy as playing does.

[Mazzy]

I don't understand the purpose of the question, or how I'm supposed to answer... I play guitar because it's what I do. I've never attempted to reason "what it means" to me. It's just me. It's like eating or sleeping for me. If I didn't play, life would be missing something essential. I don't really have other interests or anything.

[lemeker]

Originally Posted by Mazzy

...I play guitar because it's what I do.......... It's like eating or sleeping for me. If I didn't play, life would be missing something essential.

^^This pretty much sums it up for me right here...


.......its in my blood, God wanted me to play guitar....

[Sikthness]

Love the responses. To me, its just creating, expression, sometimes just a hobby, other times an intimate love interest. I don't mean to get all melancholy, but playing is one of the only thing in life that brings me pure joy. No BS. No headaches, no stress. I also almost never play in front of people. Not cuz I suck, but playing is MY time. I know many can understand this, esp those w/ full time work n kids/family. Music/playing guitar is my one escape. I look forward to it sometimes as much as I would seein a girlfriend. I love everything about it. Always trying to improve, learn/master new techniques, finding out about other great innovative players.

[MaksMed]

my hobby from which I want to make living of

[fps]

It's freedom, another language, another world, it is a part of my identity and personality that could not be expressed, by me, in any other way. I am eternally grateful that I discovered the guitar, thanks to my mum, even though I was 17 when I did. I wasn't going through the best time, and this instrument transformed my life, for the better.

[JeffFromMtl]

What playing guitar has been to me has changed so drastically and so many times over the years. At first, it was an endeavour - at the age of 13, it was the first thing I had ever undertaken consciously, and without pressure from my parents. I set out to learn how to do something new. With that, came creative expression. I worked my ass off trying to write music that could speak for what I thought or felt. At some point, music fell to the back burner while I did other things with my life. At that point, I became more of a gear nerd than a guitarist. I would buy and mess around with new equipment, and for a while, that was my main interaction with guitar. Then I decided to become financially independent. I moved out, and am paying for my own existence and paying for and struggling with what the life of a broke-ass university student that insists on being self-reliant is. I sold all of that gear I didn't really need, and kept just playing the guitar. I've since forgotten a lot of the things I've learned in the past, and my chops and songwriting abilities aren't what they once were, but now what my guitar is to me is exactly what I need it to be in my life right now. I don't have the time or money to put into it that I used to, but as life gets more complicated and unforgiving, my guitar remains a tool of expression, and the instrument that I use to achieve my cathartic release. I hardly listen to heavy music anymore, but I still love to play it. No matter how shitty the things I'm going through are, those couple of times a week, I get together with my band and either jam or play a show, none of it really matters. Whether we're jamming and it's just the 6 of us, or we're playing a show to another 100 people, we're all there for the same reason, and that's because we love the music and it does for all of us what nothing else can - and for some of us, that thing we're searching for is essential to our being. And that's why the kids keep showing up and why I refuse to ever put my guitar down for good.

Sorry for the cheese

[Blood Ghost]

It's a love, a tool of self-expression and also a hobby. I sincerely hope playing it for people could be a career but we'll see what the future holds. I'm finding myself staring at my guitars looking down at every little detail like I used to in my early-mid teens, and for something that seems so boring it's pretty fun.

[leftyguitarjoe]

I sacrificed my teenage social life to learn. Now that I'm in my 20's, I still dont ave a social life, so playing guitar is really all I have to do.

[Lagtastic]

^ same here lefty

I've just always played. Once I became competent I realized how great it feels to sit down and play along with your favorite CDs, or create something interesting yourself. I always have something to do.

I can't see giving it up until I physically have to.

[bhakan]

Playing guitar is my constructive hobby. I enjoy playing video games, hanging with friends, etc., but guitar is the one hobby that really gives me a feeling of accomplishment. Whenever I take an extended break from guitar (Mass Effect ), I start to feel like I'm just wasting my free time. In a way guitar gives me purpose, because it is actually using my brain to create something in my spare time.

[Mayhew]

I am Music. Guitar is the conduit that let's me tap into what's going on inside. It's in my soul and it will never die. I am Music.

[Harry]

Please tell me I'm not the only one that sat at their computer just staring blankly for about 10 minutes just trying to think of a way to respond to this

I must admit there have been times when I didn't want to pick up my guitar, sometimes only playing a few days per week. There have been times when sometimes I'd play for about 20 minutes, just feel frustrated for some reason and just put the guitar down and not touch it for the rest of the day.
I think ultimately, there is always going to be periods of, and some degree of frustration with something you love/love doing.
Just because I had those periods of not wanting to play as much, those times when I'd only last 20 or so minutes before putting it back in the case for the rest of the guitar, doesn't mean I fell out of love with playing the guitar as a whole.
It was sometimes perhaps more of a personal issue, rather than that of being directly frustrated with the guitar itself.

Chances are, if you're really passionate about some kind of activity, be it a sport or some kind of art, you'll probably come back to that even after an extended break.
It might not exactly the same one (for e.g, you might chose cycling over swimming, or musically related, you may chose the piano rather than the guitar), but you'll probably come back to it.

It's something that you know well. Something that will make you say "Hell yeah, I want to play some freakin' guitar later today" when you wake up in the morning.
Something that challenges you, makes you question the things around you, something that motivates you to perhaps be better in some way, something that inspires you to keep going and ultimately something you feel is just so ingrained in your personality that you just wouldn't feel right with it.