Fear and Inadequacy in the Guitar Shop...

[guitarron]

domestic accountants are known for that

[Kenneth]

Cool old thread!

I always get a kick out of these young guys who tune their guitars wayyyy down and crank up the amp super loud.... and then just start banging away on the top 2 strings! lol
YES!!! THE whole store hears you and were all loving it!!! THANK YOU!!!! HAR!! 

Myself I forget everything I know so I just crank up the amp super loud and finger tap fast and furious for about half an hour or so!
Just kiddin' , I usually just play some chords quietly. I've never drawn a crowd, nowhere good enough for anyone to care what I play.

[henwrench]

Yeah, cool thread!

      Whenever I check out a guitar I'm gonna buy, I always make sure I've got the cash in my pocket first...
   I always ask for a strap, 'cos I wanna check the balance of the thing and I always play standing up...
     Without plugging the thing in, I simply play EVERY SINGLE NOTE on the guitar, in a random order, checking both the clarity/intonation of each note and the feel and speed of the neck in/against my hand.
      If I'm impressed, I'll then ask to plug it in, to purely check the electrics are OK. I won't even play anything, just listen for dry pots/loose connections etc. Errrr....thats about it....

                                                                         henwrench

[Tony W]

It's been a long friggin' time since I seen this thread. I've went through half a dozen guitars since.

henwrench, I think that's borderline insane yet brilliant, at least the idea that you don't crank out a tune or 2.

 I'll play the minor pent (F G A B D E F G A B) from the nut to the Neck pickup listening for defects like a flat frets, a twist in the neck, etc. This also gives me a good feel for the fretboards playability. I do check intonation, but only at the nut and the 12th fret, and only with a tuner. I still can't tune without a tuner.

Normally I buy new guitars, so I check the finish with a fine tooth comb, especially around the headstock. The longer they are in a the store, the more they show signs of "hanger wear".  I see most people scouting the pickguard and looking for buckle rash, but never the head stock. I also check for the stolen parts during this pass.

Here's where the inadequacy sets in. In my mind, I know that I'm a mediocre player, slightly below the average consumer in the store. I'm extremely self conscious, and had a lot of difficulty playing up to my ability level when I thought somebody might hear me, so I've resigned to taking my Micro into the store with me. I put the cans on, I'm in my own world, and I can do what I want.

The upside to the Micro, I've been a headphone musician since I began playing. I'm 100% in my comfort zone, I know the patches, I know the device, I know every detail on the sound that I'm looking for.

Now that I have my technique down, I won't use it again for quite a while. My quiver is full.

[Rata-tat-tat]

I am willing to play anything that goes to "11".

[lg]

I have ALWAYS been way self-conscious and inferior, so naturally it shows in such a situation!
So, what I've adopted as my mode of entering a music store to try out a guitar, is to assume an
'I'm an incredible guitar-player' pretense and just play away with indifferent blatant confidence
so as to 'get over' this 'Breaking-The-Ice', and get on with, the real reason that i am in the
store in the first place.....
And, then, as Andy pointed out..., i also do, since I am considering spending all of my check and at least part of another on, is to play every string on every stinkin' fret...checking for the levelness of the guitars' frets, etc....
And, in the end, the result is always the same, I'm just an overly inferior-complex idiot, worrying about something that no-one else evens notices, let alone cares about in the least.....
To buy the stupid guitar or not!
Now, this is the question!

LG

[AndyR]

Good bump...

Funnily enough, I'm feeling the fear and inadequacy over the last couple of months. Not for guitars though... banjos...

I've had a lusting for "another sound", it was between mandolins or banjos, and I've kind of settled on a banjo at the moment. But have I been brave enough to actually get one down? Nope...

When my wife is there, she just goes "why don't you just try one?" ... she seems to think I'll instinctively know how to play it and whether it's any good as an instrument... nope!

[antisocialworker]

haha I gotta laugh at this, I used to get so anxious and jittery when trying out a new guitar. that felling like all eyes are on you kinda burries any killer riffs you may have just learned and the only thing you end up playing are random chords and smoke on the water. and seriously everytime i have been in my local guitar shop theres been someone shredding the shit out of a guitar.

[AndyR]

I saw something that amused me when I was out prowling the other day.

I got to this shop just after it opened, and there were two young guys in there (staff) drooling over this fiesta red strat. They both played it, both were pretty good, but their playing seemed to have that unspoken "hey, this is what I can do with it, what have you got?...". Anyway, they were both saying how it was the best sounding strat they'd ever heard... "it smokes both yours and mine" etc...

I was listening from the other end of the shop thinking "well, at least two of mine sound like that, and the other one just sounds different..."

Then I realised they were playing through the shop's main demo-amp, this old Fender. Now I recognise this amp, because I tried two of the strats I own (and an SG and a Tokai Les Paul) through this very amp. The older guy (who wasn't there), who seems to be the boss, and who sold me most of the guitars I've bought there, explained to me a while back "we always put the 'buyers' through that amp if we can - it makes any guitar sound good - I'm not selling that amp" ....

I wandered over to see if I could see what the guitar was exactly, but couldn't make it out. I couldn't even see the gap on the wall where it might have come from... Eventually, when they finished trying it, they put it back where it came from - up behind the counter with the expensive 2nd hand and custom shop stuff.

Now, I'm sure it was a goodie, but seeing as it was probably a CS with a hefty price-tag, I can't help but wonder whether these two young guys (probably not very highly paid) were being seduced by a combination of the price-tag and the "magical amplifier" they were playing through... it seemed like they were both saying it was better than their own guitars in a self-reassurance kind of way.

It put a big smile on my face... walking up the road I was thinking: chill out guys - if it feels/sounds good, it is good, no matter what the price tag, or what anyone else says... BUT(!), if you can't afford it, try not to touch it at all... otherwise you might have to tell yourself all sorts of stories to stay happy!

[Farrell Jackson]

I hate going into guitar shops to try out guitars or amps! I've now resigned myself to just getting a feel of how comfortable the guitar is or whether or not the amp works properly. There always seems to be a young rising star playing the strings off at a tremendous volume in the open show room. I just strum a few chords, maybe turn it up and hammer down on a single note to hear how well it sustains, twist the tone control to hear the variations, and then hold it up and give the neck a long sight down. That usually lets me know if it will work for me or not, sort of makes me look like I know what I'm doing, and I still have my ego intact, lol! Yeah, I don't like going to the music store to demo guitars.

Farrell