I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.  How do you categorize guitar players?  Nobody fits perfectly in a box, unless the box is super general, like “guitar player.”  But in the world of web, you can file a web page under multiple categories.  So instead, I thought I’d think about goals – everyone has a goal (at least one) for playing guitar, even if they don’t know the goal (or goals.)

So why do people play guitar?

  1. To collect.  Sometimes guitarists barely play – they just like to collect instruments.  Some people spend their entire life with just one guitar, but it’s rare.
  2. Self-expression.  Playing an instrument is a skill and an art, and you can get better at one or the other, or both, or neither.  The more you play, the better you get, but at a certain point most players hit a wall.  At that point, they can’t play any faster or learn more complicated parts.  At that point, it’s a good idea to focus on trying new things, like learning a new style or genre.
  3. To make music.  If you play guitar, you can hear a guitar being played almost any time you want.  If you play Smoke on the Water, badly, you’re still making music.  That can be its own reward.
  4. To challenge themselves musically.  Some folks pick up the guitar and have the interest and skill to see how good they can get.  That could mean sight reading, playing fast, playing complicated stuff, etc.
  5. To perform in front of an audience.  This could be an online audience or in person audience.  Performing can be a blast, or it can be a traumatic experience, depending on how you feel about it
  6. To compose music.  Some people want to write their own music, and use the guitar for that.  Sometimes it’s guitar-based music, sometimes just chords.
  7. To record music.  You could call this performing, but there’s a specific mindset to recording a guitar part for your song or someone else’s.
  8. To join a community.  This could mean you want to be in a band, or you want to hang out at blues jams and contribute, or you want to spend time in recording studios, or at open mic nights.

Guitarists seem to be competitive as a group, which is too bad.  Actually most pro guitar players don’t worry about competing with each other – once you hit the pro level, you’ll have a much better career if you’re friendly and easy to work with.

Why do YOU play guitar?  I’ll give my reasons:  I just did.  I fit all 8 of those categories.