# How long will my "I mostly play acoustic phase" last?



## JethroTech (Dec 8, 2015)

I assume that everyone has or will go through the, "I mostly play acoustic..." phase, right? I'm just wondering if anyone here knows how long it lasts. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the "I mostly play acoustic" phase, I'm just curious as to whether I should sell all my electrics and amps or will this end? 

For context, 6 or 8 months ago I only played bad, dirty blues riffs on electric but then there was a slight shift one day when I started strumming a smaller Martin on the couch while watching TV. That has since progressed to not only an obsession with acoustic guitars but with mandolins, banjos, resonators and now I'm on Reverb looking for a mountain dulcimer. What happened? Does it go away or have I gone through a set of one-way doors?


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## laristotle (Aug 29, 2019)

I'm kinda wondering that too.
I really haven't touched any of my guitars since picking up bass five years ago.


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

Your acoustic phase may be permanent, but some have found it can be reversed by not wearing women's clothing.


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## bw66 (Dec 17, 2009)

Mine has lasted almost forty years, but I seem to be emerging from it now. I actually took an electric guitar out of the house last Sunday for the first time in years.

If you like your electrics and amps, and don't need the money for other things, I would hold onto them. You never know when the wind might change.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Never had that phase...


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## Kerry Brown (Mar 31, 2014)

MIne lasted until our band needed a bass player.


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## tdotrob (Feb 24, 2019)

Budda said:


> Never had that phase...


 I think it’s a middle age thing and common affliction around here.

It’s starts when amps start feeling “too heavy” and you go lighter and lighter then one day bam, no electric at all. It ends when you finish menopause. I believe it’s called Joni Mitchell syndrome.


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## teleboli (Aug 19, 2009)

I've been through this multiple times. 'Buddies' used to enjoy joking about it when it happened.

No worries. It's just the organic flow of things. Be thankful you have varying interests. The sign of a fertile mind.

Usually after a month or two my ' little inner Jimmy P ' taps me on the shoulder and says 'hey dude'. On comes the Les Paul itch. Then I miss a tele and on it goes.

I'm actually glad to hear it happens to others.


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## Wardo (Feb 5, 2010)

In or about 78, I more or less stopped playing electric and just played acoustic all the time. In 2017 I bought a telecaster and since then I bought a few more electrics. Now I play electric about 50 % of the time.

I’m wondering how long my 335 phase is gonna last. I bought one of them a few months ago and I wish I’d got it 40 years ago.


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## GuitarT (Nov 23, 2010)

My first bout with it happened way back and lasted 2 or 3 years. Got sick of dealing with band bs and I discovered Michael Hedges. More recently it was more about an opportunity to jam with others in an acoustic setting but Covid ended a lot of that and I haven't really touched my acoustic much since.


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## GeorgeMich (Jun 6, 2013)

I go back and forth. But when the nice weather hits I predominantly play acoustic for some reason. When the cold rolls in I'm back into my electrics hard.


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## Duntov (Apr 2, 2021)

'I play mostly acoustic phase" should last a lifetime. I jump back and forth between my acoustic and my electrics and love them both. I find that my electric playing is more about the enjoyment for me, but an acoustic guitar is more likely to deliver enjoyment to both you and the listeners around. A true entertainers instrument. Whether it be strumming some chords and signing along, and playing fingerstyle songs...you're more likely to play something meaningful - not that you can't with an electric, but most often you're just wanking away for self-indulgence... my experience...
If I had to only keep one of my guitars, it would be my Taylor acoustic. But why is all my GAS about getting more electric guitars????


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## Lincoln (Jun 2, 2008)

if & when my acoustic phase ends, I'll let you know  

it's been going for 40+ years at this point


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## nbs2005 (Mar 21, 2018)

Mine just keeps going. Trying to get down to 2 electrics, one amp, and just a few pedals. I'm weeding the acoustics as well to a few key pieces. While I don't think I'll ever go completely unplugged, I do go weeks without playing electric. Acoustic is played every day.


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## Mutant_Guitar (Oct 24, 2021)

First of all, nothing is more intimate or lively than acoustic sound being played with the fingers. Secondly, the acoustic sound reveals the character of the player and his/her relationship with the instrument. I know it could be relegated to an aesthetic difference, but I believe that the way to develop a good ear is to be able to hear the nuances of acoustic timbres, and the changing colours in the different registers of the guitar. This is why it is a unique and stubbornly noble instrument. Why people time and again go back to Robert Johnson and those men who stood at the crossroads of all sound/all types of music, and reveled in the depth of the instrument. The guitar, especially the acoustic guitar, is able to sing a song all by itself. You should never amplify "deadwood" before finding the life in the sound and being able to reach it and listen to it. 
Segovia is very inspirational in this way; he professed the orchestral, and all encompassing aspect of the Classical guitar. Well, we now have instruments that have been time-tested and perfected, there are many many terrific instruments at our disposal...we should dispose of none but our concept of limitations; the limitations of the instrument are also the means by which you tell a story and truly speak with it.


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## FatStrat2 (Apr 7, 2021)

I think it's all about musical tastes and whether they change or not over the years. Some are consistent, some aren't.

I'm one of those that never slipped in or out of an acoustic guitar phase - it's always been there since the get-go. My beat up old 1973 Epiphone FT-145 has been by my side since I started playing 6 strings. Still play it at least 2 or 3 times a week - usually in the evening when I shouldn't be cranking it.


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## Always12AM (Sep 2, 2018)

Electric guitar has very few applications.
The main problem being is that what most good guitar players I’ve met do is play lead solos in their house with 9 pedals and no click track or drummer so when shit hits the griddle they are actually not very well rounded musicians. Because nobody really gives a fuck about the Layla solo that they mastered for 6 years in the wrong key and time signature

With acoustic, your dexterity and rhythm and actual “touch” are sharpened. It makes you a much better electric counterpart when you do pick up one. It also helps you appreciate the easy access of the lower frets and lighter string gauge.

@skeetz recommended to me very early on that I turn down the distortion and Reverb and play and write more on acoustic and it has served as very useful advice.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Like @bw66, about 40 years. Even when I have an electric band.


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

Always12AM said:


> Electric guitar has very few applications.
> The main problem being is that what most good guitar players I’ve met do is play lead solos in their house with 9 pedals and no click track or drummer so when shit hits the griddle they are actually not very well rounded musicians. Because nobody really gives a fuck about the Layla solo that they mastered for 6 years in the wrong key and time signature
> 
> With acoustic, your dexterity and rhythm and actual “touch” are sharpened. It makes you a much better electric counterpart when you do pick up one. It also helps you appreciate the easy access of the lower frets and lighter string gauge.
> ...


Blahdity blah blah blah


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## Mutant_Guitar (Oct 24, 2021)

I think in all ends, improvisation is the final frontier, and that stretches on into infinity. After all, we're talking about 12 tones in about 3-5 registers (depending on how much of the neck you actually use), so the limitations are pretty well set. @Always12AM I agree with that. It really takes an ear to make the guitar a musical instrument and not a situational instrument, or one simply played for effect. Most people play for effect because most people give up progressing their faculties for music after they feel themselves accomplished in copying their heroes...unfortunately, you can't teach taste...so even if you can play your hero's solos back and forward, often times what _you_ have to say gets left behind. Oh well, so it goes.


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## Guncho (Jun 16, 2015)

Mine lasted like five years.


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## Always12AM (Sep 2, 2018)

Mutant_Guitar said:


> I think in all ends, improvisation is the final frontier, and that stretches on into infinity. After all, we're talking about 12 tones in about 3-5 registers (depending on how much of the neck you actually use), so the limitations are pretty well set. @Always12AM I agree with that. It really takes an ear to make the guitar a musical instrument and not a situational instrument, or one simply played for effect. Most people play for effect because most people give up progressing their faculties for music after they feel themselves accomplished in copying their heroes...unfortunately, you can't teach taste...so even if you can play your hero's solos back and forward, often times what _you_ have to say gets left behind. Oh well, so it goes.


I spend most of my time trying to understand how to make my speaker sound broken when I’m in the electric guitar rabbit hole lol.


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

Always12AM said:


> I spend most of my time trying to understand how to make my speaker sound broken when I’m in the electric guitar rabbit hole lol.


I found going into a clean compressor into the low end of a Foxrox Octron 3 into a rat pedal into an overdrive with some delay is gloriously evil and armageddon sounding.


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## Mutant_Guitar (Oct 24, 2021)

Always12AM said:


> I spend most of my time trying to understand how to make my speaker sound broken when I’m in the electric guitar rabbit hole lol.


Well there's certainly stuff to be done with an electric guitar. I just don't think it should have everything to do with effects and distortion. I don't think you really have to lose anything in translation but folks gonna tone-chase. I know I've been there. I think because the sound is magnified, so too are the subtleties of the player, and some things just don't sound good in a low register like triads...unless you do want that craggy/broken sound. What does sound tight and heavy are triads with the 5th below the root. Ear still wins. Some genius guy had once said: "If you can't hear it, you can't play it. Period!".


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## Sketchy Jeff (Jan 12, 2019)

my acoustic phase is many years old now. every now and again it almost dies out and i play all electric for a while but in the big picture that's the exception and i keep looping back to acoustic instruments

one thing i know is true once you start playing mountain dulcimer your dry spells on other things are over. something about that sound and how you play it whether with drones or chording can get me out of almost any sort of rut. that said i don't think i've ever played dulcimer in public. it's a solitary thing or with family accompany one singer but any more than that it's too quiet

my dad used to build dulcimers when i was a kid. he would only play them on Sunday afternoons in the winter. after lunch he'd get one out and sit on my mom's piano bench and play gospel hymns. wow there's something i haven't thought about in a long time. thank you. 

j


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## Swervin55 (Oct 30, 2009)

It'll last until you start renovating your basement. Then everything goes to shit.


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## Mutant_Guitar (Oct 24, 2021)

Sketchy Jeff said:


> my acoustic phase is many years old now. every now and again it almost dies out and i play all electric for a while but in the big picture that's the exception and i keep looping back to acoustic instruments
> 
> one thing i know is true once you start playing mountain dulcimer your dry spells on other things are over. something about that sound and how you play it whether with drones or chording can get me out of almost any sort of rut. that said i don't think i've ever played dulcimer in public. it's a solitary thing or with family accompany one singer but any more than that it's too quiet
> 
> ...


Sketchy, is it possible for you to record some dulcimer sounds? I would love to hear a real capture.


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

Some call them dullcimers, I think not.


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## Sketchy Jeff (Jan 12, 2019)

yeah my christmas recording project this year is going to be instruments instead of a choir and i want to get some dulcimer in there i'll post some tracks here when i get that far there will be no shortage of opinion on recording technique i hope

that guy that player99 linked is about how it sounds except he's in better practice than i am  

a lot of people play it on their lap. it's very quiet that way. if your dulcimer has a wooden cleat on the bottom you can set it on a table or other resonant surface to act as a bigger sound board and get a much fuller sound. if it doesn't have cleats you can use a pencil under the fretting end and set the butt of the strumming end on the table. same idea as putting the butt of a quiet guitar against something resonant to boost the acoustic sound

j


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## Sneaky (Feb 14, 2006)

I pulled out my acoustic a few weeks ago for the first time in 5-6 years. Put a fresh set of strings on it and played it for about an hour.

That’s how long my acoustic phase lasted. Back to a Strat, pedals and amps now. It was a tough go, but I got over it.


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## jdto (Sep 30, 2015)

GeorgeMich said:


> I go back and forth. But when the nice weather hits I predominantly play acoustic for some reason. When the cold rolls in I'm back into my electrics hard.


This seems to be my pattern, too. In the summer, I play more acoustic up at the cottage and stuff. Also, I joined a band recently, so that has me playing mostly electric for practicing and learning the songs we are working on.


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## pipestone62 (Nov 14, 2013)

Maybe it’s time to sell you my Dove, you need one of those don’t you ?


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