Advice on where I can play a guitar when I don't have mine

Moonshine

Hi guys, this is my first post here so I'll introduce myself.

I'm a 21 y/o guitarist in the UK. I own quite a lot of music equipment, including 3 guitars and having just moved to a new city and into temporary accomodation in a shared room to find work, I left my stuff at home. I've been here for about a month and have had such an urge to make music it's killing me xD I used to play every day without a break for at least 4 years and it's like I constantly have something on my chest I need to get off. I guess it's like being super horny and not being able to let it out, if you know what I mean. 

I expect I wont have my guitars up here for about another month, as I'm not in work and even if I start in the next week, it will take a while to settle into it all before I have a place of my own. Now and again I go to the local PMT music store in Bristol, (which is great by the way. one of the coolest guitar stores I've visited in England) but if I keep going there to play guitar for 2 hours twice a week, I expect I'll start p****** people off eventually. Especially if I never buy anything haha. I've also gone to a few jam nights and used someone else's guitar which is all well and good in it's own right but not the same as getting some proper practice in and I'm noticeably too rusty to play live with strangers and don't feel comfortable going to these nights all the time. Need a drink to get up there usually 

You guys have any idea where else I can go to play a guitar in the mean time? It's not safe to leave my expensive shit in a tiny hostel room while I go to work and I really don't wanna wait over a month to practice because I've got stuff I need to work on before my music course starts. Such a weird problem, I know, but I just wanna play guitar maynnn. 

darcym

just wait for your own gear to be available for you. it's 4 weeks.

proggy

Buy yourself a cheap guitar, there's a lot of them about.

Moonshine

You're probably right. I remember this interesting thing happens when I don't play guitar for a while. When I was first learning 8 or 9 years ago, I'd play most days then take a break for a couple of weeks. When I came back I would be noticably more creative and find new boxes to play around with on the neck. Sometimes would take longer to get back to the same skill level but my creativity was boosted exponentially. Makes me excited to go back to it again after 2 or 3 months of not playing. Hence why I'm in hysterics about getting to play again. I must be psychically connected to the feeling of playing because not doing so is effecting my behavior in every day life and I feel quite down and out, maybe a bit ?mad? from the lack of sally six strings. Really gonna have to just keep doing jam nights and the music store for a while I think. But an alternative would be nice, just to set my mind at ease. Guitar is therapy, I'm sure people can understand that feeling.

Moonshine

proggy said:

Buy yourself a cheap guitar, there's a lot of them about.

Not a bad idea. I guess I can spare £20 for a knocked up acoustic or something. Money is just tight at the moment. Student life...

Cols

proggy said:

Buy yourself a cheap guitar, there's a lot of them about.

^This.  Find a cheap beater to keep you going until your gear arrives and then sell it on.  If you’re lucky, it’ll be cost-neutral.

DLM

If you can stump up the cash, buy something you can easily sell on for the same amount of money. That's what I did when I first moved abroad. There's stuff that remains so stable on the second-hand market that it's almost no risk.

But if you can't put up that money for a month, maybe you could rent a guitar?

This was the first place out of Google:

https://www.hobgoblin.com/shops/bristol/

This will cost more in the long run.

lovestrat74

Borrow one, I'm sure there are a few chaps on here will lend you a beater to get you thorugh!  Create a post - can't do no harm

Funkfingers

Moonshine said:

a knocked up acoustic

Now, there's a thought. Breed them.

JD50

Get a charity shop acoustic and go busking.

hobbio

Look on the local Freecycle, people give away all sorts of stuff. 

Alnico

Could you feasibly take your own guitar to work with you each day, not to play but to safely store for the day while you're there?
If so, get your own guitar from wherever it is and use a decent gigbag and just be old-fashioned careful with it. Get someone to threaten you with very real physical violence like a lot of us had in the 70's and 80's if anything bad happens to it because of your lack of care and attention,..etc


But seriously, I'd be getting a gigbag and headphones, maybe one of those Vox Amphones which plug directly to the guitar and I'd be getting on with it as long as like you say, it's not left there all day when you're not there. Does the building have an office and their own security and staff? Will they look after it for you? Maybe not officially but if you're nice to them they just might?

Where you live isn't easy to get a start in from a hostel unless you can "Woo" a landlord with anywhere up to a couple of £k up front, so it may take longer than one month and if so, you've not wasted time and money on something you don't really want.
Just don't let yours leave your side.

You can legitimately pose with a guitar everywhere you go and have a really good reason for doing it!
lol

 Just thoughts, I might be way off the mark but that's what I'd want to do if I was in that situation. I have been before but it was a long time ago. I carried a '90 Les Paul Studio everywhere with me for over a year because of where I lived. It was the only thing in my room of any value and I was the only one in the building that wasn't alcoholic.
Bedminster in the mid-'90's wasn't amazing but that guitar went everywhere and as a result, got played all the time.

I should never really have sold it but y'know, food is food and all that.

Good luck.

streethawk

Find a local guitar teacher who will no doubt have something you can use as long as you're paying him/her their hourly rate.

Bonus: you might learn something. 

JEPBLEP

Bristol you say? Here you go: https://www.gumtree.com/search?featured_filter=false&q=guitar&search_location=Bristol&search_category=guitar-instrument&urgent_filter=false&search_scope=false&photos_filter=false&sort=price_lowest_first&page=1

munckee

JEPBLEP said:

Bristol you say? Here you go: https://www.gumtree.com/search?featured_filter=false&q=guitar&search_location=Bristol&search_category=guitar-instrument&urgent_filter=false&search_scope=false&photos_filter=false&sort=price_lowest_first&page=1

Theres an actual vintage guitar on there for £15.... hmmm 4 hour round trip for me but its vintage the ad says so??