Is gear actually more fun than making music?

mo6020

I was a gear hound when I was a working musician and I'm a gear hound now I'm not a working musician. Difference is I have way more money now so have way more gear...

I don't think being into gear makes you a better or worse musician, or invalidates you as a musician somehow.

GoFish

Gear appreciation is certainly easier than *just* playing or practising music, a bit of retail therapy thrown in - it's geekdom really, and many of us have our areas of interests with and beyond gear.

What's wrong with stamp collecting anyway? Or knowing things about s3 of Arrested Development? Or what the Beatles were doing at the George V Hotel in 1964? It's not the same as writing letters, learning how to edit footage, or knowing all the words to Can't Buy Me Love. That's all okay too.

Getting riled up about the latest developments in the world is easier still - so maybe gear ain't so bad.

Snap

to the OP - yes is the correct answer

flying_pie

I find I feel healthiest when I'm not worrying about gear or the creative process and I'm just playing.

I definitely prefer making music than collecting or worrying about gear, but spending huge amounts of time to try and settle on a riff can be frustrating. And let's not even mention the red light syndrome where that record button renders you incapable of playing the most basic of things. Sometimes it can feel easier to distract yourself in gear.

Whether it's music or sport I've always been of the mindset that application is much more important than gear.

But that's just me. And you're not me so just do what makes you happiest 

Kurtis

I've never had any desire to play in front of people or join a band really.

Lewy

I think you only have to look at pedalboards on instagram to see that gear collection and ownership is an endeavor in and of itself and one that people get a great deal of fun out of e.g. "I've assembled the perfect flyboard" says somebody who never goes anywhere. I can see how people could find it satisfying and good for them I say.

I also don't buy into the idea that being into gear in anyway distracts from the ability to go and make music. Jason Isbell is a gear head. Eric Johnson...amazing players and writers who are also obsessed with gear. 

Personally I do find making music (less playing these days, more studying, writing and recording) more fun than the gear side of things - the kind of gear that gets me excited these days is things that can enable me to get rid of other gear (e.g. going digital) or enable me to make music I otherwise couldn't. 

The only downside to these two interests being so intertwined is that if you go looking for information on gear from the perspective of how it will support your music-making, you've got to wade through a lot of content from people who can't actually play, and I might be alone in this but I'm not interested in what someone who can't play has to say about a piece of gear.

LionAquaLooper

Modding guitars is just as much fun as making music for me. I feel like Dr. Frankenstein when I've finished a project, screw eveything down, plug it in, strum and hear a guitar sound. Makes me giddy.

What doesn't make me giddy is when I plug it in and either hear nothing or hear a loud buzzing