Wiardgroup

hear HEAR! Mr. Chang!

i applaud your courage in coming out of the closet in pearls and
Chanel by citing a dark side to collecting. Those who know me
personally know the lengths to which i go to prevent my old
instruments from ever being 'collected'. Your statements have
emboldened me to sashay over the line with you ...out of the
closet...and add my voice publicly in a resounding "me too!" and
declare that i have no use for collecting either.

Sure it's free country...but that doesn't mean it's a good
country...and the exact point of collision between what's legal and
what's right is the money. There are few perfectly upstanding and
legal tragedies as heartbreaking to me as seeing a panel of knobs with
no fingerprints or a unique voice, silenced behind humidity-controlled
glass and a usurious price tag.

My position is that all instruments are worthless in their case. They
acquire value only in the hands of a musician. It makes sense to me
that an instrument's worth would escalate precipitously... to a
musician with the skills to give it a voice! But to someone to whom it
is a mere commodity .... well.... let's just say they are impoverished
in a currency that matters much more than money to me.

One of the worst violin tones i ever heard was at the hands of a
Guarneri OWNER. The fact that he paid millions of dollars for it made
it seem all the more worthless to me. He was afraid of letting rosin
fall on the fingerboard!

Those poor imprisoned instruments!
Anything that separates them from the artists with the talent and
skills to play them makes them as eerily desolate as cicada shells.

-doc



--- In wiardgroup@yahoogroups.com, "Gary Chang" <gchang@...> wrote:
>
> I respectfully submit that the value in each and every musical device
> is not the really relative to the "market value."
> 
> In 1996, I found and bought a Buchla Music Easel, which then cost at
> that time around $5500.00 OVER the original asking price by Buchla in
> the 70's.  I paid this ridiculous price and played the Buchla for 5
> years, and then sold it and got my money back.  Was it worth it?
> 
> How do I value the musical experience that I had while owning this
> device?  Certainly WAY more than what the cost was.
> 
> I have since 2001 been acquiring and assembling a very large Wiard
> Modular Music System.  I have purchased several modules directly from
> Grant, and a certain amount from former owners at higher prices when
> the prices went up after Grant announced that 300 Series modules were
> only special order items.
> 
> I play my system EVERY day.  What I have gotten from Grant's modules
> is MUSIC.  Of course, I value this experience beyond what the "market
> value" is.
> 
> So, that's my opinion - the value of a musical instrument is directly
> related to the music you make with it.  If you look at it this way,
> how can you afford NOT to buy this stuff and get on with your life!  
> 
> Of course, if you are an "investor" - all I can say is that you can
> make way more money investing in oil stocks rather than to drive up
> musical instrument values so that you boast to your friends that you
> have some rare EM device in your basement that you never use.
> 
> Of course, synths aren't the only musical objects subject to this - it
> is why a mint 70's Strat coast $15-25,000.00 nowadays - (which is way
> higher than most musicians can afford) - the tragic thing is that
> these guitars aren't even being played.
> 
> Ok - I have stepped over the line - I apologize if I offended anyone
> in my discourse.  
> 
> I am just saying is "the value is in the playing."
> 
> Not the collecting.
> 
> 
> gary
> 
> 
> 
> --- In wiardgroup@yahoogroups.com, "sascha victoria"
> <sascha.victoria@> wrote:
> >
> > yeah, took me about 4 years to commit. finally called up grant
today and
> > placed and order. check will be in the mail tomorrow. booya!
> >
>