I'm noticing "virtue signaling" on TB lately. It's kind of the new snob device, LOL!
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Gear snobs.
- Thread starter Indiana Mike
- Start date
I'm noticing "virtue signaling" on TB lately. It's kind of the new snob device, LOL!
Sounds like those other teenagers were just really good at picking their grandparents....
You're answer was correct. I hope she bought the chops and destroyed them.
You're answer was correct. I hope she bought the chops and destroyed them.
I welcome these conversations with my kids. They’re a bit younger 7&10, but regardless it is the same.
My wife and I do okay and live well below our means. When parents show up to a soccer game in a new Navigator (they’re leasing) or one of the kids on the baseball team has a $400 bat, expensive sneakers etc.
I’m a financial Advisor, so to me these are great opportunities to talk to the kids about the value of saving and having money. If we could drive their college savings account down the block, or our retirement account the other parents may be impressed but we aren’t looking to impress other people. We spend money on things that add value to our lives and save money so we can stop trading our valuable time for money.
Let your daughter be the best cello player in the room and let her look around at the kids who don’t sound as good with their expensive cellos. If she values having a better cello let her understand how hard mom and dad have to work to get it. And how meaningless the other kids opinions are.
My wife and I do okay and live well below our means. When parents show up to a soccer game in a new Navigator (they’re leasing) or one of the kids on the baseball team has a $400 bat, expensive sneakers etc.
I’m a financial Advisor, so to me these are great opportunities to talk to the kids about the value of saving and having money. If we could drive their college savings account down the block, or our retirement account the other parents may be impressed but we aren’t looking to impress other people. We spend money on things that add value to our lives and save money so we can stop trading our valuable time for money.
Let your daughter be the best cello player in the room and let her look around at the kids who don’t sound as good with their expensive cellos. If she values having a better cello let her understand how hard mom and dad have to work to get it. And how meaningless the other kids opinions are.
One of the best lessons to teach kids is frugality. Spending money on quality stuff that will provide years of service is better than buying junk that won't last or wasting money on needless extravagance. Making those calls is a challenge for many of us.
Lesson 1: Be humble, but lay down the chops. Man, you nailed the heck out of that one.
Lesson 2: If you're the best person in the room, you're in the wrong room. It's cool that your daughter does so well. It's even cooler that you're upping the ante. We get better faster when we're surrounded by people better than us.
Lesson 2: If you're the best person in the room, you're in the wrong room. It's cool that your daughter does so well. It's even cooler that you're upping the ante. We get better faster when we're surrounded by people better than us.
It works both ways.
I play Alembics, own two..as well as some more expensive fender jazz basses (62 custom shop, elites, etc).
While I don't look down on others for playing "lesser" instruments, I've been the victim of the "anti-snob".
"I know how much that bass costs, how the hell do you afford it?"
"I can't tell the different between jack playing his Hondo bass and you playing your richie rich bass"
"that bass probably costs as much as my roof"
etc..etc..
Killer was some fat drunk guy who had previously made a comment about my bass making it a point to trip and fall directly on the case my Alembic S1 was in. It obviously was not an accident either as the case pretty much out of the way...My guess is he wanted to damage it for whatever reason.
Very few start with a premium instrument at first. I am sure more than one of the judges remembers their starter cello.The real question here though is how many judges are gear snobs?
Seriously though, as someone who came up on others worn out castoffs, it gave me a much higher appreciation for better equipment when i could finally afford it. It also tempered my desire to have gear just because it was expensive. The most i’ve ever spent for a bass was seven hundred fifty 1990 dollars for a new Jazz Plus.
With a bass, you can roll up a wad of $100 bills and hide them in the cavity so when a gear snob attacks, you can smile and honestly say you would never trade your bass for theirs. With a $20,000 cello, it’s a little more problematic, unless you want to put diamonds inside or write a check.
I can relate to and appreciate your exact same circumstances. My daughter started playing cello in the third grade and always used the school supplied instrument until....
Her sophomore year in high school I got her a student cello for Christmas. She was so excited and jazzed about having her own instrument. She did the setup and tuning all on her own and practiced every day for the rest of the Christmas vacation. By spring she was starting to show signs of discouragement and losing interest in orchestra. At the time I dismissed it to typical teenage interest jumping to other topics. In reality, it was the rich snob peers with their expensive instruments making cruel comments about her and student cello. Furthermore, the teacher made a comment about how difficult it is to tune and maintain tune with the quality of her instrument.
It still breaks my heart to think about it and how much of a cringe worthy experience it was for her. Even though she has moved on and is a successful architecture student, I will one day buy her that handmade cello she always wanted.
Just to add a bit of contrast to this thread, that is filled with good quality comments, it's important to appreciate the distinction between "gear pride" and "gear snobbery". Some people are proud of the instrument they have and the story behind it. That's not snobbery. Others listening to this can share in the speaker's pride and they don't have to feel bad about their own instruments as they have their own stories to be proud of. It's the looking down on others that makes the snob. It does exist, but people talking about their instrument in glowing terms, doesn't mean they are snobs.
I love that quote. Is that yours or did it come from somewhere? Doesn't matter, I'm stealing it.
I will admit it. I am a gear snob. I only like Vintage Japanese instruments made by Matsumoku.
Both the guitars and basses built by this master builder are better than anything else that I have experienced.
Just one players opinion.
Both the guitars and basses built by this master builder are better than anything else that I have experienced.
Just one players opinion.
My parents bought me a decent violin when I was young. They were going to buy me a cheaper one, but the music store owner brought 4 instruments, and after playing each one for a couple of minutes, I ranked them in order of price - that's the good one, that one's next, etc. They asked "You can tell the difference?", and I said yes. So they bought me the most expensive of those (it still wasn't a lot of money, but for a kid a year into it, I can see why they might have balked).
A couple years later, the neighbors came over with "an old violin that grandad had" that had been in their attic for a while. It was an 80 year old violin - the kind that, even without the sticker in it to tell who made, it, people said "It's a _____" - the maker was famous for his style in certain aspects. Anyway, it was a great violin, even though it looked a bit worse for wear, it played like a dream. My challenge wasn't in bragging about it - to the uninitiated, it looked old and beat up, nothing special, and I never told folks what it was, I just played it,and figured if noone knew that I had a "magic fiddle", maybe they'd think it was me. My challenge was playing it in preference to the one they'd bought me - I had to negotiate my parent's disappointment that the "professional violin" they had bought me was not the best one.
Still, through all of this, I was keenly aware that the violin never made up for lack of practice - the instrument may add a bit to an already great performance, but it itself isn't the thing that's performing. There was a kid from another school that used to play at regional musical contests when I was a kid. He was blind, so he didn't play softball or ride his bike - he did nothing but play his violin. Whenever he played, people would cram into the room to hear him play. He was, to put it bluntly, a level above anyone else in the place.
He was great because he practiced all the time. Nobody ever talked about what kind of violin he had.
A couple years later, the neighbors came over with "an old violin that grandad had" that had been in their attic for a while. It was an 80 year old violin - the kind that, even without the sticker in it to tell who made, it, people said "It's a _____" - the maker was famous for his style in certain aspects. Anyway, it was a great violin, even though it looked a bit worse for wear, it played like a dream. My challenge wasn't in bragging about it - to the uninitiated, it looked old and beat up, nothing special, and I never told folks what it was, I just played it,and figured if noone knew that I had a "magic fiddle", maybe they'd think it was me. My challenge was playing it in preference to the one they'd bought me - I had to negotiate my parent's disappointment that the "professional violin" they had bought me was not the best one.
Still, through all of this, I was keenly aware that the violin never made up for lack of practice - the instrument may add a bit to an already great performance, but it itself isn't the thing that's performing. There was a kid from another school that used to play at regional musical contests when I was a kid. He was blind, so he didn't play softball or ride his bike - he did nothing but play his violin. Whenever he played, people would cram into the room to hear him play. He was, to put it bluntly, a level above anyone else in the place.
He was great because he practiced all the time. Nobody ever talked about what kind of violin he had.
I wouldn't start up a fight with someone holding a tuba anyways
All five foot two of her!
Basically the same thing I told the football players I coached when my son played...
Let your pads do the talking, not your mouth.
Let her playing show them how talented she is. Geddy, John Entwhistle, whoever...give them a crap bass, they'll still sound like the best!
I hate gear snobs...
BnB
Let your pads do the talking, not your mouth.
Let her playing show them how talented she is. Geddy, John Entwhistle, whoever...give them a crap bass, they'll still sound like the best!
I hate gear snobs...
BnB
Passinwind
I know nothing.
- Dec 3, 2003
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- Designer/Toaster Tech @ Passinwind Electronics
Love hearing stories like this.
I worked in the industry for years, and to a certain extent the industry preys on gear snobbery.
My favourite laughable experiences were always related to the cyclists that "need" to ride a 14 pound bike, but could benefit more from riding a 25 pound bike and losing 50lbs themselves.
There are a few things to unpack here.
First, I think you are confusing "gear snobbery" with the unspoken economic class system in the US. Orchestra camp is for well to do kids of families that have an interest in music that uses those sorts of instruments. That is a pretty small, and elite group. I would expect the other kids there to have high end instruments. That doesn't they mean they should or have to, but you've introduced yourself into an exclusive and high end group. Get used to the snobbery now.
Bass camps are also frequently full of kids with pretty high end basses. The kind of kids that are going to attend those sort of events are going to usually come from families that are heavily vested in their child's pursuit.
Now let's address the gear snobbery vs getting the best you can afford. There is a myth that cheap instruments are as good as expensive ones. On the whole, that simply isn't true. I have never once in my entire life picked up a "value oriented" bass or guitar that was constructed as meticulously, had all the features, and had a similar tone of a high end piece of gear. Parts, wood, and craftsmanship cost what they cost. Period.
That doesn't mean every single boutique bass is super awesome. Some are a complete rip off. However, if you want to spend that money, that's on you, and it is none of my business.
Someone else doesn't have more expensive gear than you doesn't make them a gear snob. Unless they straight up tell you something like "Ugh, I can't play anything under $2000 dollars. It makes my ears hurt." The assumption that because they have more expensive equipment they must be a gear snob is actually someone imprinting their feelings on them.
I started with a throw away Kramer AeroStar ZX70. It was the cheapest of the cheap because it was a assembly line second. It doesn't even have the Kramer logo on it. I still have it for sentimental reasons. It plays like rubbish and I can't fix it up because everything about it is half @$$ed. That poor old bass has always served as my inspiration to do better, work harder, earn more, so I can get better toys. If someone wants to call that snobbery, I can't help them.
