‘Will buying an expensive instrument make me abandon what I already have?’The recent sale of a Rebel soprano had me on the cliff. To put it simply, it was excruciating. I could have but didn't for fear of ruining all the happiness I enjoy with my "lesser" instruments. None are worshipped brands but they all have good intonation, play easily, and sound good to me. Each has a personality and purpose.
Any that didn't, or couldn't be made to, are gone.
I think your perception of rich people vacations are way off. Sure you can spend a lot of money like 10k for a family but many people travel there for a lot less. There are cheap flights from the US and very affordable accommodations even camping, and you can get around on the bus and buy food in supermarket. I always meet people there who were visiting on less than 1k for a week for a couple.Where does all this guilt come from about enjoying your hard earned discretionary income by buying a nicer uke to enjoy?
As long as you are not spending all the rent money and food money, you can buy another uke and the sky wont cave in.
If you don't have room for the next uke, either be happy with what you have, or just get rid of one.
Ask yourself why you shouldn't be looking at a better instrument, save the money to buy it, and don't be held hostage by what you read in social media all the time. You are allowed to spend your hard earned discretionary money on stuff that will make you happy, you do not have to leave it in a bank being ravaged by inflation and doing nothing for you. There is no shame in working hard and accumulating enough spare cash to buy a very nice ukulele for yourself, even if you are the planet's worst ukulele player.
Rich people who take a holiday every six months to Hawaii never seem to ask if they will regret spend $10K+ on the next holiday, they just make some plans and work out how to pay for it and go. They don't rate how well they have a holiday, they just have a holiday, if someone tells them they don't know how to holiday, they don't pack up and go home, they just keep enjoying themselves. Why do we have to have all this materialistic stuff about prices and buying the next one on UU?
Obviously, you should not be spending rent and food money on ukuleles, unless you are a paid performer and they are like a tool for your work and you use them to generate the income to pay the rent.
We are all constrained by budgets, we all need to take care of our money, but if you do the work you deserve the reward, don't make up reasons to not take the reward after you have done all the hard work.
We love you too Petey! We missed you.Since 2006, I have bought many ukes. I was looking for "my sound" and I eventually found it in a jangley Martin S-0 soprano in 2011 in Berlin. I had never thought about buying expensive ukes ever. I was just looking for my sound. Just look for the sound you want, expensive or not.
My GF at the time noticed with cheaper ukes, that I kept spending most of my time tuning them after each song.
I have not played a Martin uke for 3 months and it is literally in tune after that.
I'm back on the uke scene and will do more videos soon. My hospital stay and accident has made me realize how much I love this group. Cheerio, - pf
I think you're looking at it the wrong way. If a new uke does make you abandon your older "lesser" ukes, it's because you wanted it to, because you enjoy the new one just that much. You'll literally enjoy the new one even more than you enjoy the ones you have now, if that's what happens.The recent sale of a Rebel soprano had me on the cliff. To put it simply, it was excruciating. I could have but didn't for fear of ruining all the happiness I enjoy with my "lesser" instruments. None are worshipped brands but they all have good intonation, play easily, and sound good to me. Each has a personality and purpose.
Any that didn't, or couldn't be made to, are gone.
Totally agree, my friend.In that sense expensive ukes save money. Expensive ukes are expensive and it takes squirreling a little money every paycheck for a few years to afford one, but once you have it, you don't want anything else...at least that's how it worked for me. And my personality.
Thanks! I'm back!We love you too Petey! We missed you.