Ever get the feeling...

[VulfgangPfuck]

Hand up here too.
I got burnt out. There was no good reason to own all the guitars I owned at one time. Hardly any of them were bought as utilities, and most just wound up hanging on the wall as artwork. So I did the next logical thing and got rid of it all. EVERYTHING!!

I didn't get another guitar in my hands for almost a year after this! Now I have 2. A nylon string and 1 electric, and a small practice amp. That's it. No more collecting. I'm strictly utilitarian!

[nonamemx]

Wow, that makes me feel alot better.

I think I may sell everything except for 2 guitars, and I'll just put them in their cases and bring them out again sometime later when I get past this phase.

[Bengal65]

This is very common. I know I've been playing 42 years and have been through it. Sometimes you have to put it away for awhile. If it's meant to be it will come back to you or....Reminds me of a story of a short fella with blonde hair from the LA area, that was a teacher once, hit it really big in the industry with many acclaimed records, still he was burnt out, tired of it all. He started picking up classical and going to a teacher in each city he played in during long tours. He had a new awakening playing an acoustic in a different style. Some of you may know this guy. His name was Randy. Sadly, he didn't live all that long due other activities in his life, but he had a spark and was dead in his tracks, so he went back to the roots of guitar. Maybe the great classical player Andre Segovia was onto something when he said the electric guitar wasn't a guitar at all.

[mab8485]

I've been stuck in this for a while as well. The reoccuring thought in my head goes something like this..... "you aren't a guitarist, you're just someone who plays guitar and collects equipment". Sometimes, listening to types of music i'd usually avoid can help. Getting out of your comfort zone.

In regards to selling all your gear off, I think it'd be a good decision to keep your favourite guitars, but put them into storage somewhere until the inspiration comes back. Cos there'd be nothing worse than selling it all and regretting it.

[Glave]

I have a silly idea. This happens alot because people are creatures of habit. You get fustrated because your fingers start playing the same stuff over and over again.

What I'm doing to break out of this is forget tone and GAS. Just grab a decent acoustic or your favorite electric, dust off those old lesson books/tapes you haven't seen in 20 years, and start from square one. You'd be surprised how many people who have been playing for years/decades, who can pull off a nice Yngwie sweep arpeggio, probably couldn't get through the first Mel Bay guitar book cleanly with a metronome without hitting alot of major clunkers.

So, I got DVD copies of my old Doug Marks lessons, keeping my amp on clean, and pretending I never picked up a guitar before. So far it's working great and it's showing me how bad my basics have gotten over the years. Just my .02