The $3,000 Guitar That Taught Me I'm Not a Musician

August 2026

Music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.

At 40, I can still remember the first albums my mom ever gave me, along with a CD player: Metallica's ...And Justice for All and Weird Al Yankovic's Bad Hair Day. Two very different kinds of music.

I listened to both of them constantly.

I would blast them every day, much to my mother's annoyance, and eventually I started trying to make some of that music myself. I found an old, beat-up guitar and decided I was going to learn Metallica's "One." I didn't have a teacher. I just looked up the tabs and started figuring it out.

Somehow, I got pretty good.

I was never going to be a rock star, but that didn't really matter. That guitar put me on a path that I've been walking ever since. Sometimes that meant listening to albums from beginning to end. Sometimes it meant going to concerts. Sometimes it meant picking up a guitar and trying to learn a song that was probably well beyond my ability.

I just loved music.

Buy Used

Now, at 40, I've owned just about every kind of guitar you can imagine. And if anyone ever asks me how to get started playing, my advice is simple: buy used.

That's what I've done for most of my life. Your money goes so much further when you buy a used instrument, and over the years that allowed me to own Gibsons, Taylors, Martins, and Fenders that I probably couldn't have justified buying new.

But there was always one thing I wanted.

I wanted to buy a guitar that had never belonged to anyone else.

The One I Bought New

So, when I was 37, I finally did it.

I bought a Taylor 50th Anniversary 314ce Grand Auditorium acoustic-electric guitar in Tobacco.

It cost me nearly $3,000.

That was—and still is—the most expensive guitar I've ever purchased.

And honestly, I struggled with the decision.

I generally don't spend much money on myself. I'm a pretty simple person. Give me a good book, a beautiful inexpensive notebook, a reusable fountain pen, and some painting supplies, and I'm pretty happy. I can spend an entire afternoon with a paintbrush in my hand and never feel like I need anything else.

So spending nearly three grand on a guitar felt excessive.

But I wanted it.

And sometimes, I think, it's okay to buy something simply because you love it.

So I did.

Learning I'm Not a Musician

Nearly four years later, that guitar spends most of its life inside its case.

I take it out every once in a while. I play for a bit. Then life happens, and back into the case it goes.

And for a long time, I thought that meant I had somehow failed.

I spent all that money on this beautiful instrument, and I wasn't playing it every day. I wasn't practicing for hours. I wasn't becoming the musician I imagined I might become when I was sitting on my bedroom floor as a kid trying to figure out "One."

But I've come to realize something.

I'm not a musician.

And that's okay.

What I Do Instead

Being a musician requires a level of commitment that I'm not sure I actually want to give. Getting genuinely great at an instrument requires daily practice, discipline, repetition, and a willingness to sacrifice other things for it.

These days, I'd rather spend that time with my kids.

Or take my camera into Washington, D.C. and wander around looking for something worth photographing.

Or write.

Or paint.

Or sit outside and listen to someone else play.

That doesn't mean I've stopped playing.

I can still pick up that Taylor and play a pretty large catalog of songs, from Bruce Springsteen to the solos of "Purple Haze." I can still sit down and lose an hour to a guitar without realizing where the time went.

And lately, I've been slowly working on my bluegrass picking.

I've grown to love what artists like Johnny Blue Skies can do with an acoustic guitar. Even Vince Gill, Glen Hansard. There is something about that style of playing that feels almost effortless, even though I know there are years of practice hiding underneath every note.

If you haven't listened to Johnny Blue Skies, do yourself a favor.

I'm hoping to see him when he comes to D.C. on October 18.

Maybe I'll even bring the Taylor out again before then.

What the Guitar Taught Me

Because that $3,000 guitar taught me something I probably needed to learn.

Buying it didn't obligate me to become a musician.

I didn't waste the money because I don't play it every day.

And the guitar doesn't lose its value simply because it spends more time in its case than in my hands.

Sometimes we buy things because they represent a version of ourselves we hope to become.

Sometimes we buy them because they remind us of who we were.

And sometimes, we buy them simply because we love them.

That guitar represents all three for me.

It reminds me of the kid who sat on the floor with a beat-up guitar and Metallica tabs, convinced he could figure out how to play "One."

It reminds me of the 37-year-old who finally decided he was allowed to spend $3,000 on something just because it made him happy.

And now, it reminds me that I don't have to be great at everything I love.

I can just love it.

Maybe that's enough.

And honestly, when I open that case, pick up that guitar, and hear those first few notes ring out, I think it is.