Twelvebar be SO on!

In this opinion, playing a bunch of different instruments...solid, hollow, thin, long bass, short bass, classical, twelve-string, varied radii, scale lengths...

...will allow you to assimilate the concept and abilities of "playing guitar," rather than playing A guitar.

Keyboardists tend not to have A keyboard, but several.

That said, many other instrument players, concert orchestral types come to mind, are perfectly happy and enormously skilled on ONE instrument.

What is best for YOU?

Heck no! Play them all, love them all! Once you get married you are stuck with one woman, don't limit yourself to one guitar.

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"Life is like eating jalapenos. What you do today may burn your arse tomorrow"

Electric guitar players are the only players I know who imagine that they need a lot of instruments.

For me, playing one guitar for may years and learning to get what I want from it with my hands has been a very rewarding experience.

Do you have fun playing other guitars?

Not really. In the past ten years I haven't played even one that was as satisfying to play as my homebrew Strat.

I can understand that sentiment SlapChop!

I like a variety in my sound, this morning I was messin' with three of my axes. The Fender Telecaster, the Gibson LP Special dc with p90s and the Gibson BluesHawk, I had a lotta fun, all those guitars 'smoke' and they each have a different flavour. After 46 years of playin' I've found one guitar doesn't give me everything I want to hear but that's just my view.
Like our guitars, we are all different.

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I say that if you're not getting paid for it, then you may as well enjoy it. I have my Les Paul that I really love playing, and frankly, the best sounds that I am capable of making with a guitar and amp, I make with that guitar. But my black/maple MIM strat is fun too...and has potential (after I swap out the white pickguard for a black one, the knobs and stuff for black and throw in some Toneriders Vintage pups and....you know how it goes). And my Epi...well that was my first guitar, and it may be a bolt-on neck LP copy, but it does stuff that electric guitars are s'posed to do and I enjoy playing it too.

I'm saying, have fun. Whether you do it with one guitar or many doesn't matter.

I agree with this. I am very much still a beginner but my playing really got better when I started playing different guitars, neck radiuses, different pickups, string sizes etc. Just making the step up from acoustic to electric really made a huge difference for me. SO now I try to play as many different brands, styles, etc of guitars. I always go back to my Tele as my go to but try to make sure to mix it up whenever possible.

Owning and playing different guitars is great because:

you can have different brands/models/configurations of pickups in the same model guitar (looks and feels the same but sounds different).
you can play different makes/models of guitars (looks, feels and sounds different).
Same make and model but different finishes (sounds/feels the same but looks different).

Then again I also own and enjoy playing through different amps depending on what type of music I'm playing.

Will it make you a better player? Hell I don't know, but it sure is fun and that's the point isn't it.

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"Life is like eating jalapenos. What you do today may burn your arse tomorrow"

I think it is more total practice time than how many guitars you practice on. I have one acoustic than sounds great fingerpicked but not so good strummed. My other acoustic sounds good strummed and pretty good picked so it depends on wha kind of music I feel like playing.

Now if you were trying to learn guitar and bass at the same time that would cut down on your guitar time, but switching from one guitar to another doesn't seem like a problem.

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Stagemaster
Roadhouse Strat
Epi Traditional Pro Les Paul
Ovation Celeb
Esteban Celestial Night(nicely tweeked)
Blackheart tube amp

I am getting paid for it, and I do enjoy it.

Those are the very reasons why I don't have a bunch of guitars. I am a professional, I love my work, and I'm much more interested in music than in gear. I am not a hobbyist or a collector, and I don't have any urge to own things just for the sake of it.

In over 40 years of playing the guitar, I have learned done thing: I can play the same music on my guitar than I can play on any other guitar, and if I can't, the instrument isn't the problem.

Odd thing: I seem to agree with just about every word written on this thread. Even though some of them are contrary to others.

How diplomatic!

Cheers - C

i honestly dont see the point in having over 3 guitars. i see these artists that have like 80,000 guitars when they usually use like 3. but i dont think that it matters on the guitar that makes you a better player. though, some guitars are easier to play than others (i.e. the telecaster) b/c of design and what not.

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I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk...

"You got to go ypur own way!"
(Fleetwood Mac)