You could also donate guitars etc. to your local center for battered and abused women,they often leave their abusive situations along with their kids in the middle of the night with little more than the clothes on their backs.A guitar or even a cheap harp could do wonders to help raise the spirits of a child coming from that kind of environment. We've given furniture,T.Vs bikes and just about anything you can think of to the local women's shelter and the feeling of satisfaction that you get from this has no equal.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

For every one of my (any your) tax dollars to the Federal Government, about 7.5 cents goes to social programs. So, if you made $50,000 and paid $6,225.00 in Federal income tax, approximately $465.00 went to these programs directly.
*These figures are based on 2008 Census info and from the Office of Management and Budget-Table 8.1, page 133 on income distribution. PM me if you want a link.
And the university that I attended was not a taxpayer funded school.

^^

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Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.

Come to the UK, we have a scheme here where children can get interest-free loans on instruments: http://takeitaway.org.uk/what-is-take-it-away

(Not sure if that's a goverment-run scheme or set up by some kind of not-for profit or charity or whatever. Either way, it's pretty cool!)

Anyway, from a purely selfish standpoint, do we really want the extra competition from more guitarists? I already get frustrated at the legions of teenage kids on YouTube who can shred twice as fast as me despite having seemingly been playing for half as long.

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TremoloPedals.org - Tremolo pedal reviews and comparison

I now realize philanthropy does have it limits...doesn't it? There had to have been times when even Jesus had to raise his hands and say "WHOA!!".

FF1, My last post was meant to be sarcastic. I don't consider my taxes to be a gift to to poor.

Tvr1979,
You have obviously never lived in the state of Connecticut.

Sadly, the arts in today's local schools are sometimes cut because lack of money, teachers and resources. This topic would be on the backburner as food, shelter and clothing are main priorities for the poor.

True, but the idiots who run the school district we recently left built a new high school with an indoor (football) practice facility, an indoor Olympic-sized swimming pool, and three separate gyms (instead of the traditional "girl's" and "boy's" gyms)...they said these amenities were necessary to give their athletes every chance to get scholarships...

...and then they decided to limit the number of "unnecessary" courses such as Art, Spanish and Music to pay for this crap; the initial plan was to lay off one or two of these teachers at each of the nine elementary schools, due to budget shortfalls.

I pointed out that less than ten athletes per year got big scholarships in our school district, while every kid would benefit from art, music and Spanish instruction (especially Spanish)...the virulent response against the idea of laying off these "unnecessary" teachers was met by an equally virulent response by the Jock Strap Coalition, who worship at the alter of Tom Landry.

They ultimately laid off the full-time school registered nurses and replaced them with LVNs and medical assistants...whom nobody trusted to give medicine to their children, so the ultimate answer was bad, too.

Our team didn't make the playoffs that year, either. Hmm.

If you want to make a difference for poor people (kids, adults, whatever), don't expect the government or a charity to do it right or do it well. Do it yourself...at least you'll know where the money is going.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

Then it's ironic that in the age before outrageous taxes (and wastrel government spending at virtually every level) that we managed to "create a society and a functioning country" at all.

I'm so choked up with the emotion of the moment, excuse me while I grab a fresh kleenex......

I was one of those "poor kids". I could never afford a decent Fender combo amp growing up. But I could afford an amp head. So I learned how to build my own speaker cabinets so I'd have a rig to jam on with my equally-impoverished buddies. Along that path, I learned about tools -- how to use them, how to care for them, how different materials reacted with one another during construction. When I'd finally wrung all that was wringable from my crappy hand-me-down Gibson Melody Maker, I slaved all summer to earn enough to buy a decent axe. I milked cows, baled hay, mowed yards, delivered newspapers astride my Schwinn to afford that first Stratocaster all by myself (cue violins). And because of that, I learned to respect the instrument and to treat it with the care and attention a fine guitar deserves. Give a kid a guitar in today's "Generation Y-bother" era and like as not, you'll find it a month later languishing under a bed with his dirty socks, at the bottom of a dusty broom closet, or out on the porch with the other toys that the kid lost interest in.

Spare me the piousness.



Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Reminds me of how I got my Tele. Only yours was more gruesome and manly. I'll be mowing lawns all summer the things I want. My neighborhood has small houses and big plots of land. The average mowing company charges $200 a mow. I charge $50... Imagine the territory I could control...

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1984 Squier Contemporary Stratocaster
1986 Peavey Envoy 110
1967 Kingston Acoustic

Mark Knopfler had to wait a long time to get his first Stratocaster. And then he had to wait again until he got an amp.

This thread was started by someone who owns too many guitars already.

Cheers

David

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"Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc...and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons."