Being a musician and adopting minimalism.

I am a multi-instrumentalist and started minimizing last year. Taking up space is one of the best things instruments do. I got rid tons of non-music stuff to be able to keep mostly everything.

Unfortunately for me I only have my bedroom to put things in (I live with my parents). The items I got rid of were mostly spare drum hardware, cracked cymbals, old drum heads and anything that wasn't actively being used.

I record at home so I have many percussion instruments and everything. Storing them has been key for me. I have a DEDICATED space for guitars, my drum set, etc. I'd say anything you don't have dedicated space for you could maybe live without. How many guitars/basses do you need? Personally I have an acoustic, three electrics (in different tunings), a bass and a beater guitar to take anywhere without worry.

Reevaluate and any stress that is caused probably means it needs to go. Most importantly, take your time and truly think! Instruments are not cheap and can be hard to buy back.

Maybe if you have multiple rooms, put all your instruments and things in one room and move them into another room as you use them. Then you'll find out what's essential.

Same here!! I'm currently trying to downsize to 1 acoustic guitar, 1 electric guitar, 2 hand drums, a drum kit, and keep all my mics. I need to downsize from a half stack to a 2x12.

This means I need to get rid of several guitars, 2 amps, various small drums, and the random stuff that goes along with those. I planned on having a full blown recording studio/jam space. That still may happen. Realistically, I'll probably will never have the space for a studio. That is what triggered me to start trying to get rid of instruments and accessories.

In an ideal world, I would just play my acoustic guitar and keep just 2 mics and my PC to record. Playing music while trying to minimize my stuff is hard. I feel like if I just cut out all the extra stuff and just played acoustic and sang, that might be good enough as I get older.

As a guitarist, I went through a downsizing last year and got rid of a lot of gear. A lot of the guitars, pedal, amps don't really fit the style of music I find myself playing now, so they just sat around. After a few months I successfully sold most things on craigslist for fair value. To get other things out of the house, I gave away (or loaned out) mics, stands, cables, mixers, etc. to friends who still jam and have practice spaces. I'm down to 1 acoustic, 2 electrics, 6 pedals, a practice amp and a gig amp. Now I'm using the 1-in-1-out rule (as I typically do with everything in my home) and make myself sell/ trade- something when I buy something new. My plan is to stop buying and collecting cheap ge and save up to invest once in the quality classic instruments that will last me for the rest of my life. Overall, instruments can always be replaced, but you will never lose your knowledge or passion for music. It's not always about what you have, but what you can do with it.

It is reassuring to see the number of other people in this boat.

Put small stuff, like pedals, on consigment at a local shop and ask them for spare guitar boxes while you're there. If they're out then make a trip to your local Guitar Center and ask when is a good day to pillage their cardboard dumpster. The one near me has no issue with people taking boxes.

A few friends of mine swear by Reverb for selling instruments but I prefer eBay.

I'm down to 8 guitars and basses (had 20 at the height of my collecting). I pared down the collection by asking myself "what would you grab of the house were on fire?" The answer is almost always the most versatile instruments.

I enjoy having more room to move around (and not having to restring 20 guitars every 6 months). Shrinking the collection has given me more time to play.

I'm just getting into electronic music production, and I like the advice BoBeats gives about buying stuff: If you're not already productive, buying more gear just means more stuff you have to learn and master, and it's not going to help you be more productive -- it's just going to add stress.

I'm struggling with this though -- theoretically I don't need anything more than Ableton, a laptop, and a pair of headphones, yet I've still accumulated a couple MIDI controllers/clip launchers, synths, and a desktop rig, and I'm eyeballing an audio interface, MIDI cables, mics...

I'm a visual artist. I have a thing for art supplies and also do digital art. I'm done okay with other areas of my life, clothing and make-up. Art supplies sometimes feel like the place I be greedy with myself.

Though, I've done okay whittling down my supplies (I have a shelf rather than a large container bin like I use when I was in art school) to my narrowed medium. Yet,then something comes along, like a this series of manga artists that shows them at work and just about all of them draw 90% traditionally. Wow, it was exciting seeing the way someone draws differently or their choice of tools. I well aware that tools don't make the artist, but a quality tool certainty makes a difference.

I'm am very open to trying new things (probably that endorphin kick to blame as well) and I realized I'm really tactile. Having narrowed in on that, and have started training myself to think "no, X does that job perfectly."

Maybe get a storage space for some of it and see if you really miss it or actually will continue using it. Since you're paying $$ for the space, you'll be more conscious of how important the stuff is and after a few months, get rid of what you're not using or what isn't essential.

I really minimized my sewing supplies (I make all my clothes and also make garments for friends), and I was terrified in the beginning of letting go of a lot of it, including my entire stash of fabrics, but in the end it hasn't hampered my creativity at all. I only buy what I need for each project now and compost or donate all scraps at the end. Honestly, there isn't a hell of lot you need to make garments and home linens. I just made a knit dress for a friend using my regular machine and not my serger, and I may end up donating the serger at some point since I can overcast with the regular Bernina.

I guess it depends on what you're doing. If you're not Eric Clapton, though, how much do you really need?

I have far too much gear but a lot my working musician friends who I think are the best players only have one guitar, or drum kit, or bass that they play 95% of the time, and I've think thats was way cooler then always having the latest hippest piece of gear. If you're a bass player just have one cool P-bass. Drummer, just one cool old Ludwig. It's so much cooler to have one thing that you know the sound of and can make work in a wide variety of scenarios.

One thing you can do is just use your computer, but it depends entirely on how you feel about analog vs digital. There's plenty of good modeling software out there nowadays you can make pro recordings with just your laptop. Get a DAW like Ableton, and simple cheap 2-channel USB interface, or however many you need. I use Guitar Rig by Native Instruments and I think it sounds pretty great. I know there are other things you can use that are better such as AxeFx but that can be costly. You can use it live by going DI into a PA too, but I would have some backup ready incase your computer crashed or decided to do an update mid-show haha.

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Oh yes. I also host the band practice space, so I have a back room filled with a PA, drum kit, amp, pedals, etc. I just accept that part of it, but I'm finally trying to whittle down the number of guitars I have so that each one I keep serves a specific purpose. It helps if you have an out-of-the-way place to store the instruments. I keep mine lined up in a closet where they're not under foot.

I also went through my miscellaneous junk box of extra cables and weird gadgets and winnowed it down into a much smaller selection. At some point, I'm going to have to wrestle with the instruments I just don't play as often, like accordions, a ukulele and an extra amp. I'm putting off that reckoning, but I can see it coming on the horizon.

The reverb.com suggestion is a good one for selling, but also consider donating if getting your money back out of things isn't important. There's probably some kid in your area who would love to have a decent instrument to play or learn on.

I just made a list of all of my instruments yesterday so I could start keeping track of their serial numbers in case of theft, and it occurred to me that I have 16 instruments. That seems crazy considering that I live in a small apartment and make very little money. What I realized, though, is that most of my income and space goes towards it. It's a hobby and a passion of mine, so I don't really feel bad letting it take up some space. I'm also not a drummer and don't have any recording equipment, so most of it is my 7 (!) clarinets, a couple flutes, etc., which are significantly smaller.

Anyway, no real moral here. I would just say if you love music and you're using the gear, don't feel bad about keeping it. If you want to sell it, I sold a trumpet, a clarinet and an amp recently on eBay. I didn't make much money off of them, but it was a relief to just get them out of my apartment.

Not been musical since I was 15. Is there a reason why guitarists have sooo many guitars? I understand that bass guitar is different and acoustic/electric guitars are different but other than that is there any need?

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So, this is a big problem with musicians whether they're (aspiring?) minimalists or not. Music can take a lot of stuff, and the industry is wired to make you think you need every new thing.

You don't.

Get that through your head, whether you want to be a minimialist or not. Most people see a serious improvmeent in their skill when they stop chasing gear.

The best example I can think of was a drummer friend. He had a huge kit at home. When he took his kit to gigs, he pretty much always brough the same few drums and snares, and everything else looked kind of like a hollow shell of the rest of his kit. And he actually rented or borrowed smaller kits a lot of the time.

Eventually, he realized he was being kind of dumb and downsized, and got better when his gig and practice rigs were the same, by his own estimation.

Now the recording gear....there are ways to make it simpler...going all ITB makes a huge difference with no negative effects on quality (once you actually figure out computer/digital audio). But...there are just going to be a lot of cables and mics. You can reduce this further using amp modeling for guitar, bass, keys, etc.. And you absolutely can get good results out of it. You can go down to 2 or 4 mics for drums by not close-micing anything (just room and maybe overhead), but the results are really dependant on what your room sounds like. But, there's no way around it...it's a lot of stuff.

Get a portable drum kit or a high end electroni c drums. Get rid of most of your guitars and basses and get a midi bass/guitar and have a fretless bass and regular guitar laying about. Get a Drum controller if you want. This will only work if you're rich tho.