Hello bloggers :D,

In this message I will share my opinion about the destruction of guitars after concerts as for example Jimi Hendrix and The Who did, both according to me with different purposes. At one of Jimi Hendrix' concerts at Montery in 1967 he played the song Wild Thing. As the song proceeds, Hendrix seems to get deeper into the music. He is a unity with his guitar and holds it like a beloved. At the end of the song, he at last puts it on fire and kneels besides it. When the guitar does not burn away, Jimi picks it up again and completely destroys it by hitting the stage. To me this was almost like an act of love towards his instrument, the thing which he somewhat shares his life with. He enjoys the music so much and plays from his heart; that destroying the guitar is as a ritual, an ode to the music. He probably does this because there is for him not really a way to describe what music means to him in his life, what he, by playing guitar, accomplished and descovered.

Also the band The Who destroyed guitars after their performances. But I think they did this with another purpose. Just like Jimi Hendrix they love the music they make and see destroying the guitar as a positive thing. Unlike Jimi Hendrix, The Who is has some pretty agressive songs. At one of their a concerts they play My Generation, a rather rebelious sounding song, which gets more and more messy until the end when the guitar player destroys his guitar. It looks completely different from the way Jimi Hendrix did it. Jimi really seemed to admire his guitar and it looked more like a ritual. I think The Who did it more to bring over the emotion of their songs. Besides that, they probably thought of it as a good way of promoting themselves and getting attention, which I think was not the case with Jimi Hendrix.

My opinion is that destroying instruments has a very good effect on the audience and also on the musicians themselves because it can be seen as an a way to express their emotions.

I hope you understand my point of view and if you have anything to add or more question: feel free to comment!

Greets,

Stella

The other side

Hi there,

So, the next assignment we got was to write an opposing argument on the last message we posted about destroying guitars, which you can read under. As you can read, I was for and see it as a possitive thing. This means that my task now is to see it completely from the other side: be against is and to see it as a negative thing.

The destruction of intruments when not done by accident is a waste of good intruments. It is probably done to express themselves and to create a certain immage, but still, that can be done in different ways as well. I also think that they are really showing off by doing this, because an instrument costs a lot of money and by destroying one they practicly say that they have enough money to but new ones after their concerts. Next to that it does not add a lot to their performances, it may only have shocked the audience of impressed them, but usually if someone really likes their music fireworks would have been enough. Their fans come for the music, not to see instruments being destroyed.

This is how I would have looked at it from the other perspective. I found this very hard to do, because I did not agree with what I was writing.

xx,

Stella