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Comment by PUSH_AX | Hacker News Reader

A friend of mine once had a guitar, it was a cheap squire strat, even as a learner I thought I could tell it was a terrible guitar, the action was so high I think it legally needed a transponder. Anyway, one day a friend brings one of their musician friends over, he picks up the guitar and shreds on this thing like I've never seen before, it sounds incredible, he doesn't complain about the guitar at all, he just rips on it.

I learned an important lesson that day about artistic pursuits. It's rarely the tool/instrument. It's mostly the artist.

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Partially agreed, but it is kind of a mixed bag.

For someone who is already extremely good, they can deliver a killer performance even on a half-broken instrument. But for someone who is in the earlier stages of learning, this often just hinders them. Especially since a lot of habits learned early on are very difficult to correct later on, when it comes to music instruments. And having a terrible instrument can easily help with forming poor habits.

However, there is definitely a significant category of people who are more about upgrading and/or collecting gear rather than focusing on improving the actual skill. In that scenario, “this better instrument surely will be the reason for my skill getting improved” is used as a pretty common excuse. I would know, because i definitely fell for it before in certain aspects.

Note: not trying to take a dig at Squire, afaik their current offerings are all pretty decent entry level instruments. Was just addressing the overall larger point.

I learned to play guitar on a very crappy guitar. It was from a brand known for being cheap and poor quality, and I've bought it second hand. Still, I learned to play on it. Chords. Scales, arpeggios; you name it. Execution was really bad though, because the instrument was the limiting factor. So, I agree that, in some ways, the instrument was a limiting factor.

One day I got to play on a very good guitar. All the stuff I struggled to play on the cheap guitar came out almost flawless. It felt like before I was racing F1 with a scooter, and then I've finally gotten a proper F1 car.

So, all this is to say that yes, maybe if I had started with a good guitar I wouldn't have struggled as much but, I think the fact I had to put in twice the effort to learn the same things on the crap guitar actually helped me improve (faster? better?). Of course, at one point I had to upgrade the guitar because there were things I couldn't do and it was holding me back but, I think starting with the bad guitar was a good thing (for me personally).

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-v6LWMzM8L4

"nah, nah this action is good"

Same with $10,000 triathlon bicycle versus a $900. It's the person's legs not the bicycle.

At top tier levels, I am sure there is a difference. Lance Armstrong could probably have a measurable percentage performance increase using a $10k bike vs an off the shelf. For your normal performer, technique is going to matter significantly more than equipment.

The $10,000 bicycle will be as reliable, light, sturdy, and comfortable as possible with the available technology. You don't want your brakes going out on a 2000+ mile race. Most people only need what a $900 or under bicycle offers, so the $10,000 price is mostly from low volume: that's only ~12 $900 bicycles.

It's the same reason this costs $11k: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1473009-REG/blackmagi...

Only a few people need it, and those few people can justify the cost of a niche tool with small production runs.

You put pog on a $900 bike, and then on a $10k bike and you'll see a measurable improvement in performance.

At the top end ever watt helps. Will a casual on a 10k bike beat pog on a $900 bike? Absolutely not.

The analogy doesn't QUITE hold to photography however. No matter how skilled you are, a crappy small sensor in a dark room will pretty much always be awful. Can a skilled photographer make it look a bit less bad? Sure, but there are physical limitations in play here.

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