Gear Acquisition Syndrome, also known as GAS, is commonly understood as the musicians unrelenting urge to buy and own instruments and equipment as an anticipated catalyst of creative energy and bringer of happiness. For many musicians, it involves the unavoidable compulsion to spend money one does not have on gear perhaps not even needed. The urge is directed by the belief that acquiring another instrument will make one a better player. This book pioneers research into the complex phenomenon named GAS from a variety of disciplines, including popular music studies and music technology, cultural and leisure studies, consumption research, sociology, psychology and psychiatry. The newly created theoretical framework and empirical studies of online communities and offline music stores allow the study to consider musical, social and personal motives, which influence the way musicians think about and deal with equipment. As is shown, GAS encompasses a variety of practices and psychological processes. In an often life-long endeavour, upgrading the rig is accompanied by musical learning processes in popular music.

About the Author
Jan-Peter Herbst is Senior Lecturer in Music Production at the University of Huddersfield (UK) where he is Director of the Research Centre for Music, Culture and Identity (CMCI). His primary research area is popular music culture, in particular rock music and the electric guitar, on which he has published widely. Currently, he is undertaking a funded three-year project that explores how heaviness is created and controlled in metal music production. Herbsts editorial roles include IASPM Journal and Metal Music Studies, and he currently edits the Cambridge Companion to Metal Music and the Cambridge Companion to the Electric Guitar. Jonas Menze is Scientific Assistant at the Institute for Research on Musical Ability (IBFM) at Paderborn University (Germany) and a chairperson of the German Society for Popular Music Studies (GfPM). In 2017 he completed a Ph.D. in Musicology at Salzburg University (Austria) with a thesis on framework conditions and production processes of German-language musicals, for which he had received a DOC fellowship from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OEAW). His research interests include empirical musicology, popular musical theatre and popular music studies, audience research, the development of musical expertise as well as lifelong learning in music.


Book Information
ISBN 9781862181847
Author Jan-Peter Herbst
Format Paperback
Page Count 284
Imprint University of Huddersfield Press
Publisher University of Huddersfield