I'm a pop musician (though I can play cello and double bass), but my wife is classically trained and has an MA (though in pedegogy). I've met a lot of folks, a

I'm a pop musician (though I can play cello and double bass), but my wife is classically trained and has an MA (though in pedegogy). I've met a lot of folks, and after hearing a lot of folks, I feel like the best of them are playing instruments in the 15-30K range. I had a conversation with a freind who is working on a DMA. He and his wife had visted to play a concerto with our local orchestra (I play bass, my wife runs it and conducts). The guy is a fantastic player. He's upset because his teacher has about $1M dollars in her setup, and he believes that if he had the same setup that he'd play the same as her. She was given this setup at about age 17, by her family. I think that my playing and practice strategies would be a lot different if I owned an instrument that I could "pas on " to the next generation of players ang have a guaranteed retirement. So on the point of having that instrument I agree with my friend. But I don't think that we agree on why that would change his playing. On a related note, I call my wife's playing has improved when she moved from a $2500 antique instrument to a modern instrument she paid about 15K for, which she paid for though her earnings as a performer. In this case, we are in agreement that social and personal effects are important. Of course, she sounds objectively better with her better instrument, but this particular instrument is a materiel improvement over her old one. So while there differences in instruments, I don't know if it is possible that "how good" the instruments are can be isolated from their situation between player. For my part, I started getting a lot better gigs when I started using a markbass and an american p-bass with flats... I dunno. Folks listen with their eyes, I guess. I know that is true about the double bass folk and blues gigs I play on upright but would rather play on electric.