How Guitar Choice Shapes Your Musical Mind | Music Psychology Ep. 1

In this first episode on music psychology and guitar, I explore how your choice of instrument changes how you feel, think, and write, using a McIlroy A25c and a luthier-built McCollum baritone for contrast. Ever picked up a guitar and felt your whole brain say, “Oh… this is the one”? In this first episode on music psychology and guitar, I use a McIlroy A25c fingerstyle acoustic guitar as a case study to explore how your choice of instrument affects how you feel, play, and write. ‪@mcilroyguitars‬ In this long‑form deep dive, we’ll look at: 00:00 Soundhole Intro - meet the McIlroy and McCollum Baritone 01:00 Why some guitars feel like the one 03:00 Music vs Language in your brain 04:30 Fingerstyle and the 'afflicted hands'. 05:30 Why the McIlroy A25c suits this style 06:50 Gift vs Affliction - Motherless Brooklyn 08:45 Predictive Coding: your brain as a tone machine 11:00 Nervous system guitar shop tests: 1-3 13:15 The McCollum Baritone Why music and language live in slightly different “neural worlds,” and what that means for how you talk about guitars vs how you experience them How fingerstyle playing turns your hands and nervous system into a feedback loop with the instrument What cedar + walnut, a mid‑jumbo body, and longer scale length actually do to your perception of tone, effort, and reward How ideas from predictive coding and dopamine (nucleus accumbens, VTA, the “reward system”) apply directly to guitar tone and feel Why some guitars feel like a true gift – and why that same gift can become a gentle affliction you can’t put down Three simple “music‑psychology” tests you can use the next time you’re in a serious guitar shop to see if an instrument really belongs in your life Along the way, I reference Motherless Brooklyn, talk about “boiling‑over” minds, and play through examples on this McIlroy A25c to show how certain guitars plug straight into your creative circuitry. At the end, I tease the next episode where we flip the script with a hand‑built McCollum baritone (rosewood and Italian spruce, 2004) and see how that bigger, lower voice rewires what comes out of my hands. If this mix of fingerstyle, guitar tone, and a bit of brain science is your thing, hit subscribe so you don’t miss Episode 2. 👉 Question for you: Was there a specific guitar your brain just wouldn’t let you put down? What was it, and what do you think it did differently? #guitar #fingerstyle #musicpsychology #baritoneguitar