Why my guitar gently weeps - The slow, secret death of the six-string electric guitar

[Wade Hampton]

Here's an interesting article from the Washington Post about "the slow, secret death of the electric guitar" and the general decline of guitar-playing in popular culture:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...=.f3d98da62267

Acoustic guitar doesn't get discussed except for one reference to acoustic guitars now outselling electrics, which apparently is unprecedented in the past fifty or sixty years.

I thought this might interest many of us who frequent this forum.


Wade Hampton Miller

[Woodstock School Of Music]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

Here's an interesting article from the Washington Post about "the slow, secret death of the electric guitar" and the general decline of guitar-playing in popular culture:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...=.f3d98da62267

Acoustic guitar doesn't get discussed except for one reference to acoustic guitars now outselling electrics, which apparently is unprecedented in the past fifty or sixty years.

I thought this might interest many of us who frequent this forum.


Wade Hampton Miller

I posted the article in the electric guitar forum but as a teacher I find this article to be very true I've noticed a shift in the last few years after the effects of Guitar hero wore off. Unless a young act comes along to change that we are experiencing the beginning of the end of an era.

[fazool]

I dislike this whole discussion and the negativity around it.

First, the quote by the Fender CEO is idiotic and insulting. Taylor Swift is the most popular (and therefore market-influential) artist of the past ten years. Like it or not, she is this generation's Beatles or Michael Jackson. She has inspired millions of fans and possibly single-handedly kickstarted an ailing music industry.

To say girls are only inspired to "look like her" is incredibly insulting to everyone involved and he is an idiot.

It implies that her music isn't worth being inspired by and that's the viewpoint of a codgy old miserable rocker who is out of touch and bitter becuase his once dominant company is failing to be relevant today.

(can you tell how much I hate this kind of talk from people like him?)

Now, beyond that fool...

I lived through the 80's, when pop-synth took over and guitars all but vanished from pop/rock music. It made a bit of a comeback but not back to it's heyday of the 70's.

However, the acoustic guitar has boomed with the coffee-house pop music generation and thanks mostly to EC's unplugged performance which kick started it all.

Electric guitars dominated the 70's and early 80's. Now, the acoustic guitar (and other folks instruments we scorned) are more popular than electric guitar.

If Fender could manage to be taken seriously in the acoustic world, this wouldn't come off as such a bitter opinion.

/rant over

[rokdog49]

Great Post!
I read the article and found the answer to all this (for myself) lies in the fact that the industry is no longer interested in music in general and more specifically in this case, guitar music.
It's sure seems to be all about the promotion of "artists" or as I would classify them and please excuse my harshness, "performing monkeys".
I'm not saying there isn't talent there, it's just not the focus in most cases.
Someone like Lady Gaga who actually is a very talented singer needed her "schtick" to make it big. The way popular music is presented today has little to do with substance. The industry goes where the money is and the consumer gets what the industry puts out there. It is a very closed-minded little empire. If there were a sudden swing by the industry and all of the sudden guitar playing was "the thing", I would be willing to bet kids would be back to buying more guitars. That is not likely to happen.

[SunnyDee]

I notice this is very ethnocentric. I saw some other international sales data showing electric guitar exports from China and Japan going up almost everywhere in the world. This article seems mostly based on changes in the US market - aging population, rise of electronic music among youth, closing gap between American brands, Asian made electrics, even kits have an obvious impact. But the electric guitar is still being played and still being bought all over the world.

In addition, the music market is shifting to a more democratic, independent model all over the world. Imo, this can only be a good thing. I don't think we can judge the evolution of music by pop music. That's like judging the development of cuisine by the latest McBurger variety. There are amazing musicians all over the world that, for the first time, can be heard by huge numbers of people without a corporation's permission. It's amazing.

[s2y]

Apparently Andy McKee read the article. "And starting in 2010, the industry witnessed a milestone that would have been unthinkable during the hair-metal era: Acoustic models began to outsell electric."

Pop music seems to have abandoned session musicians. The average pop listener doesn't care. No real reason to invest in tunes, given that most people are more likely to illegally download it than buy it.

Rock is in a bizarre funk. Guitar solos are entirely out of fashion. You risk being labeled a "shreader". IMO, rock has become an entity that takes itself too seriously. Guitars are more of a fashion accessory. As much as hair metal gets dogged, modern music seems to be just as much about wardrobe and hair, just no airbrushed guitars with Floyd's. Heck, so many of today's rock bands seem to be starting at the floor like they'd rather be somewhere else.

[SugarmillMan]

This seems to go hand in hand with a somewhat related thing- the slow demise of us old guys playing huge dreadnought guitars. Quality used dreds can be had much cheaper these days as we are gravitating towards smaller guitars.

[bitraker]

the article is simply stating the obvious: heroes come and go - I wouldn't worry about rock guitar - it will be back - the heroes will return with a new approach, a new vision - wait for it

[dannyg1]

S2y has a good point, electric guitar players gave in to a popular culture that glorified a cliche and that has cost the industry big. Personally, I think thats because shredding is more about personal glorification and mental masturbation, than it is about musical prowess.

Who wants to subject their carefully plotted music to that. To whit, here's a song that Im incredibly fond of that', let's say, not helped by the electric guitar god:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCnqsX5yQh8

[KevWind]

Great article and certainly hits a number of key points. The trend has been referenced in a few threads here previously, including the eclipsing of electric sales by acoustics.
It does seem the article is US sales based. And is primarily focused on the Electric Guitar . I don't think the electric guitar is going away but it is certainly possible that at least in the US market sales reached a saturation point.
And that relationship to the baby boomers is by no means unprecedented.

First within the US music realm there has undoubtedly been a shift of focus as pointed out in the article. Starting in the mid 50's through the mid to late 70's for the baby boomers music held a significantly greater focus than in any generation since.
The baby boomers to a large extent put the music industry on the map and now that the boomers are in fact becoming the elderly, things are naturally changing in terms of what the boomers spend their money on.
The same thing happened starting a couple decades earlier to the Ski industry which was also put on the map by the boomers. But as the boomers reached middle age the numbers of participation steadily declined . The hope that Snowboarding would spike a new wave of youthful participation and would increase the numbers was short lived.

So like the ski industry I suspect the electric guitar market will experience a fair amount of contraction as it appears to be overproduced.

[Llewlyn]

Thanks for sharing the article Wade.

Even though the acoustic market is currently outselling the electric one, I would not necessarily read into it that the acoustic market is doing good. It seems to me that fewer people are interested in buying high-end expensive instruments, which is forcing some company (e.g. Martin) to cut down the costs on long-standing expensive models. I feel that to accommodate the few remaining customers, and to preserve the continuity of the brand, these companies have come up with premium series (e.g. Authentic) that most of the times are not even available in shops but only on order. Interestingly, I was talking to the manager of my local GC a couple of days ago, who was telling me that their business now mostly consists of cheap acoustics for strumming songs and cheap(ish) electric guitars to shred on.

I guess that most of us were led into the guitar world by guitar heroes, that as the articles points out, were a product of the 50-80s era. With the advent of a different pop music, the new generations might just not be aware of what the guitar is and how cool can be. Interesting: I am now wondering how the classical guitar market has managed to survive for so long.

As a final note, by reading this forum it seems that most of the folks here are older than me (34yo). I wonder if I should start a poll to see what is the distribution of ages....

Ll.

[Irish Pennant]

Times change, it did for the swing bands. I'm sure there were trumpet and trombone manufacturers that were lamenting the rise of the 4 man band.

[Kerbie]

Just as explanation... three threads were merged.

[steelvibe]

All the more reason to fill the rooms with the wonderful sounds guitars can make and rise at a time of supposed decline. These types of things have a way of coming full circle, especially if it is guitar related. Guitars have always and will always be cool.

[rokdog49]

Originally Posted by fazool

I dislike this whole discussion and the negativity around it.

First, the quote by the Fender CEO is idiotic and insulting. Taylor Swift is the most popular (and therefore market-influential) artist of the past ten years. Like it or not, she is this generation's Beatles or Michael Jackson. She has inspired millions of fans and possibly single-handedly kickstarted an ailing music industry.

To say girls are only inspired to "look like her" is incredibly insulting to everyone involved and he is an idiot.

It implies that her music isn't worth being inspired by and that's the viewpoint of a codgy old miserable rocker who is out of touch and bitter becuase his once dominant company is failing to be relevant today.

(can you tell how much I hate this kind of talk from people like him?)

Now, beyond that fool...

I lived through the 80's, when pop-synth took over and guitars all but vanished from pop/rock music. It made a bit of a comeback but not back to it's heyday of the 70's.

However, the acoustic guitar has boomed with the coffee-house pop music generation and thanks mostly to EC's unplugged performance which kick started it all.

Electric guitars dominated the 70's and early 80's. Now, the acoustic guitar (and other folks instruments we scorned) are more popular than electric guitar.

If Fender could manage to be taken seriously in the acoustic world, this wouldn't come off as such a bitter opinion.

/rant over

Now, tell us how you really feel.

Seriously, I would have to agree with you.
Reminds me of some other companies in other industries and the kind of whining we've all heard before.
You can only rest on your laurels for so long.