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

[Jambi]

Originally Posted by A-Mac

Doesn't matter. I play the guitar to play the things I want to play. If the current music is not guitar based, I don't care. I haven't heard much - make that anything - in today's music which, were I not already a musician, would make me want to become one. If that means I can't get gigs, OK, I'll play at home. Besides, if the guitar market slows down the current stock will be cheaper.

So much this. The sound will never die, people will seek it out periodically until the end of time. Right now guitars not cool, I mean like Rick Astley uncool... but it'll come around. I think percussive fingerstyle has helped a lot, and looper players like Ed Sheeran have proved it can still be relevant and interesting.

[Goat Mick]

The guitar seems to drop in and out of corporate popular music every 10 - 15 years. And also, the music that inspires the bedroom players that shape the future is rarely the stuff that's on the radio. Led Zeppelin, The Clash, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and all those bands that inspired the guitar players of our relatively collective youth was on those dark FM stations that we found in the middle of the night surfing the radio dial in our rooms it wasn't Top 40 by any means.

The current batch of all dancers and no musicians music that dominates the radio and television isn't really inspiring kids to want to make music. I live and perform in college town areas and the majority of my audiences are college age kids that are searching for American roots music. And if you look at the touring bands at the club level, they're playing country, old time and mountain inspired music. And it's a strong movement as newer and younger players are growing beards and singing their hearts out. I don't think organic guitar based music is even close to dying, but just like all the years past you gotta look for it to find it.

[s2y]

Originally Posted by 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

Perhaps the problem is that musicians and listeners are so dang polarized. Guitarists are either shredding with no soul vs. playing simple stuff (with feel, man) and staring at the floor like they'd be somewhere else. Rock stars went from flamboyant to guys that could pass for your neighbors.

IMO, the acoustic guys just seem to be doing what they do, sometimes playing wild looking acoustics, not taking themselves too seriously, etc. Your average Andy McKee track has more "shredding" than the average rawk album.

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by Mick's Goat Whiskey Picks

...I live and perform in college town areas and the majority of my audiences are college age kids that are searching for American roots music. And if you look at the touring bands at the club level, they're playing country, old time and mountain inspired music. And it's a strong movement as newer and younger players are growing beards and singing their hearts out. I don't think organic guitar based music is even close to dying, but just like all the years past you gotta look for it to find it.

Pretty much the same thing I've been seeing recently; I could easily sit in with a band of kids one-third my age and play in the same style, with the same equipment - and in some cases much of the same repertoire - I've been using for the last five decades...

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by Mick's Goat Whiskey Picks

The current batch of all dancers and no musicians music that dominates the radio and television isn't really inspiring kids to want to make music. I live and perform in college town areas and the majority of my audiences are college age kids that are searching for American roots music. And if you look at the touring bands at the club level, they're playing country, old time and mountain inspired music. And it's a strong movement as newer and younger players are growing beards and singing their hearts out. I don't think organic guitar based music is even close to dying, but just like all the years past you gotta look for it to find it.

Oth, I've seen some incredible stuff evolving from young indie artists who are merging dance beats with traditional folk. Young people are as inspired as ever.

If the "music industry" is going to thrive, I really think it's going to have to get more democratic, too, from greater rights for artists to more inclusive instrument design. That means more diversity in instrument sizes - how about more appropriate instruments for women and left-handed players, just for a start? The same is true of other instruments. There's a movement to vary sizes on piano keys to accommodate more diverse players. We no longer live in a world where only the elite can access these things or where it can afford to be ruled by centuries of tradition.

[tadmania]

I winced in disbelief when George Gruhn said that John Mayer hasn't inspired young people to play, and quit reading when the writer called Lita Ford a 'guitar hero'.

What Vernon Reid said struck a chord with me, however. He talked about the culture of guitar playing. That's it. The guitar is a conveyance of culture, and the desire to start playing has deeply cultural roots. Increasingly, I see young people joining in and, almost invariably, they are playing guitar as they do it. Not electric, of course, but acoustic.

[beninma]

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

Great post... you really hit the nail on the head. He is probably very bitter that Taylor Swift doesn't play a Fender. But I feel like Fender's reputation with acoustics is so far in the dump that she probably would say no if they tried to sponsor her! It's kind of crazy cause Fender certainly has nothing to apologize for with their electric guitars. I absolutely love my Telecaster. But I've never even bothered to try any of their acoustics. And I bought my Tele used, whereas I've bought my acoustics new, so I'm another statistic as mentioned in the article.

Interesting take on the 80s, I'm a child of the 80s, I turn 40 next month. I very very much didn't like that synth music as a kid. As soon as I became aware of music I was all about the guitar bands.

Hip Hop and rap totally missed me for the most part too. And most of the older music I got into is all guitar stuff too. People my age are way too young for Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc.. but we we all discovered it in high school and college. Not sure what that means, but I've got to imagine kids 20 years younger than me are the same way.

[JimmerO]

I certainly think it's been much easier in the past 20 years to afford a good to very good guitar. I don't know, maybe guitars have simply hit market saturation. I've always been astonished at just how many guitars there are out there already. There are lots of other musical instruments but there sure seems to be plenty of guitars.

I don't think we have to worry about them becoming extinct. I know I've done my part to sustain the "species."

[KevWind]

While there are some fairly good insights into some of why things are changing and will continue to change ( besides "change" being the only constant in the universe) I can't get to worked up about it on the whole.
The linked article is in fact presented from the perspective of overall sales volume.... not music.
The fact that electric guitar sales dropped is hardly and indication that electric guitar music is dying

[bitraker]

I'm waiting for the cowbell to return...(Don't fear the reaper...!)

Sent from my VS988 using Tapatalk

[JeffreyAK]

The death of radio and albums (and then CDs) and major labels is probably part of the problem too. Anyone can put out you tube videos and make MP3 files available at a web site for pennies a song, so the connections between the music you hear on the radio, the albums you buy in response at the record store, and "hero", is gone. If someone plays awesome guitar on a song you hear, there's a good chance you have no idea who he or she is - or it doesn't fully register that it's a guitar, because computer-generated digital music is so pervasive.

Guitars certainly aren't going to die off, but it's not surprising that they aren't as popular as they used to be, between about Elvis and the rise of the world wide web.

[RussL30]

Originally Posted by tadmania

I winced in disbelief when George Gruhn said that John Mayer hasn't inspired young people to play, and quit reading when the writer called Lita Ford a 'guitar hero'.

John Mayer's live album, Any Given Thursday is what inspired me want and get a Fender Strat when I was 14. I already played acoustic, but never gave electric a thought until I heard those gorgeous strat tones on tracks like Lenny (his SRV cover) and Covered in Rain. That led to me diving into and studying guys like Hendrix, Clapton and SRV which led me even further down the rabbit hole to appreciate guys like Albert King, Freddie King and countless other blues men.

I'm 29 now so I'm getting older, but I'm sure Mayer has inspired numerous people my age and younger to pick up an electric guitar.

[tadmania]

John Mayer is the best player of the modern age, in my view.

[rogthefrog]

Originally Posted by Basalt Beach

Interesting article sent to me about the electric guitar market, declining sales, the reasons why, and what is being done to change the trend. In the article, it stated acoustic guitar sales surpassed electric guitar sales for the first time in 2010. It was interesting learn that occurred however I am curious to the trend in acoustics versus what is discussed in the article regarding the electric guitar market.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...=.14c6f200dff0

GC's debt is a red herring. The debt is from a leveraged buyout by Bain, which is literally about using debt to buy a company, which then takes on that debt.

Gruhn is out of touch.

There are a lot of kids playing guitar, making albums at home and selling them on bandcamp. I used to be able to keep up with new releases in my favorite styles, and now I can't anymore because there just SO much new guitar based music. Just last week I picked up 20 albums. All filled with guitar, all by musicians under 35.

Some of the biggest grossing acts are guitar based: Metallica, The Foo Fighters. And kids are learning those songs.

"Djent", shoegaze/post-rock and various flavors of metal are HUGE. Guitar virtuosity is at a peak, not a trough. Electric, acoustic, rock, metal, jazz. It's amazing how much great guitar stuff is happening.

Animals as Leaders, Kurt Rosenwinkel, John Mayer, Taylor Swift, the Avett Bros, Candyrat, Andy McKee, Mumford and Sons, Periphery, all have inspired huge number of kids to play and become musicians.

So yeah, there's no 2017 Hendrix playing classic rock. But Hendrix died 50 years ago and music has moved on, unlike Gruhn and so many grumpy old guys stuck in the 60s. Like the Fender dude and his sexist dismissive attitude:

“I don’t think that young girls looked at Taylor and said, ‘I’m really impressed by the way she plays G major arpeggios.’ ” Mooney says. “They liked how she looked, and they wanted to emulate her.”

Because dudes emulated Hendrix and Clapton and Van Halen for their G-major arpeggios? And he knows what motivates young girls to learn an instrument?

If the guitar dies, it's because of crusty dinosaurs like Mooney and Henry J, not the musicians making music.

[rogthefrog]

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

Basically this ^^

+1 Mr Zool.