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https://local12.com/news/nation-world/guitar-center-ceo-gabe-dalproto-warns-of-shocking-statistic-aims-to-create-more-long-term-musicians-quitting-learning-commitment-education-music-future-technology-classical-instruments-programs-lessons-theory-serious-daily-learner-initiative-aid-consumer
90% of beginners who buy a guitar give up after a year, and the most of the rest progressively decline.
Also of note: “The outlet reported that Guitar Center has seen a 25% uptick in time spent in stores after "unlocking" its premium instruments for visitors to play.”
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06-01-2025 08:23 PM
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Mastering guitar is a lifetime of work and most people don't wanna do shit anymore. To top it off the career potential for a guitarist has diminished greatly since the late 70's.
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I legit, only go to guitar center if they have a vintage archtop I want to try.
Originally Posted by Navdeep_Singh
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I'd be surprised if it was only 90% of any instrument who give up in a year's time. I don't think this is a new thing, although maybe it's worsened. To persist, music has to be a central pull in one's life- but for most people music is a background thing. I can't even listen to music in the background, it just absorbs my attention. Most people who are serious about an instrument are probably the same. Originally Posted by Navdeep_Singh
More time in store is good, I wonder if that is translating to more sales.
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Most beginners are children. Most of us had childhood hobbies that we took up but then abandoned.
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Yeah, I haven’t filled my pockets with frogs in a long, long time. Originally Posted by Litterick
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For me it was snails, and maybe even longer ago ^^ Originally Posted by AllanAllen
This is really all about parenting, right?
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You’re right that hard work is losing popularity. But most people who start music lessons on any instrument have no intent to master it and have no intent or desire to have a career in music. They begin because they want to get pleasure of some kind from playing - and that pleasure varies widely, from simply hearing and feeling sounds they love to attracting mates. Originally Posted by DawgBone
Then a new video game comes along, or a motorcycle, or an audio system, or good wine, or a 6 month online MBA course, or scuba diving, or a new job, or a lost job, or………..
There’s just a lot more now to distract from and compete with a quest to learn to play an instrument than there was 50 years ago. And people in pursuit of shiny objects are easily distracted by shinier objects they encounter along the way. Combine that with the rising general expectation of instant gratification at no cost and with little or no effort, and it’s no surprise that lessons are abandoned increasingly often. So are dreams, visions, jobs, partnerships, spouses, hobbies, etc etc. There’s a general perception that sticktoitiveness no longer has any rewards.
We have many friends who have been playing purely for pleasure for many years. We have many friends who began music lessons in adulthood. We have many friends who’ve been married for decades. But even having many friends is increasingly uncommon among those in the lettered generations. They’re lonely, isolated, depressed, and are abandoning former social norms like mating and sex.
Music lessons and instrument sales are just collateral damage to the decline of the social, behavioral, educational, and cultural norms of the civilized world before video games, Facebook, and online dating.
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And you know, the stagnant wages thing...
Hard to justify weekly guitar lessons, or your former social norms when 60% of Americans are one flat tire, broken bone, or one broken appliance away from financial ruin(Source). Going out requires spending money, and the average person doesn't have it.
I mean, have you seen the price of eggs?
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Originally Posted by DawgBone
Absolutely true, people want instant gratification and "microwave" results! I had so many people approach me to take lessons; and their first question almost always is: "Exactly how long does it take to learn guitar?" I always give them the same answer; " a lifetime....
Cheers,
Arnie...Last edited by arnie65; 06-02-2025 at 01:44 PM.
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The serious player recognizes that there is ALWAYS an excuse not to. At least a million different reasons. But there is only ONE reason to continue. It's like becoming a priest. It's not going to be something for most people because the sacrifices involved will always outweigh the benefits. It's because it is a calling and things that are callings always involve huge amounts of self sacrifice starting with time and money and then later, the BS of the business itself. I've watched guys hack the time and money part many times but the business end crushes a lot of artists, even serious ones. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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I only kept going with guitar cos I had a gig. (Age13, 1969).
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I feel your pain, Van Gogh. But you're focused on career musicians. If GC had to rely on that segment of the market, they'd have closed their doors long ago. Few of the lifetime amateur players I know qualify as "serious players". They love to play, but they plateau and stay at the level that brings them pleasure without demanding more of them than they want to devote to it. Originally Posted by DawgBone
One of my close friends is a typical "lifer". He's been playing guitar since childhood. He was in bands throughout high school and college, and his old high school band gets together about once a year to play classic rock and drink beer together. He knows a lot of simple tunes, and he lives downstairs. So we sit around and noodle on rock and blues (which is all he knows) for a few hours every few weeks. He practices sporadically, but he picks up one of his guitars at least once or twice a week.
He has a Tele, a Strat, a Taylor flat top, and a small Orange combo amp. Over the years, he's bought and sold a few other guitars and some amps (most of them at GC), and he just bought his granddaughter a guitar becaue she wants to learn to play. He couldn't hold his own at even a low level jam, and he harbors no illusions of future stardom. He just loves the guitar and music, and he's at equilibrium with that. He and his old band mates are a steady source of revenue for GC, and they won't give up their instruments or playing until their cold dead hands finally let go. There are probably 500 of him for every "serious" amateur, and GC would not be in financial trouble if they had enough customers like him. The problem is that fewer and fewer young 'uns catch the fever when they're bombarded by so much other stuff to buy and to do.
Playing an instrument has to be a source of joy to hold someone's interest for life. it's no harder to become a decent guitar player than it is to become a decent golfer, weaver, gardener, mechanic, cook, or anything else. But it gets little exposure today when most music is streamed and there's little contact with live bands in small local venues that make the music come alive. That's why GC et al are having trouble.
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BITD every kid I know wanted to play guitar because of the Beatles. Many of us got them, but sticking to lessons was hard with all the other things in our lives. (To make it a bit worse--back when we were kids, guitar was not considered a "real" instrument, i.e., something you pushed your kid into for intellectual reasons. If you wanted your kid to excel in the arts, you had them take piano or violin lessons. Nobody's parents were ragging them about practicing, unless Dad finally figured out the $5 a week he was paying the guitar store wasn't worth it if the kid wouldn't pick up the instrument.) Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
I don't disagree that there are a lot of distractions now. But there have ALWAYS been distractions. Back when I was a kid, there was sports and scouting and comic books and TV (and for the ubernerds board games and D&D). And motorcycles and bicycles. I was into all of the above. Yes kids spent more time outdoors. Which obviously means they weren't in their bedroom practicing guitar.
The difference between now and then though is that there was so much guitar-based music around which was infiltrating the general culture in the 60s and 70s.
For instance--what did we watch on TV? The Monkees. How many kids got a guitar because of Mike and Peter? And the Batman theme song? And of course the Beatles were always talked about, and often on TV.
And--a personal fave of mine--Johnny Cash and Luther Perkins. Remember JC's show? Or HeeHaw with Roy Clark and Buck Owens? Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special?
So the main takeaway for me is the general drift of the musical culture away from the guitar, which makes it harder to sell guitars now. Taylor Swift and Morgen Wallen can only do so much.
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You think? Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
Wait, friends? What illusion are those again?
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Over the years,i had five different people tell me that their kid is a really good guitar player and that i should come over and hear them play and see what i think..Each time i went the kid was playing the video game guitar hero.I had to explain to them that the game has zero to do with playing guitar which always seem to shock them.I told them playing a real guitar well is hard and takes years to become good.A couple of them bought guitars for their kids but outside of one kid they all gave up playing in less than a year.
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You have hit the nail on the head.The Beatles,Clapton,Hendrix and Van Halen in the 60's and 70's sold a whole bunch of guitars.You don't have that today.Most young guys like Rap and Pop music and a lot of that music has little to do with guitar.All you need is a laptop and some software and much of that software is gotten for free through piracy,so it's a lot easier and cheaper to do that than having to woodshed an instrument and go and buy a Strat and a Marshall stack. Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
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If it wasn't for John Lennon, I would not be a guitar player. Clapton Hendrix and EVH all loomed large in my interest in the instrument as well. Originally Posted by nyc chaz
Kids today have poor role models, musically and otherwise.
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Not to be a jerk, but you'd need to convince me that people my dad's age were any more interested in "doing shit" than people my age. Originally Posted by DawgBone
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I would like to state for posterity that I am in the youngest 10% of members here based on the various threads when people drop answer a poll with that information.
And I find myself REPEATEDLY reading threads where the folks on this forum are like "ahhhhh I've been playing guitar for fifty years and I still suck," or "I don't practice anymore because there are no gigs" or "some of us aren't lucky enough to live near tons of jazz and musicians to play with," or "some people just don't have the talent to be pros no matter how hard they try" or, or, or ...
I repeatedly find myself screaming into the void that pretty much anyone can learn the damn thing with some time and some genuine interest.
And yet, I also pop over to threads like this and see them chock full of people talking about us young folk just don't want to work anymore.
So I'm a little confused about who got lazy when and why the world is going to hell in a hand basket.
(EDIT: also some pop music these days rules. some pop music is bad. all of it is fun. it's rather a lot like it was fifty years ago. this is another conversation i keep having on this forum.)
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You don't sound like a jerk. I think it's kind of like Nevershouldhavesoldit said. People have moved away from friendships, love interests, sex, etc.The internet tends to isolate people. My old man was a boomer from Oakland and would regale me with tales of camping and fishing in the mountains, drinking, concerts, dating women, etc etc. A lot of people now aren't present even when in public especially since the introduction of the i-phone. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
I watched a couple I know from the club scene sit there for an hour solid, not talking, not watching the music, just texting and playing on their phones, oblivious to each other and everyone else. That kinda stuff is def different than you'd see in the past even when I was growing up. There was just more interaction and engagement IME.
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Im going to be honest with you man. This is kind of a Tell Me You Don’t Work With Kids Without Telling Me You Dont Work With Kids kind of thing. Originally Posted by DawgBone
Kids are interesting, weird, complicated, and insanely social. Some of that socializing will be in ways we don’t understand, but honestly a lot of it looks like stuff did when I was a kid.
I’ll also tell you that I work teaching music to kids for a living. And kids absolutely want to learn music and want to understand it and love singing and figuring out what’s going on. I can also tell you that giving kids that opportunity is harder and harder and harder and harder. Money is more and more scarce. It’s a problem. The kids are there. The resources are not.
So if folks have a problem with pop music these days or think kids don’t understand the discipline it takes to learn an instrument or think kids aren’t social enough with their friends (band nerds, anyone?) or whatever else — I would ask those folks what they did to support music education this month. And if they don’t have a ready answer, they can take a hike.
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So, after reading the article it sounds like the CEO may have gotten feedback that their lessons program sucks (I heard there is a required teaching "curriculum" but never have seen the material), and he thinks that revamping it will keep students longer. (thus making more moolah)
Probably just a statement to try and appease the investors... serious musician = serious consumers.
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Worth noting that guitar center has a foundation that supports music education. Which is an excellent thing. But I would also note that if the focus was on meeting people early in their musical journey and fostering serious musicians, that would be the avenue rather than having some better guitar teachers at their stores. Originally Posted by Dave70
It’s already a great thing to be doing and the need for the money is pretty much endless.
which is another way of saying that you’re probably correct in this case.
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In my tech career I have worked with the full living demographic stack. I had Greatest Generation types my Dad's age working for me early in my career. And Silent Generation types the ages of my older siblings. I'm a Boomer; also managed along with the above, Gen Xers, Millennials and Gen-Z types. Counting interns, I have people 50 years younger than me in the guidance chain (which is a two-way street, BTW). Originally Posted by pamosmusic
I've never seen any evidence that kids don't want to work or learn or get good at stuff in any way that could be legitimately generalized. Now, there have been differences in workstyles, socializations, motivations and the like, but those were just differences responsible managers and teachers are duty-bound to grok, assimilate, respond to and (to a reasonable degree) adapt to. People of my generation, once we got to working, generally sacrificed more in the work/life balance in favor of work than today's twenty-somethings prefer, but they're not wrong. I can't say that the postponements of work/life balance were altogether worth doing, looking back. But we also entered the workforce against a background of both double-digit inflation *and* unemployment in the '70s and early '80s when the people who let us in were generally rigid in their thinking. Put another way, WE were the "...kids, these days..." misanthropes to them.
We Boomers grew up with both fewer choices and more. I got my first guitar in 1968. My first musical instrument in 1961. Schools had robust music education programs and in the background the music scene was burgeoning. We didn't have videogames. Skiing was expensive and somewhat exotic. Nobody had gym memberships. In line with our music saturation, hifi competed for time and funds. We didn't have cellphones nor the internet. And fortunately, no social media. We had generally a lot less parental supervision growing up, meaning kids were free-ranging in the summers in the '60s and early '70s. Compared to today, college was cheap. Between six years of undergraduate and graduate education with degrees earned, I finished all of it with a student loans total of $8,000, thanks to great state universities, scholarships and robust support from older generations for a college imperative. My student loans were federally-guaranteed with an interest rate of 6%. I incurred that debt between 1972-1978, with payments deferred through a Peace Corps term. I started paying off those loans in 1980 and retired the total by 1985. Who gets their student loans paid off in five years now? "Kids these days" came up in a completely different set of circumstances, and have at least as much reason to feel cynical as we Vietnam War era kids did. And yet, with very few exceptions (always present in any population) I found even the most recent young workers to be optimistic, engaged and productive, outputting very good to excellent work even if they did so on a different schedule and using different techniques than I was accustomed to.
Particularly in the USA, we definitely have a continuing cultural problem with people wanting instant gratification, but let's be honest -- people my parent's age said the same thing about us Boomers as kids and early-entrants to the workforce. Against declining support for general education that's been going on since roughly 1975, the stagnation of real middle class and worker wages, truncated manufacturing opportunities and the volcanic eruption in higher education costs, not to mention having had to weather early in life both the 2008-2010 Crash and then the COVID disruption, let's just accept that "kids these days" were influenced by different obstacles and disruptions than we Boomers were.
So when I hear that young people intrinsically have less persistence for learning guitar or any other instrument, I call bullshit. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that the young people I've met who have taken up guitar have learned faster and gotten good at it at a quicker pace than we did, generally. Guitar is one of the pursuits I sacrificed to a work/life balance tilted heavily to work. Now I'm getting some more time as I gradually wind that down and guess what -- I'm spending more time with guitar than anytime in the past 25 years. I didn't get lazy when I wasn't playing much, but it's still my own doing that I didn't get better than I am now, much sooner.
Even if older people believe their "kids these days" generalizations, there is no influence to be had by making a point of it. Better to share what we know, encourage interest and try to understand what influenced younger people to be who they are, for better or worse. I'm 71. To a 91 year old, I'm the kid. For interest in guitar or otherwise, you can't make the world better by tearing down the generations behind you.
PhilLast edited by 213Cobra; 06-03-2025 at 05:29 AM.
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