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Why would you not count YouTube? That seems to me to be the ultimate closing of one's eyes given how much great music is being posted there.
Originally Posted by wharriso
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01-04-2017 09:10 PM
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Where's the piezo bridge pickup and Roland GK synth pickup? Originally Posted by Hammertone
I traded away my ES-5 awhile back, but I satisfy my jones for over-the-top Gibson fizz with this one:
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But let's be honest here, you haven't done any kind of study either. You think there are a lot, I think there are less. My opinion is just as valid as yours. Originally Posted by ronjazz
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I work with a lot of young musicians. One of my guys had a front page newspaper article written about him today in the local paper.
This is what I see most young musicians working with, these days (or the laptop equivalent). Not all--some still play a Hammond, a Gibson, etc:
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We're not saying there are more or less than there once was. Only that they exist and that we can see and hear them. If you don't see them it doesn't make your opinion equally valid. It just means you aren't looking. Originally Posted by wharriso
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I never said they don't exist, did I? I said I think there are less of them. Is that opinion less valid than yours? If so, how? Originally Posted by Jim Soloway
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What you actually said was "It seems to me that actually playing an instrument is becoming a dying art." And no, I do not consider that to be a valid opinion. If you do, so be it but in either case, I think I'm done with this particular discussion. Originally Posted by wharriso
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Has Technology Killed the Guitar? - CultureSonar Originally Posted by Jim Soloway
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I think it's a dying art. From tabs and online shred lessons, to the emergence of "music" like rap, there's a guitar hero mindset in many, note not ALL.
I see few players in git stores who do more than play blues and shred with whatever distortion effect available set on max.
Jeez even a trip to N.O found not one single band playing jazz only loud raunchy blues. When I asked a greeter in a "jazz club" where the jazz bands played he said "nobody listens to that" In New Orleans? Sheesh.
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Exactly. I think the level is much higher than it used to be. Declaring music a dying art is quite premature. I've heard players as diverse as Scofield, Satriani, Scott Henderson and Bruce Foreman say they're floored by the level of the younger generations. Just try to imagine what players such as Julian Lage, Chris Eldrige or Pasquale Grasso, and, really, countless others, will be capable of 20 years from now! I've lost count of the fantastic players I've come across on Youtube. Originally Posted by Jim Soloway
Also, so much fantastic guitar instruction is available these days through the Internet, although you need to dig around to find the really good stuff. If you lived in a small community, it used to be that you could be stuck with one local lousy teacher because that was all that was available. In his YouTube series on picking, Troy Grady, whom I admire greatly, says he was about the ONLY guitar player on campus at Yale around the early 90s. How's that for a decline? The music industry is absolutely not a valid indicator. It is 100% fake, 100% engineered, when American popular music legacy (including jazz in "popular music") is here to stay. There may come a point when people won't even pay attention to the music industry, just like what happened to a significant extent with mainstream news.Last edited by m_d; 01-05-2017 at 04:27 AM.
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I don't think the use of guitars in music will disappear and I believe young people will still pick up guitars to use in playing music. Look at Ed Sheerhan for example.
This is a different topic than the fact that the guitar market just got saturated and there are too many guitars for the number of people who want to play them, not just hang them on the wall like trophies and eye candy.
Seriously, I have about 14 guitars. What do I need 14 guitars for? I need maybe 3-4 guitars. I got caught up in the acuisition craze like everybody else. I haven't bought a guitar in a few years.
I've found that whatever I do, a million other people are also doing. I'm not a trendsetter. So if I'm not buying more guitars then a million other folks aren't buying them either.
I have a couple guitars for sale right now at very reasonable prices and no bites. However, like I said before it's not just guitars. The demand for just about anything is soft right now. Guitars are just following along.
Reports say the demand for saxophones is also soft.
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Things must have gotten really hard for sax players since the 80s heyday when almost every popular song had a sax solo. I would guess sales have been soft for the last 25 years or so. Is guitar going the way of the saxophone? It's hard to believe, since the guitar is a readily accessible songwriting tool, while a single note line instrument that also requires your breath to play can never be.Reports say the demand for saxophones is also soft.
Do saxophone players typically have multiple instruments though? It's unusual to meet a serious guitarist with only one.
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Even beyond that, wind players are often multi-instrumentalists. My 15-year-old daughter (who doesn't have the money to buy multiple copies of one instrument!) has a flute, a piccolo, a tenor sax, an alto sax and a clarinet. And talk about prices! The piccolo is rented but a decent professional one starts at three grand. Originally Posted by ThatRhythmMan
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From reading this thread it would seem that guitar sales might end up following the downward sales trend of accordion sales over the last 50 years.
As a kid in the '60's, I took guitar lessons at Luper Music Studios in L.A. They specialized in teaching accordion, but also had two outstanding guitar teachers. Over the two years I studied there, I watched the accordion students dwindle down to zero...while guitar students grew to dominance.
Maybe we will see a reverse in the future, with a possible resurgence of accordion sales, as the predicted demise of guitar interest and sales continues.
Even Guitar Center has accordions for sale. Maybe I'll look into getting one.
Accordions | Guitar Center
(Please read the above post with tongue pressed firmly in one's cheek)
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Accordion is what the cool kids are into these days. That and competitive vaping.
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that is interesting....but it could be fewer American kids....so many UTube vids of kids playing all over the world....its amazing how many really good players are out there!
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I agree with your first sentence above 100%. I don't think that the music industry will be ignored, however. It is about entertainment and no matter what else happens in the world entertainment lives on. Even in poor economic times people tend to keep entertainment outlets close at hand. Given what we have for exposure now days with the internet I think that the music industry will still find ways to infiltrate our lives. Originally Posted by m_d
Music, rock'n roll, teenage hormones, sex, and so on and so forth. Pretty easy to connect the dots. Guitars aren't going to disappear. Originally Posted by Drumbler
Music, rock'n roll, teenage hormones, sex, and so on and so forth. Pretty easy to connect the dots. Guitars aren't going to disappear. Accordions on the other hand... Originally Posted by Gitfiddler
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Hadn't thought about it like that, but there was a band up the block from me, and one down the block from me (and mine in my garage Originally Posted by wharriso
) growing up in the Bronx. Lots of basements and garages shook with the Mighty Roar back in the day, and damn we had some fun But it does seem like walking through parks and cemeteries head down playing Pokemon Go on cell phones is more fun to today's kids. I did think for a while that Guitar Hero would show kids how much fun playing and making up new music on the spot could be, especially with other musicians, but I don't know how many new musicians that game brought the world. I sound like an old man LOL
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You missed his point. Sure you see LOTS of talented kids, but by virtue of a shrinking world because of satellite feeds and the net. Originally Posted by ronjazz
Where I grew up, just like wharriso there was a band every few blocks in a basement or garage. There simply are nit that many now here in the U.S.
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It's a big world and what's happening in the US is not necessarily what's happening elsewhere. In the last three months I've bought music from Turkey, Russia, Germany, Spain, Mali, Germany, Switzerland, England, Canada as well as the US (yes, I've been on a bit of a music shopping binge). A lot of that music also featured musicians from multiple countries and multiple cultures. All of it was recorded in the last 10 years and most in the last two or three. Originally Posted by GNAPPI
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I guess no one really knows for sure why it seems guitars are not holding their prices, although we know supply and demand is the basic cause. So then we have to figure out which is out of balance.
Like many things, I think it is a combination of overproduction and less demand.
As far as demand goes, it seems the younger generations are not as passionate about a lot of the stuff that us older baby boomers are. And the hobbies they do take up, they seem to be putting their own spin on it. The "tools" and stuff we lusted after are becoming obsolete.
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I don't know about the sex appeal of guitar playing for tweeners in today's USA, but to me the biggest change in guitars is the unbelievable tidal wave of guitars coming from China.
I posted this same observation in another post, so I won't go into details. But I recently (and for the first time in over a decade) went into a Guitar Center. The last time I bought a guitar in Guitar Center (last time I bought a guitar at all) was in 2001. I paid $750 for an entry level Martin. Desirable guitars were all north of $1,500. Strats, Les Pauls, 335's, Martin D28, etc. A few weeks ago no guitar in GC was over $699 (a magic number for GC, obviously). Most were between $299 and $499.
China has flooded the market with guitars turning them into disposable trinkets. It doesn't surprise me that an effect can be felt all the way up to high end guitars. After all, didn't we just have a thread on Epi 175 Premiums made in China for less than $500? The consensus seemed to be that they were really good. That's what a MIM Strat cost TWENTY years ago! Sure a new Epi 175 is not the same thing as an 80's Gibson 175, but you are really going to have to WANT that Gibson to be willing to pay six times as much. And lots of people like buying new, not a 30 year old guitar.
Pretty decent and functional guitars are pouring out of China for less than $500 (they must cost GC $100!). That has got to have an effect all the way up and down the guitar market.
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It is kind of ironic that there was never so many good instruments available at such a cheap price while at the same time guitar centric music has declined from the main stream.
Hendrix, Page, Beck, Blackmore, Gilmour, Van Halen, Satriani, Vai, Slash many others from late '60s up to the '90s that are still the guitar heroes of many generations.
There are probably newcomers since the 2000 but who are they? will they be remember in 10 year?
Are teenagers into guitar centric music anyway ? probably not they can probably tell the name of 20 DJ however, because main stream music is no longer guitar centric and more about beats and electronic.Last edited by vinlander; 01-07-2017 at 02:55 PM. Reason: typo
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Remembered by who? Teenagers looking for heroes? Probably not. People who appreciate music and musicianship? Sure. I think that this is where this entire discussion always takes a wrong turn. We look at the guitar hero rather than the musician. Guitar players may well disappear as pop culture icons but that means absolutely nothing in terms of the role of guitarists as creators of art. If we remain concerned with the fixations of teenagers then we are missing a gigantic forest by staring at a few puny trees. Originally Posted by vinlander
Here's some current guitar music and this is not going away anytime soon.
Last edited by Jim Soloway; 01-07-2017 at 03:11 PM.
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I agree with you Jim, music as an art form still exists and there are good young musicians coming no contest.
The thing is what interests teenagers and young adult is what make them form bands and play music of their heroes and that is what is declining, not the music as an art form. When guitar is less iconic it gets less presence and decline in quantity, not necessarily in quality however.
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