Washington Post:
In the past decade, electric guitar sales have plummeted, from about 1.5 million sold annually to just over 1 million. The two biggest companies, Gibson and Fender, are in debt, and a third, PRS Guitars, had to cut staff and expand production of cheaper guitars. In April, Moody’s downgraded Guitar Center, the largest chain retailer, as it faces $1.6 billion in debt. And at Sweetwater.com, the online retailer, a brand-new, interest-free Fender can be had for as little as $8 a month.
And:
Guitar heroes. They arrived with the first wave of rock-and-roll. Chuck Berry duckwalking across the big screen. Scotty Moore’s reverb-soaked Gibson on Elvis’s Sun records. Link Wray, with his biker cool, blasting through “Rumble” in 1958.
And:
McCartney saw Hendrix play at the Bag O’Nails club in London in 1967. He thinks back on those days fondly and, in his sets today, picks up a left-handed Les Paul to jam through Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady.”
And:
“Now, it’s more electronic music and kids listen differently,” McCartney says. “They don’t have guitar heroes like you and I did.”
That does sound a bit like a grumpy old person complaint, but read the article. The comment reflects the reality of the current trend in popular music, more about programming beats than emulating a specific riff.
Fascinating read.
Cars and guitars as we know them are going away!
The one positive of electronic music’s rise is the accessibility of it. A kid can create a song at school, on their parent’s computer, on the family iPad, wherever.
Ten years ago:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1527083/Middle-aged-rockers-and-schools-boost-guitar-sales.html
Guitar sales have yet to fall back to the level they were at in the 1990s.
Computers have automated music making the same way they’ve automated other industries. Making music is easier than ever, but the skill of creating music by hand is being lost in the same way other manual skills are declining.
The guitar is never going away, but I don’t think it will ever be as popular again as it was when I was a kid.
Slow replacement cycle: just like the iPad.
Music seems to be a product of technology advancements (and to a lesser degree, social structure). I love guitar, play electric and classical and its sad to hear this, but hey, that’s life.
I think what hits me more is the decline of music performance by pros and virtuosos. One day there will be no ‘real’ performers left. Just virtual, augmented reality performers created by AI.
I see this as progress. As a 38-year-old who’s played guitar since age 12, I owe much to my guitar- great times, good friends, something to cling to in the turmoil of my teen years.
But, as I said, this exchange of guitars for electronic music production tools is progress. Guitar is a fantastic instrument, but it’s just that – one instrument. Kids now prop up composers and producers as heroes, and that will lead to kids who develop skills for making full music productions rather than single instrument mastery. There just isn’t that much room for session players anymore whereas there’s always more music production work available as more and more kinds of media content (games/yt shows/podcasts) are created by everyday people.
I make video game audio for a living, and can count the times a guitar has helped on my fingers while my electronic production skills pay off every day.
And yet, guitars are more popular than ever.
Meh. The flip side is that it’s never been easier to learn guitar than it is today: with an iPhone or iPad and an $80 (or cheaper) interface, I can plug into my iPhone or iPad and record, get access to lots of guitar learning apps, tap into killer tone, play along with YouTube video lessons, have a tab library at my fingertips…
I’m doing my best to single-handedly keep the industry alive. I buy another bass every two-four years. Last year I bought a Fender Jaco model fretless. That brought me to an even dozen bass guitars. That’s not counting the uprights (one acoustic and two electrics).
How many guitars (basses) does a guitar (bass) player need?
Just one more.