FENDER CEO Response to 'Is the Electric Guitar Dying?'

ICBM

earwighoney said:

When he made those points, I expected the guy to get out a Powerpoint presentation to illustrate his points. 

I also think that the shift from guitar as a virtuoso instrument to guitar as a songwriting tool, which he identified, is also probably going to reduce the average number of guitars owned. If young players don't really care about having the exact sounds that guitar heroes used, why will they need so many guitars? One or two that cover a few sounds they like will do fine.

If overall electric guitar sales have more or less flatlined while the average number owned has increased, that means that the rise in the average number may be mostly responsible for the sales - ie existing players adding to their collections rather than new players buying more than one. That the growth is in acoustics tends to indicate this is true as well.

I certainly don't think electric guitar is going to die any time soon, but I wouldn't bank on their being a growing or even steady market for it once the classic-rock generation has gone. You've only got to listen to mainstream commercial music now to realise that guitar is not the main driving force in popular music and culture that it once was - although it's certainly still there.

I'm also well aware that he's the CEO of a multinational musical instrument manufacturer and I'm just a small-time amp repairer . It's very likely that he's thought about all this too - the question is, would he admit in an interview like this that he's aware there is a potential problem ahead for their existing marketing strategy, and they're going to need to think hard about a way around it...

Alnico

professorben said:

Hmmm an interesting thread, so far it's got 3 topics, Fender CEO is surprisingly not a dick, the Gibson CEO is predictably a dick, and @alnico has some unresolved homo-erotic sub/dom feelings. 

@Alnico I'm only kidding mate. 

Hey,
At least now I have some kind of direction for these feelings !
Ah well,........ back to rehab again.

LOL.

antonyiv

Rabs said:

Alnico said:

Rabs said:

prowla said:

richardhomer said:

And he's a player by the sound of it. Thought he came across very very well.

I thought so too - a man who knows his market!

Unlike some people we could mention 

http://i.imgur.com/XBPc0Q3.jpg

Is THAT what the daft C**T in charge of Gibson looks like?

REALLY?

FFS !

Ohh yes..   This is him trying to convince us all that robot tuners are better.. 

Just sooo wrong..

Hmmm, you missed this all time classic:   Warning: Alnico should not watch!

Alnico

Don't worry, I'm not going to !

fandango

Alnico said:

Sorry, I can't not do this........

And WHO plays their electric guitar with their thumb like that?

Ha! I could say that Who is a band, but not before noting that Jeff Beck uses his thumb to rather good effect. As does Mark Knopfler. 

Alnico

fandango said:

Alnico said:

Sorry, I can't not do this........

And WHO plays their electric guitar with their thumb like that?

Ha! I could say that Who is a band, but not before noting that Jeff Beck uses his thumb to rather good effect. As does Mark Knopfler. 

I didn't mean use their thumb at all, I meant like THAT !
Of course Jeff Beck and Mark Knopfler are greats who use their thumb, It wasn't a go at fingerstyle (Seriously, that wasn't obvious?) I meant the pose he striking for that god-awful photo.

Wait, are you saying that Gibson guy is in a band?

EricTheWeary

Seemed an interesting, balanced response. 

If the electric guitar market is static and there's an increasing number of makers then each has a smaller share of the pie, so that seems to be the challenge for Fender. 

 Successful instruments don't really die out completely ( you can still buy saxophones, pianos, clarinets, trumpets, banjos, harpsichords,etc) although they tend to get more specialised. I'd guess that in 100 years you could still buy something that looks like a strat - on the shelf next to the tubas and penny whistles. 

I'm not particularly convinced that the ukulele is the gateway drug that he thinks, otherwise all of us he did recorder at school would now be tooting a clarinet each evening. 

Alnico

Actually fair point on Jeff Beck. I think I've seen him play with his thumb out like that but he's a real one off, isn't he?

professorben

EricTheWeary said:

Seemed an interesting, balanced response. 

If the electric guitar market is static and there's an increasing number of makers then each has a smaller share of the pie, so that seems to be the challenge for Fender. 

 Successful instruments don't really die out completely ( you can still buy saxophones, pianos, clarinets, trumpets, banjos, harpsichords,etc) although they tend to get more specialised. I'd guess that in 100 years you could still buy something that looks like a strat - on the shelf next to the tubas and penny whistles. 

I'm not particularly convinced that the ukulele is the gateway drug that he thinks, otherwise all of us he did recorder at school would now be tooting a clarinet each evening. 

A good point, but a lot of the instruments you mentioned are taught in schools as part of a classically based music program, which has a fairly substantial mechanism behind it ( rental, school instruments to loan,  local authority purchase schemes etc) 

not many schools will fund the purchase of an electric guitar and subsequent band rehearsals.


Ps. Not very many harpsichords sold these days.

Alnico

@professorben ........do schools still see electric guitars as silly toys with no depth?
When I was at school the Music Dept. had that view and only classical acoustic guitars were taken seriously. I got the point that they wanted to teach classical but it always wound me up, especially in the 80's when the electric guitar was so big, that they held that view.

Is it still like that now?
(I've got it in my head that you're a Teacher.........I might be wrong, apologies if I am.)

Sporky

mudslide73 said:

It's fine. There's a kid learning Smoke on the Water somewhere right now who'll kickstart it all off again.

And that's a significant part of the problem. Far too many guitarists are stuck 45 years ago.

Rabs said:

prowla said:

richardhomer said:

And he's a player by the sound of it. Thought he came across very very well.

I thought so too - a man who knows his market!

Unlike some people we could mention 

Leo Fender? He couldn't play after all.

ICBM

Schools often do teach electric guitar. Or at least judging by the number I repair, they *have* electric guitars. Whether most of them are in a fit state to be actually used is another question...

EricTheWeary

Two of my band mates are high school music teachers at what I guess could be described as an inner city school. I gather there's very little taught in terms of classical instruments but a reasonable amount on guitar, keyboards and a  bit of drums although there's a fair bit of interest in things like dhol drums or creating tracks for rap. My kids went through a broader music education programme that encouraged classical instruments but guitar, bass, drums ( there was even a harp group) were treated equally serious. 

mudslide73

Sporky said:

mudslide73 said:

It's fine. There's a kid learning Smoke on the Water somewhere right now who'll kickstart it all off again.

And that's a significant part of the problem. Far too many guitarists are stuck 45 years ago.





I meant figuratively (referencing a continuity with the Blackmore mention in the clip) - they are learning something easy and getting into it. 

Rox

ICBM said:

I'm sure he knows what he's talking about, but there's one worrying number in the figures he quotes - on average guitar owners have *seven* guitars. That's dangerously high - it means that there must be a smaller number who have far more than that... and if anything happens to that section of the market, it will have a disproportionate effect on overall sales, in fact more than being able to reduce the drop-out rate for beginners will.

Except that's *average* over everyone in the world.  Take @HarrySeven and Keith Richards out of that, and the average drops to little over 1 guitar each...

MattFGBI

I've got at least 11. 

skippy76

Morning, 

My two oldest boys both went to lessons through the later part of primary school, the younger of the two drifted into sports but the older boy stuck with it. We saw plenty of kids who dropped it in a short space of time.

He's 14 now and rips, gets lessons at school and is going through his Hendrix phase, its fucking awesome to see him develop and I encourage it as much as possible. 

The one advantage kids who are picking up the guitar have now is instant 24/7 access to pretty much what ever they want to learn on youtube. When I was growing up in Australia the only access to knowledge I had was 30 minutes a week with the local guitar teacher and an relatively expensive Nirvana chord book!

Anyhow just thought I'd throw my 2 cents in. Off to learn a new Taylor Swift song now.......

Rox

MattFGBI said:

I've got at least 11. 

Well, that's one more, isn't it?

professorben

Alnico said:

@professorben ........do schools still see electric guitars as silly toys with no depth?
When I was at school the Music Dept. had that view and only classical acoustic guitars were taken seriously. I got the point that they wanted to teach classical but it always wound me up, especially in the 80's when the electric guitar was so big, that they held that view.

Is it still like that now?
(I've got it in my head that you're a Teacher.........I might be wrong, apologies if I am.)

I used to teach albeit only privately, more usefully I used to run what I laughably referred to as 'The Guitar and Drum Dept' in a local music shop.

I we did a brisk trade in classical instrument rentals throughout August and Sept, you could rent anything except Electric guitars and basses or Drums, owners decision not mine, the local pvt school had a dedicated electric teacher, but by far the classical market dominated.

The Lectric guitar is pretty much viewed as an equal to acoustic in school, the issue is its not just the guitar you have to buy/carry to rehearsals but an amp too, cost wise a basic electric and an amp is roughly equivalent to a beginner clarinet, flute or trumpet, it's tbh more perceived as some you need to upgrade to after a classical by most parents I've delt with in the shop. 

fandango

Sporky said:

mudslide73 said:

It's fine. There's a kid learning Smoke on the Water somewhere right now who'll kickstart it all off again.

And that's a significant part of the problem. Far too many guitarists are stuck 45 years ago.

45 years? I'm having fun chopping away at the Smokestack Lightning* riff, which is what, over 60 years old?

Modern writers now have far greater challenges to write stuff. The easy has been written, so what do you write or play that's new/different? It's gonna be more complex, have strange rhythms and odd keys/chord combinations. You know ... the stuff that makes it harder to learn.

Isn't it about learning to walk with the old stuff, finding one's own style, before running at warp speed with the modern?


* PS - love The Yardbirds' version