Question: Who Are The Kids Listening to?

DulcetJones · January 2018

I just started teaching again after about a 15 year absence, at the school I used to teach at. I only have a few students so far, some adult acoustic players that I can relate to but the younger teens baffle me. They don't have heroes, they can't name a player or band they like and have never heard of AC/DC, Hendrix, Led Zep, or even Jack White. While I concentrate on teaching the actual nuts and bolts, theory, at least for the counting/time aspect and chords etc...., I'm used to using examples from players they look up to. I have a 25 year old daughter but she has no idea either and says she listens to artists based on friends youtube suggestions. This has her listening to a very eclectic mix of folk, rock and some surprisingly weird stuff. I feel like I just woke up a century later one day. Help?

RandallFlagg · January 2018

My daughter listens to King Krule. Have you heard him? He sounds like he's drunk.

https://youtu.be/LL_iUj-mQfg

stickyfiddle · January 2018

@RandallFlagg those NPR Tiny Desk vids are a friggin goldmine of good stuff.

Though I have no idea how much is being listened/watched by anyone below the age of 25.

stimpsonslostson · January 2018

My kids certainly aren't listening to me.

EricTheWeary · January 2018

Mine (17 and 21) seem to have pretty eclectic listening tastes. They are used to the instant access that the internet brings so The Beatles sit alongside something released last week. To some extent it’s driven by movies and YouTube, so things like postmodern jukebox. The 17 year old does jams with mates from college and that’s stuff like the Artic Monkeys and Nirvana. I have to give them lifts and they tell me they got over juvenile music like Metallica when they were 13.

The singer in my my band teaches music at high school. I gather there is very little interest in orchestral instruments or even guitar, bass and drums. It's much more dj / studio based - hip hop, grime, etc. Also a lot of interest in things like Dhol drumming.

I could ask them but as I'm typing this on a Sunday morning I don't expect to see them out of bed until about 1pm.

DulcetJones · January 2018

Thanks for the posts so far. Looks like I'm driving blind. Wow, that King Krule was hard to listen to! He is playing some complex guitar but..... I saw a video by St. Vincent recently and she was working with a similar approach, obscure chords and angular riffs. I didn't like it musically but I liked that she was really punching it, I don't see that much anymore. I also see the changing interest in instruments, we've had a lot of interest and sales of ukulele recently and the shop owner has convinced me to learn banjo so I can teach it. I started working on it a few months ago and actually like it. I bought a lower end banjo a few weeks ago and have already taught one banjo lesson. Someday a new guitar hero will hit the charts/youtube whatever, I hope.

EricTheWeary · January 2018

I really like St Vincent, my kids don’t though!
Quite liking King Krule - bit like Portishead with less physically attractive people.

Anyway, my youngest is out of bed and after discussing something that is both acceptable to adolescent boys and has guitars we came down to Slaves.

My entire knowledge of Slaves comes from seeing them on Sunday Brunch once where they looked suitably out of place. Well,good luck.

Neill · January 2018

I know when I was that age we were heavily influenced by John Peel who was almost universally respected and compared to, say, Bob Harris who was/is heavily biased towards and against certain genres, seemed to entertain all types of music. Almost all the stuff I listen to today is probably directly or indirectly a result of listening to John Peel.

In the current age there just isn't a similar heavyweight figure who the kids look to, and they certainly don't take any notice of their parents. I remember a friend of mine telling me his 19 year old son had been devastated when he realised his dad already had all the Motorhead albums.

The problem is compounded by the massive amount of available music today plus the fact that with each successive generation there seems to be less likelihood of an influential youth culture emerging, as has always been the case in the past - teddy boys, hippies, punks, skins, mods, new romantics and so on.

I don't have kids, so what intrigues me is who or what do they put on their bedroom walls these days?

Emp_Fab · January 2018

The current musical landscape has become one giant Wal-Mart store with endless shelves filled with generic mass-produced cack from corporations and 'producers'. Sod all from real songwriters or musicians anymore. Listen to the current Top 40 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/chart/singles ; It's dead. What's with the return to the TR808 sounds too ?

WTF have the kids of today got ? Our old stuff - and that.

'Tis a sorry state of affairs.

ChrisCox1994 · January 2018

Well, if radio 1 is to be believed, 80% shite, 10% good stuff dressed up as shite and 10% good stuff.

I'm 24 so maybe I'm out of touch already - not sure.

I teach kids Ed Sheeran if they need something current, the rest is quite fleeting these days you'll end up chasing your own tail trying to learn this weeks new cool indie band that'll be irrelevant in the ears of kids in a couple of months time..

AlexC · January 2018

Songs! Teens often say they ‘really like so and so’ (daughter did this when she was younger) and what she and her friends meant was one song. Because that is how they think of music and consume it - as a single download. Loyalty to an artist and listening to a whole album is less of a thing than it usd to be. So, as a teacher, you may have to concentrate on songs rather than a ‘style’.

Winny_Pooh · January 2018

Alt J is alright

DulcetJones · January 2018

I have been wondering about Ed Sheeran, and in an attempt to learn more I've asked kids to bring in mp3's on their phones and to look up tab for any songs they're interested in and bring those in too. That's about all I can do while I go through the basics and hoping they don't get bored. All of the ones I've asked haven't even seen "School of Rock"!

ICBM · January 2018

DulcetJones said:

I just started teaching again after about a 15 year absence, at the school I used to teach at. I only have a few students so far, some adult acoustic players that I can relate to but the younger teens baffle me. They don't have heroes, they can't name a player or band they like and have never heard of AC/DC, Hendrix, Led Zep, or even Jack White. While I concentrate on teaching the actual nuts and bolts, theory, at least for the counting/time aspect and chords etc...., I'm used to using examples from players they look up to. I have a 25 year old daughter but she has no idea either and says she listens to artists based on friends youtube suggestions. This has her listening to a very eclectic mix of folk, rock and some surprisingly weird stuff.

My kids (17, 14, 11) are like this as well - they love music, but don't really follow specific genres. They do have favourite artists, but don't seem to want to emulate them.

ChrisCox1994 said:

Well, if radio 1 is to be believed, 80% shite, 10% good stuff dressed up as shite and 10% good stuff.

Just like it always was...

AlexC said:

Songs! Teens often say they ‘really like so and so’ (daughter did this when she was younger) and what she and her friends meant was one song. Because that is how they think of music and consume it - as a single download. Loyalty to an artist and listening to a whole album is less of a thing than it usd to be. So, as a teacher, you may have to concentrate on songs rather than a ‘style’.

This. It’s all about songs - lyrics, vocal melodies, chord structure and to some extent production - not instrumental parts. ’Learning to play’ a song on a guitar mostly means working out a simple strummed chord arrangement.

Rock music and the guitar parts in it are as dead to my kids as big-band jazz and the trumpet parts were to me as a teenager - my dad was a trumpet player, but I had no interest in learning to play it at all.

Neill · January 2018

I could live with all this if we were talking about an average cross section of today's youth, but @DulcetJones was highlighting young students and I find it a little disturbing that they don't seem to have an interest in the foundations of modern music. I wonder though if this is just an adolescent/puberty thing? I started becoming seriously interested in music when I was about 11 and I've always been interested in the entire spectrum except when I was a stroppy teenager and for some reason it seemed essential to dislike anything anyone else liked...

So is there hope that these youngsters, as they mature, will eventually see the light and start becoming interested in real music?

(BTW the kid in that video isn't half going to get some stick when he's my age.)

Lestratcaster · January 2018

I too have been getting a lot of younger generation learners and when I ask what kind of music they’re into I don’t know most of them. And more often than not they won’t be Guitar based artists, more piano or dance pop making it difficult to get the guitar involved. However all music has basic harmony and it tends to be a 4 chord progression recycled with one variation. Kinda makes my job easier as it saves time transcribing.

Some of the artists I get are Ed Sheeran, Charlie Puth, Emilie Sande, Rationale, Sia and of course some guy called Justin Bieber.....

guitarfishbay · January 2018

It is the songs thing rather than the artist thing. Lots of young people listen to playlists these days rather than albums, so you'd be better off looking for guitar based songs that consistently turn up in popular playlists.

Legionreturns · January 2018

I drive students around all day...and I have to listen to some absolute toss. Grime, but the very dregs of it. Bedroom produced wank with barely articulate white boys pretending to be black gangsters on the run from the "Feds". It's utterly soul destroying.

Just because I have to suffer, here's a sample so you can feel my pain. This was one they played yesterday.

Listen to Bradford - Blazer Boccle, Kid C, Curly, K Don, Young Alertz - KODH TV Cypher by KODH TV | LIVE Music #np on #SoundCloud

Lestratcaster · January 2018

Thing is though with advanced technology and production there’s less and less guitar on songs these days. Only Ed Sheeran has any obvious guitar in his songs.

We desperately need a new guitar hero!

Legionreturns · January 2018

Lestratcaster said:

We desperately need a new guitar hero!

No we don't! We need guitars to come down in price, which is exactly what'll happen when the old fellas hoarding the expensive ones pop their clogs and there are too many on the market

Neill · January 2018

Legionreturns said:

I drive students around all day...and I have to listen to some absolute toss. Grime, but the very dregs of it. Bedroom produced wank with barely articulate white boys pretending to be black gangsters on the run from the "Feds". It's utterly soul destroying.

Just because I have to suffer, here's a sample so you can feel my pain. This was one they played yesterday.

Listen to Bradford - Blazer Boccle, Kid C, Curly, K Don, Young Alertz - KODH TV Cypher by KODH TV | LIVE Music #np on #SoundCloud

I don't swear much as a rule, but fucking hell...

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Question: Who Are The Kids Listening to?

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