Washington Post: "The slow, secret death of the six-string electric"

UnclePsychosis

I honestly don't give a shit if guitar based music stops being the mainstream default. Most mainstream music is unlistenable anyway. 

Pretty much none of the music I like has ever been particularly popular. But it still exists. Jazz hasn't been part of the mainstream for fifty years but there's still great new jazz artists emerging. Classical music lost its crown a hundred years ago but it's still going strong, just not on radio one. 

Honestly guys, stop stressing about the popularity of the guitar. It'll be fine. People will still make great music. 

Whether or not Gibson and Fender can survive is a different issue. But the music will live on. 

Sassafras

Guitar needs to be associated with 'pulling chicks' again like it was in the swinging sixties.
If some spotty Herbert thought it would get him laid, he'd be down Coda before you could say Terry Morgan.

skunkwerx

I am the next guitar hero. 

I estimate it will be 2097 before I make it big though... 

richardhomer

Sassafras said:

Guitar needs to be associated with 'pulling chicks' again like it was in the swinging sixties.
If some spotty Herbert thought it would get him laid, he'd be down Coda before you could say Terry Morgan.

My experience is it's never helped in that direction.

I was convinced by '63 red Strat would attract women in droves and compensate for my unfortunate looks - and even more unfortunate personality, when I was gigging.

Sadly, it didn't....

ICBM

richardhomer said:

Sassafras said:

Guitar needs to be associated with 'pulling chicks' again like it was in the swinging sixties.
If some spotty Herbert thought it would get him laid, he'd be down Coda before you could say Terry Morgan.

My experience is it's never helped in that direction.

I was convinced by '63 red Strat would attract women in droves and compensate for my unfortunate looks - and even more unfortunate personality, when I was gigging.

Sadly, it didn't....

You need a Rickenbacker.

Really… I have no idea why, but every single time I have used one at a gig, a - usually young and attractive - woman has come over afterwards and complemented me. It must be the guitar - it never happens when I use anything else so it can't be me!

Jalapeno

If you read all the article - the biggest uptake is from girls. Likes of KT Tunstall (especially) and the pop princesses are the new guitar heroes.

olafgarten

While Real Guitar playing might be on the decline, people still love games like Rockband and Guitar Hero. 

Also Metal music is slowly entering the mainstream which will cause an explosion fanned fret 31 string guitars. 

usedtobe

Playing guitar never once got me laid, which shows how bad I am at guitar. Ironically, I'm a fantastic shag!

  

usedtobe

Fretwired said:

usedtobe said:

Some of the not teaching instruments in school is down to politics and funding and academy/privatised schools, though, I imagine...?

No .... as the parents pay (it's peanuts as he teaches 5 or 6 at a time) and my teacher lives in an affluent area. Kids aren't interested.

It was different when my wife learned, at school. Had to provide own instrument, but parents didn't have to pay for lessons. Was a long time ago, though..

frictionfraction

Grumpyrocker said:

This reminds me of stories of the 80s when synth pop became big. Guitar sales took a dive.

But it's true we don't have the same kind of electric six string heroes anymore - not universal ones anyway. 

Ironically I think it's one of the best times to be a guitar buyer. So many wonderful high quality guitars coming out of the far east now. It's not a great time to be Fender or Gibson, but if you are  looking  to spend £400 on a new guitar you're actually going to be able to by a better guitar than you ever have been able to.

Absolutely.  Glastonbury this weekend has loads of guitar bands strutting there stuff. Squiers, epis, loads of telecasters, girls with guitars (the xx).  Ok the market is small at the moment but guitar based music is still the way most bands start and guitars just do the business...... I love future islands but they would be even better with a guitar!! 

Sassafras

I'm sure if guitars came with built-in smartphones we'd see a resurgence of it's popularity among today's youth.
Of course, there's always the possibility that the young are no longer physically capable of playing because their thumbs have become so oversized and deformed through constant texting they can longer form chords or hold a pick.

steer

I have not read all 4 pages of comments, so sorry if I am repeating, but a good guitar will last for years, so I am not surprised that the big firms are stuggling. Unless you make a habit of regularly dropping your guitar, they are going to last half a lifetime or more. In 24 years of playing I have never brought a brand new electric. The oldest guitar I have is about 30 years old, and at first glance looks nearly new apart from the yellowing plastic.

Add together the second hand market and the new market, and I bet more guitars are changing hands than ever before Not that this helps the manufacturers.

Evilmags

I got my Lowden when I was 21. 25 years later it's better than when I got it and likely to outlast me. As I'd imagine most of my guitars will. It took me 15 years to destroy an RG550 that was the only electric I played. 

ICBM

The long life of guitars wouldn't matter if the market was growing - that was the situation up until the 80s at least. The problem now is that the number of players is static or shrinking, so the only way for the companies to grow as demanded by conventional business theory is to sell more guitars to the same people, and preferably more expensive ones. There's only so far this can go - it essentially becomes a pyramid scheme where new recruits have run out… and there's a well-known way how that ends.

Electric guitar won't disappear as an instrument, in the same way as the brass instruments that dominated popular music in the jazz age or the violin-family ones that did in the classical age haven't disappeared - but they're now much more of a niche market, used mostly for their original music forms and to some extent as 'flavouring' in pop music, and I expect electric guitar to go the same way. The over-indebted large companies who have most heavily bought into that business model will be the first to go.

thebreeze

ESBlonde said:

I think we in the west have had our bloom period and probably the guitar has too, think back 75 years and every 4th house had a piano or someone with a squeeze box. Gibson made thier reputation on banjos and ukuleles and the early electrics were hawian/slide based (hense the Gibson ES range named because it's Electric and played held in the Spanish style not laid on the lap).
The real trick for the US/western makers is to develop the chinese market and sell into them as a premium product for the future. However I suspect they have other trends in mind.
It's not over yet but as the Baby boomers realise they have retired owning 6 expensive guitars (or die leaving the widows doing it) and try to sell them, the market will flood and the buyers will shrink. It's happened with antique trends, classic cars etc. and guitars will be soon(ish).

I think nearly all the thoughts in the thread are right but in only taking the western guitar market/history into account.  I think ESBlonde's point is very relevant.  IMO in the end it will depend on global economics (and politics) generally and how China, the Far East and then a bit later Africa respond to western guitar culture and whether that's something that becomes integrated or by-passed into their culture.  A lot of guitars are made in these countries now but presumably mainly for the western market.  The sheer demographics in terms of age and numbers mean that if these countries grow economically and embrace guitar based music as they do so then the guitar market will thrive.  A Chinese guitar god would have a big bearing on things. 

In this respect I think the vintage guitar market has a good chance too as already the indications are that the very affluent in these countries gravitate to the status symbols and high end purchases favoured by the West, so fine vintage wines, antique furniture, pieces of art, rare cars etc. as well as the high-end bling.  It seems as if these Western aspirational purchases appeal globally. 

The good thing from my perspective is that none of this is my problem.  I just get to play and enjoy them.  I might even be buried with mine. 

Evilmags

The English speaking world is a bubble. Guitar based music in Latin countries is massive at the moment. 30 venues here alone have live music played by professional musicians every night of the week. The UK is too expensive to put on bands and make a living. The musicians fees go on licensing ect so it's cheaper to have a DJ. As a result even cities the size of London are not great for live bands. Pretty hard to produce guitar hero's if their are no venues for them to play in. 

In more places with less prohibitive costs putting on music is less of a risk. I can go out any night amd see live music in loads of genres from 8pm to 4 am followed by after club till 8am. For a tenner entrance fee. 

ICBM

thebreeze said:

The good thing from my perspective is that none of this is my problem.  I just get to play and enjoy them.  I might even be buried with mine. 

The directors of Gibson and Fender would like to extend their thanks to you for selflessly taking a few old guitars out of circulation.

thebreeze

ICBM said:

thebreeze said:

The good thing from my perspective is that none of this is my problem.  I just get to play and enjoy them.  I might even be buried with mine. 

The directors of Gibson and Fender would like to extend their thanks to you for selflessly taking a few old guitars out of circulation.

I'm surprised they haven't spotted that opportunity yet......Custom Shop guitars to be buried with: fit perfectly in the coffin, automatic tuning to "Don't Fear The Reaper", specially decomposing glue, Death Certificate of Authenticity etc.....

I'm waiting for their call 

Evilmags

They could always turn all the wood into coffins. Can just imagine the chat "cheapskate bastards buried poor old Ron in a Mexican coffin rather than the US version Desire was buried in. 

scrumhalf

Presumably there would be no point getting cremated in a flametop coffin.