The slow death of the electric guitar

Davesax1965 wrote: Tillerman88 wrote: Davesax1965 wrote: I'm 52 and have been playing since I was 10. I can tell you that there are fewer "masters of guitar" now that they're virtually nonexistent. And the decline of the guitar industry is due to lack of *popular* demand, unless these masters of guitar tend to buy a couple of thousand guitars each. Which doesn't seem to be a logical explanation.  Musicians are, indeed, taking up new instruments. Extremely badly. The world has changed a lot since I started playing, and not for the better. The *general standard of musicianship* has cruised towards rock bottom. Guitars are difficult to learn. So people don't bother.  By the same token - with lack of demand - more and more guitar manufacturers are jostling to get a slice of the market from Fender and Gibson. Underdemand and oversupply. Not a comfortable situation.  ^Too romantic a view of reality man....  And romanticism is tragically murdered by our contemporary popular trends, ending up completely wiped out from the music scene!.. I agree though with today's murderistic popular demands. And yes, times changed....now music industries having to promptly fitting themselves to the ever changing popular demand instead of dictating the trends........  Interesting, you seem to be simultaneously agreeing and disagreeing with me. ;-)

You should check YouTube videos talking about it. Most people heavily criticize the post because it's... well, a big false correlation. Electric guitar has never been so common. Sure, it's not the ~main point~ of music like it used to be in the 70's/80's rock and metal, but it's really present as another rhythm instrument. So in the end that's a pretty fallacious post...

The slow death of murder

There is little doubt that as a cultural/musical icon the importance of the electric guitar, and therefore new students, has diminished.   This may be due to a break in a tradition dating back to the 1950s of continuous guitar 'heroes' ~ the Les Paul;Jimi Hendrix;Jimmy Page;Eddie Van Halen;Yngwie Malmsteen continuum ~ and a general lessening of the guitar's romantic and, as Davesax points out, challenging image.   The long-held notion that "the guitar is easy to learn but difficult to master" is an understatement.   As any guitarist will tell you, playing an axe physically hurts (and often emotionally discouraging) when one compares one's playing to a Steve Howe or Allan Holdsworth.

The other thing most players don't realize (or deny) is that every player has limits and plateaus that may not be overcome with practice or group playing.   Hendrix had huge hands and was a lefty, things that gave him a big advantage over the average rock player.   Page had been a studio musician and professional gigger since he was a very young man.   Eddie had been playing piano since childhood and he and Alex were jamming together since their teens.   All advantages that are unique and helped them climb the rock 'n roll food chain.

mechanicalflattery wrote: There are likely more passionate musicians today than ever before in human history. Concerns about the downfall of music/art/civilization/attention spans/intelligence are understandable but ultimately unwarranted.

Let's see. You're 21. I'm 52. 

As The Dark Elf and Atavachron mention above, and thanks to both of them, the guitar is very easy to learn on a *basic* level - strumming a few open chords - but to actually learn how to play it properly takes many years. Apart from the pain aspect of fretting and bending notes, you have barre chords and stretches which are physically very painful. 

On top of that, it takes many, many years to become a PROPER MUSICIAN - if some of the younger audience are listening, here. There are a number of stages - being confined by the physical limitations of learning the instrument, deviation from normal learning and then mastery. Look up "shuhari" as a concept - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuhari - it's the best explanation I've found for what's been a 40 year stint in music. 

The problem is that the guitar is indeed difficult. ( I've handed experienced bassists a fretless bass and watched as their frame of reference disappears, different story. ;-) ) So's the sax, which I of course play. There is no way of getting good results out without a lot of practice, but you CAN buy a modern digital synth and get instant results, coupled with something like an Arturia Beatstep or Novation Circuit.

The problem is that whatever the instrument, you've not short circuited the necessary process of learning required to become a musician, and that process is (after a certain point) not concerned with the instrument you have in your hands. First you learn the instrument, then you master the music, then you just play, to quote Charlie Parker. 

The internet is now full of "musicians" who are nothing of the sort. They are, at best, "players" or even "performers" with no clue and no reference points. And they're quite happy to tell you how wonderful they all are and how they don't have to listen to you crusty old farts. 

Which partially explains the mess the music world is in at the moment. The slow death of the electric guitar is really the slow death of the proper musician. 

Davesax1965 wrote: As The Dark Elf and Atavachron mention above, and thanks to both of them, the guitar is very easy to learn on a *basic* level - strumming a few open chords - but to actually learn how to play it properly takes many years. Apart from the pain aspect of fretting and bending notes, you have barre chords and stretches which are physically very painful.  On top of that, it takes many, many years to become a PROPER MUSICIAN - if some of the younger audience are listening, here. There are a number of stages - being confined by the physical limitations of learning the instrument, deviation from normal learning and then mastery. Look up "shuhari" as a concept - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuhari - it's the best explanation I've found for what's been a 40 year stint in music.  The problem is that the guitar is indeed difficult. ( I've handed experienced bassists a fretless bass and watched as their frame of reference disappears, different story. ;-) ) So's the sax, which I of course play. There is no way of getting good results out without a lot of practice, but you CAN buy a modern digital synth and get instant results, coupled with something like an Arturia Beatstep or Novation Circuit. The problem is that whatever the instrument, you've not short circuited the necessary process of learning required to become a musician, and that process is (after a certain point) not concerned with the instrument you have in your hands. First you learn the instrument, then you master the music, then you just play, to quote Charlie Parker.  The internet is now full of "musicians" who are nothing of the sort. They are, at best, "players" or even "performers" with no clue and no reference points. And they're quite happy to tell you how wonderful they all are and how they don't have to listen to you crusty old farts.  Which partially explains the mess the music world is in at the moment. The slow death of the electric guitar is really the slow death of the proper musician.

I don't think many of us would disagree that the physical difficulties of learning the guitar are significant to get past and that the majority of starters probably give up long before even the first callus has formed on one of their stiff little fingers. As both you and others have pointed out, there may be many sociological reasons for this apart from the instant gratification mindset of dilettantes and the perceived lack of knowledge of their target audience. That said, there must be examples of gifted songwriters and composers who created 'proper music' but could not be described as anything but 'rudimentary' on a particular instrument. I'm thinking principally of people like Ray Davies, Joe Strummer, Brian Eno, Elvis Costello, Jon Anderson, Peter Gabriel, John Lydon, Mark E Smith. (the list goes on) Some classical composers who either didn't play any instrument or were by their own admission 'lousy' on the one they did: John Mackey, Berlioz, Toru Takemitsu.Tchaikovsky, William Walton, Elliott Carter, Milton Babbitt, Christopher Rouse (the list goes on)
It seems to be a particular PA malaise that we are often guilty of measuring the artistic merit of music by the difficulty of its execution. I've never bought into the complex = good equation as there is music that is brilliant and simple and music that is brilliant and also complex. They're certainly not mutually exclusive and it's perfectly acceptable to enjoy both.
As far as guitar playing goes, I'd much rather have a modestly gifted innovator than a virtuoso who can merely replicate everything verbatim that came before (like a historian armed with a sampler) The legions of guitarists who graduated from the Guitar Institute of Technology in Hollywood could all certainly play/shred like speed typists but most of their alumni have produced some of the most tedious dross imaginable

We could probably debate all day about what constitutes 'proper music/musician', 'rudimentary' and how to evaluate whether anyone can 'really play' or not. Forgetting about our own lifetime frames of reference for a second, music is changing and our attitudes as creators and consumers will also continue to change. The mess that you describe the music world being in seems both inevitable but transitory i.e. we are morphing from 50 years of A&R men talent spotting artists who then work for record companies to repay their advance to a post-internet model where the artist finally seems to have the opportunity for a commensurate degree of financial and artistic control. (Albeit the market has fractured into millions of tiny little unrecognisable brands) It seems clear that this technology will open up the marketplace to the types of future musicians that we today would not recognise as traditional time served apprentices who have mastered their craft. Whether this is a good or bad thing I can't say but less interference from corporate dictates and more artistic freedom should actually result in more good music?. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that 200 years from now, a Fender Stratocaster plugged into a Fender amp will elicit the sort of response engendered today by a medieval lute.


Edited by ExittheLemming - July 02 2017 at 03:36

OK you've now moved on from 'real musician' to the all encompassing 'musician=' Being able to improvise on your chosen instrument is not some sort of litmus test of being a 'real musician'. Many of the finest orchestral players, composers and songwriters probably couldn't improvise to save themselves but the latter two groups wrote the sorts of 'jazz and rock standards' over which those who can, do. Are these people not real musicians?

Davesax1965 wrote: PS Silly Puppy, you honestly don't have a clue what you're talking about, either.  Although you're right on the amount of second hand guitars out there, the rest of your post has absolutely no grounding in reality.

^Sorry man but unusual and strange instruments are an ever present part of musical history, as long as experimental music has always existed as well.... I don't see either any correlation with the thread subject (or the WP article for that matter)