Death of the electric guitar?

[Godzooky75]

Piece in the Washington Post titled Why my guitar gently weeps:
The slow, secret death of the six-string electric. And why you should care.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/lifestyle/the-slow-secret-death-of-the-electric-guitar/?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.ceabaefa84e7. (may be behind a paywall)

I think a eulogy is a bit premature, but it presents some interesting points to consider.

I also think one of the problems with the industry is the reason I keep browsing Warmoth... A lot of the stock guitars out there are crap and the high-quality instruments often demand an exorbitant premium price for what amounts to a logo decal.

Thoughts?

 

[stratamania]

I think we certainly will see an adjustment occur in the industry. But it talks about sales falling back due to the lack of the guitar hero.

I think that may be a part of it, but there are other things at work.  For those of us in the 50 - 60 range or older, how many guitars can you buy?  As you get to a certain age you might buy higher ticket items such as historical reissues or whatever as you have the disposable income. Later you might start to sell them off,  but even if you don't how many 54 strats and 59 Les Paul replicas can one use or store.

Couple that with the boom in the economy for a few years prior to 2009, I think there was a lot of artificial growth in guitars, golf clubs, boutique fishing rods and so on. So I think the market is falling back to more realistic levels rather than the artificially driven growth it previously experienced. The guitar is an instrument ultimately and not a lifestyle product.

I don't think the guitar is dying, but rather the culture and people that saw the golden years of rock and roll in its broadest terms grow and bloom.  Add to that today the youngsters in broader terms have mobile phones and iPads and Facebook etc the world is simply different.

Today also if you want to build a music career a Youtube channel with ad revenue might be more feasible than having somewhere to perform. In the UK the number of places to play is far less for younger folks than when I was out playing in the 70s and 80s.

Despite all that I see better more, well-stocked music stores than there used to be, but perhaps less of them. There is more and more choice at all price brackets for guitars and a lot of them are far better quality than in the 70s and 80s.

I submit it is not the guitar dying any more than the violin is but the culture and the postwar world of the 50s-90s that saw it grow. The world is changing... who knew?

 

[Logrinn]

Cagey started this thread about it a couple of days ago. 

 

[AirCap]

First, the WaPo writer doesn't really know what he's writing about - he relates very little empirical data to back up his opinions. I give short shrift to him, OK? Here's some perspective to illustrate:

Back in the 80's when my repair shop was still in a music store, I was reading the latest industry magazine and discussing it with the store management (it was a slow day). The article featured the total industry sales figures for one year - pianos, electronics keyboards, drums, guitars, amps, the whole shebang. It amounted to some serious bread, right? A client of mine sat and listened in the office - he managed a nearby Target. He suddenly popped out to his car and brought back a six inch printout of Target Corp's entire sales for the years. He flipped a couple pages, and read a line that floored us.... In the same year, the entire total of sales by Target of just M&M/Mars Candy exceeded the sales of the musical instrument industry. Candy beat pianos, guitars, etc., OK?

Think about it. 10% of the general public plays a musical instrument of some kind. 3% plays guitar. The real money makers are daily needs - food, gasoline, rent. The music industry is just a drop in the bucket in comparison. So all this bitching and moaning about lower market share? WHO CARES? It doesn't matter.

 

[DustyCat]

Why stop at the guitar?

Why not tout the death of the violin, the arcobass, the piano or the harpsichord?

How about brass instruments?

Shit...

 

[DustyCat]

Oh, I forgot the drum.  :doh:

Its a shame that currently in our evolution as humans, we sometimes need to be sensational to attract attention to make money. The author would not receive such attention if his article was about maintaining the plateau of the stats quo.

Personally, Id put my money on an increase of sales related to the sensationalism of this article.

 

[Axl12]

Agreed The reporter took a shallow look.
What was over looked, guitar is a life style. A guitarist is a guitarist for life. Even when the habit is given up one comes back or at least reminisces..
Most of these topics are related to fads. This is not fad, it's just between the next big wave.
Singing about how many shiny things you have will get boring to the pop world, I'm still thinking it's a Big Brother (1984) condition to keep us under control. Whilst guitar is about freedom, sharing a community of like minded soul seekers and showing off  :headbang4: ... 

 

[fdesalvo]

I lost faith in the WAPO during last year's election cycle.  They could tell me that electric guitars require a guitarist to play and I'd have doubts.

 

[exaN]

They could tell me that electric guitars require a guitarist to play and I'd have doubts.

But it doesn't though  :icon_biggrin:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RBSkq-_St8[/youtube]

 

[AirCap]

But it doesn't though

Since a man built the things, programmed the things, and wrote the original tune.... I have to discount your claim. If the robot was sentient, had been engineered and constructed by a sentient robot, and the tune was written by a sentient robot - then you'd have a solid argument. But you don't.

 

[Logrinn]

:toothy12: :toothy12: :toothy12:

 

[musicispeace]

When I started playing again in 2010 I grew to feel like I was taking up blacksmithing or something. Its a different era these days with everything about music. Some of those changes I was actually glad to see, others not. I could go down the road right now to my local Guitar Center and see a building full of guitars just sitting there, unpurchased and unplayed. Some costing more than I would spend on a used car. The guitar is not "dead" anymore than the violin since I could come up with a symphony performance to attend within a hundred miles pretty easily. Given the beauty of the partscaster movement and entities like Chapman Guitars coming on to the scene I would like to see a downturn in the inflated "vintage" market and the concept of the collector who does not really play. It bothers me to see rows and rows of expensive guitars in shops that have utilized woods and are not being utilized. At least when a partscaster comes into the world it is a purpose built instrument that likely will see immediate use. At the beginning in the early fifties there was a small selection in the market place. Even adjusting for 7 or 8 string metal guitars in the present day do we really need a Guitarget full of hundreds of guitars just collecting dust and "vintage" guitars asking tens of thousands of dollars just because they are old.