They're selling guitars ... it's a geetar renysance

[Rick]

https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/music-instruments-sweetwater-reverb-guitar-center-1119868/

Some interesting numbers and observations.  Most interesting to me is that there's a significant new generation of guitar players coming up.  Makes me feel good.  More people playing music, the better for the world.

 

[Seamas]

Interesting.
I suspect it is kind of like those other things that people started grabbing up (after the toilet paper of course), like bicycles--or  bread yeasts, or woodworking tools.
People saw more free time as an opportunity to actually DO that thing they said they always wanted to do if they had time.

Learning a musical instrument is pretty high on the list for a lot of people--and the guitar is easily the best candidate for most.
They are relatively cheap, and reasonably easy to play (I mean if idiots like us can do it…), don't take up much space.

Piano can be a good candidate too--a couple of the people I know who have acquired pianos in the last in years basically got them for the price of moving them--but they are space hogs,  which is ironic that they used to be a fixture in almost every middle class parlor, but are now considered to big in the age of McMansions.

 

[aarontunes]

Piano can be a good candidate too--a couple of the people I know who have acquired pianos in the last in years basically got them for the price of moving them--but they are space hogs,  which is ironic that they used to be a fixture in almost every middle class parlor, but are now considered to big in the age of McMansions.

I don't think it's the size so much as the ball-and-chain aspect.


"The things you own end up owning you" has never been truer than when it pertains to the 500 lbs piano finished in beautiful glossy Walnut that you have to get down two flights of stairs (with a bend in the middle), through the sliding glass door into the backyard, then down a gravel path around the side of the house, and up a bouncy steel ramp into the moving truck.

 

[bagman67]

Piano can be a good candidate too--a couple of the people I know who have acquired pianos in the last in years basically got them for the price of moving them--but they are space hogs,  which is ironic that they used to be a fixture in almost every middle class parlor, but are now considered to big in the age of McMansions.

I don't think it's the size so much as the ball-and-chain aspect.


"The things you own end up owning you" has never been truer than when it pertains to the 500 lbs piano finished in beautiful glossy Walnut that you have to get down two flights of stairs (with a bend in the middle), through the sliding glass door into the backyard, then down a gravel path around the side of the house, and up a bouncy steel ramp into the moving truck.

Well, bulk and weight, and also the rise of radio and later television as the predominant in-home entertainment option - which also frequently involves very large and sometimes heavy gear.

 

[aarontunes]

Well, bulk and weight, and also the rise of radio and later television as the predominant in-home entertainment option - which also frequently involves very large and sometimes heavy gear.

Yes, that was a game-changing development.


Once (as in all of human history up to about 100 years ago) if you wanted to hear music, you had to make it yourself. You generally only got to sit around and watch others make for you it if you were in the elite class...and even then it was still real people sitting right in front of you. People learned to play or sing because they had to if they wanted to hear a song.

Have you ever seen really old sheet music with parts for four instruments printed on a single sheet of paper, with each part facing a different direction? It was printed that way so that four people could gather around a table, and each person would have their part facing them.

I know it's a silly thing, but whenever I happen to see one of those sheets it always strikes me as the very beating heart of what music is: people working together to create something that stirs their soul.

 

[swarfrat]

I too lament the death of everybody more or less playing SOMETHING. And yes - I haven't looked at digital pianos, and I'm sure there are reasons someone will spend $4500 on a Nord when lots of people are perfectly happy with a $300 digital piano with speakers, and yet others will turn up their nose at the Nord.  Right now - there are probably more free pianos on craigslist than free kittens.

Ironically - I'm actually interested in getting into keys for the home studio. I dabbled in the 80's and was vaguely aware of progress in the 90's and since everything went VSTs I'm lost. Ironically even though it doesn't move, I don't want 147 steps and drivers - I want a PIANO and an ORGAN. And if I want to do a string/horn thingy, I will use one or the other as a controller.  And even there I'm lost. There isn't much in the way of a $500 guitar equivalent on keys any more. I mean - it might not be your favorite, but you can pretty much do anything you need with a $500 guitar. If you're especially cheap and already have a box of crap laying around you can even do an oil rubbed Warmoth for that (barely).

I go to sweetwater and I stare at clonewheel organs and digital pianos and I'm like dude - is there not a bang up drawbar single manual organ for less than a grand?

 

[aarontunes]

I too lament the death of everybody more or less playing SOMETHING. And yes - I haven't looked at digital pianos, and I'm sure there are reasons someone will spend $4500 on a Nord when lots of people are perfectly happy with a $300 digital piano with speakers, and yet others will turn up their nose at the Nord.  Right now - there are probably more free pianos on craigslist than free kittens.

Ironically - I'm actually interested in getting into keys for the home studio. I dabbled in the 80's and was vaguely aware of progress in the 90's and since everything went VSTs I'm lost. Ironically even though it doesn't move, I don't want 147 steps and drivers - I want a PIANO and an ORGAN. And if I want to do a string/horn thingy, I will use one or the other as a controller.  And even there I'm lost. There isn't much in the way of a $500 guitar equivalent on keys any more. I mean - it might not be your favorite, but you can pretty much do anything you need with a $500 guitar. If you're especially cheap and already have a box of crap laying around you can even do an oil rubbed Warmoth for that (barely).

I go to sweetwater and I stare at clonewheel organs and digital pianos and I'm like dude - is there not a bang up drawbar single manual organ for less than a grand?

Oh man.....you gotta get on the VST train! They are the wave of the....now.


I just use a cheap MIDI controller, and buy sounds as I need them. It sure beats buying a $2k keyboard and never using most of the sounds on it.


For guitars too. There is no easier way to record guitars than with VST amp sims. I haven't put a mic in front of an amp in a long time. There are SSSSSOOOOO many advantages to using VST amp sims.


Highly recommended...two thumbs way up.

 

[swarfrat]

I should rephrase. I'm not super opposed to vsts. But 1) I run Linux. There are few and its a PITB. 2) I want actual drawbars at least. I don't really need two keyboards either but as of yet there is no feedback keyboard that goes from weighted keys to hammond. And 3) I do sort of want something that you turn on and play without having to configure a matrix of midi and sound routing in software.

 

[Rick]

My neighbor wanted to give me a beautiful stienway grand, and I said thanks but no thanks ... maybe if I were a millionaire and had a 5000 sq ft house, I know it cost her a pretttttttty pennnny.  It was crazy.  Her house is the same size as mine, and there was no room in the living room for anything else.

 

[aarontunes]

My neighbor wanted to give me a beautiful stienway grand, and I said thanks but no thanks ... maybe if I were a millionaire and had a 5000 sq ft house, I know it cost her a pretttttttty pennnny.  It was crazy.  Her house is the same size as mine, and there was no room in the living room for anything else.

"Steinway Grand" are probably the only two words that would make me ever consider accepting a piano someone wanted to give me. ((Quickly searches Ebay for "Steinway Grand completed sales".....))

 

[Seamas]

I used to live just south of the Steinway factory (Queens, NY).
Once upon a time that area was a legit "company town", built all the homes around it for the workers, etc I don't think they hade company script like a coal mine, but  everything else.


The town near me had a piano store on main street for 120+ years.
Just sold and serviced pianos.
They are still in business but moved out, and into a store in the nearby shopping mall.

 

[Seamas]

Once (as in all of human history up to about 100 years ago) if you wanted to hear music, you had to make it yourself. You generally only got to sit around and watch others make for you it if you were in the elite class...and even then it was still real people sitting right in front of you. People learned to play or sing because they had to if they wanted to hear a song.

Yes, and just about everyone would sing--and took great joy in it.
I don't sing (or dance), not very good at it
A: because I never worked at it
B: too self conscious
People seemed to be less self conscious about singing and dancing before TV etc.

 

[Logrinn]

My neighbor wanted to give me a beautiful stienway grand, and I said thanks but no thanks ...

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
??? ??? ???

 

[Rick]

I wasn't going to do anything with it, and she wound up getting some money for it, and she needed it.  I'm happy for her, and she's alive to enjoy the money.



Guitars are so much better ...