The future of electric guitars

[magirus]

This article may be of interest to the strummers of the forum. It didn't load too well on my iPad but it's fine on the Mac.

[Groundrush]

Music shops have been in decline for years, at one time almost every town had one but not any more. The guitar industry is being eroded from all sides. From being an unfashionable instrument to competition from cheaper manufacturers, to technological advancements in digital amplification making traditional amps largely redundant.

But on the other hand the technical abilities of modern guitar players arguably outstrips any of the old guard heroes of the 50's through 70's; there are a million Youtube shredders who make Eddie Van Halen look like a pub noodler (albeit with perhaps less mainstream popularity) with more free learning resources than ever before. You can buy great guitars for not a lot of money and they don't have to come from one of the big names, and if you buy a Kemper or AxeFX you have access to virtually every amplifier and stomp box ever made in the space of a 2U rack slot.

The traditional guitar industry might be feeling the pinch but there has never been a better time to be a guitarist.

[Neil.C]

Music shops have been in decline for years, at one time almost every town had one but not any more. The guitar industry is being eroded from all sides. From being an unfashionable instrument to competition from cheaper manufacturers, to technological advancements in digital amplification making traditional amps largely redundant.

But on the other hand the technical abilities of modern guitar players arguably outstrips any of the old guard heroes of the 50's through 70's; there are a million Youtube shredders who make Eddie Van Halen look like a pub noodler (albeit with perhaps less mainstream popularity) with more free learning resources than ever before. You can buy great guitars for not a lot of money and they don't have to come from one of the big names, and if you buy a Kemper or AxeFX you have access to virtually every amplifier and stomp box ever made in the space of a 2U rack slot.

The traditional guitar industry might be feeling the pinch but there has never been a better time to be a guitarist.

Good points and all true.

[benny.c]

I guess that music is cyclic and the popularity of guitar based bands rises and falls over time. Despite the popularity of hair metal bands in the 80's, you'd imagine that synth pop really dented guitar sales back then, in the UK at least. Fortunately grunge and indie rock came along to save us! Despite the popularity of other styles of music currently, I can't see the guitar ever dying out completely but I suppose the issue is that if kids can't find a local music shop they may never get hooked.

My lad's guitar teacher travels an hour away to buy his strings from a small, independent shop rather than go to the local Dawsons which is to be admired I think. Not that there is anything wrong with Dawsons but it's good to support the little guys, even if your petrol costs more than your strings!

[paulpsz008]

Sounds a lot like mechanical watches & the Quartz crisis?

& the smartwatch crisis for that matter.

[Jeremy67]

What a truly awful site with all that background shite going on.

Any chance of a concise precis.

[Neil.C]

I guess with kids nowadays always having their noses in a phone or computer they can make music without any training or effort.

Learning to play a guitar is hard and probably not suitable for the instant gratification generation.

I-pads never look like this though...

[robt]

Guitars originally became popular because it's a portable, polyphonic instrument with a fairly wide range. Amplification meant a large band was no longer needed to fill a concert hall, hence the rise of the 4-piece band and rock & roll in the 50s. The image of rock & roll has kept the guitar popular, but it's important to bear in mind that historically, this is an anomaly. The biggest threat since then has been the synthesiser, which fits the original use-case for electric guitars better than electric guitars.

Nowadays, the average kid who wants to make music can get more out of an iPad app, for a lot less money, than they can get from a guitar. Plus, modern synths are really, really good. You can get pretty good modelling of analogue synths, as well as very realistic instrument modelling for things like grand pianos and orchestral strings. They're not quite the same as real instruments, but they no longer sound terrible. And the art of incorporating synthesised sounds into music has matured a lot since the 70s. The current trend seems to be a rise of individual bedroom music producers replacing bands entirely, distributing their music online.

It's not that the guitar is dying off, but it isn't going back to historic levels of popularity. As the article notes, there are too many companies in the guitar business. Some of them will probably end up bust, especially if their business model assumes 1970s sales volumes will continue forever.

[Neil.C]

Gawd! I-Pad apps, what a boring scenario.

Just throw Simon Cowell and some auto tune into the mix and you have the end of civilisation.

[blackal]

Music shops have been in decline for years, at one time almost every town had one but not any more.

That's more to do with cheapskates going in, piddling about with all the stock - taking up the dealer's time.......... before sucking on their teeth and saying "Let me think about it"

Then they go home and order from GuitarsRUs on line.

Happens with watches too, and plenty of people on here defend the practice.

[Foxy100]

I guess with kids nowadays always having their noses in a phone or computer they can make music without any training or effort.

Learning to play a guitar is hard and probably not suitable for the instant gratification generation.

I-pads never look like this though...

I could stare at that longer than I could an iPad.

[Gruntfuttock]

I guess with kids nowadays always having their noses in a phone or computer they can make music without any training or effort.

Learning to play a guitar is hard and probably not suitable for the instant gratification generation.

I-pads never look like this though...

...But it isn't music they make is it!

The guitar does appeal to instant gratification because you can make a lot of noise for little effort or training (punk etc). As a musical instrument the electric guitar has been fairly immune to 'improvement' for the last 60 years since Leo Fender got it right first time with the Broadcaster.
I read somewhere that the Gibson 'robot' self tuning guitars were now unfixable due to Gibson not being able to replace the rechargeable batteries in them... All my guitars just consist of wire, wood and magnets with no servicing required. One also has a beautiful Les Paul Tiger stripe maple top just like yours Neil. It isn't going out of fashion in my lifetime. :-)

[robt]

...But it isn't music they make is it!

I suppose if you want to be a true music snob, it's worth pointing out that a guitar is one of a relatively small number of instruments that cannot be intonated properly, i.e., some of the notes will always be slightly out of tune. This may be another reason why they are starting to decline in popularity.

There have been some attempts at solving this problem, such as:

http://www.truetemperament.com/necks/

Someone has had a go a Just Intonation too, but without the same accuracy across all the strings:

http://jsnow.bootlegether.net/cbg/justintonation.html

Personally speaking, my guitar playing is bad enough without having to cope with any of these fret arrangements. Also my ear isn't good enough that it bothers me. It does bother some people though.

[Seamaster73]

Went through all of this in the eighties and nineties when the first easy-play keyboards came along and made the too-hard-to-learn Hammond organ obsolete and unfashionable. People were chucking C3s in skips. Now, despite all the advances in keyboard tech and the explosion in computer music production, Hammond's hip again and selling new B3s/C3s that are virtually identical to the originals.

[Neil.C]

Went through all of this in the eighties and nineties when the first easy-play keyboards came along and made the too-hard-to-learn Hammond organ obsolete and unfashionable. People were chucking C3s in skips. Now, despite all the advances in keyboard tech and the explosion in computer music production, Hammond's hip again and selling new B3s/C3s that are virtually identical to the originals.

Can't beat the sound of a Hammond though.