Home › Forums › Guitar Techniques and General Discussions › Are Guitar Players in Decline?
- This topic has 14 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 5 months ago by JoLa.
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October 13, 2020 at 7:21 am #215020
I’ve just watched Brian’s views on this subject on YouTube. He begins to analyse some of the reasons why the guitar appears to appeal to the older or more mature player these days.
I have a few theories of my own regarding today’s young role models in the music world who, in diminishing numbers, nowadays rarely play guitar.I’m sure we all have differing views but this is worth watching.
Richard
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October 13, 2020 at 7:54 am #215022
Yup, interesting topic, especially coming from Brian. It’s a big one too, there are many facets. I think the main reason is, as Brian said, the wealth of distractions available these days to everyone all the time. Fifty years ago I was at boarding school in Suffolk, England. There were 70 boys in my house room and about ten acoustic guitars hung on the wall. I didn’t have my own guitar when I started so for a whole term I simply borrowed someone’s guitar, it was so easy. I have not been back to that house room or any other boarding school house room for decades but I’d be very interested to know how many guitars you can find in such places these days.
Jonathan Amos, Matsuyama, Japan
The farther one travels the less one knows.
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October 13, 2020 at 8:50 am #215026
I agree with what you say but feel mostly it’s pop music. Modern pop music is more gymnastics than playing music. Used to be bands, particularly those that appealed to young males played their own music. So if you wanted to be like them, you played. A lot of kids tried to play but didn’t make it. A good number of them did though. There are some good young guitarists out there, Derek Trucks, Christone Ingram, Gary Clark, jr. to name a few but they’re in other types of music. Maybe the guitar hero is a passing thing. The Beatles were turned down by a major recording studio because guitar band were “just a passing thing” and that was in the 1960s. Also when I think of pop music, not that I’m an expert on it, I think of women singers not guitar players. Taylor Swift used to play guitar so maybe that’s why there’s more women players. As for why older men buy mostly buy guitars and gear, they’re the only ones who can afford it. Sorry for the rambling but it is an interesting question.
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October 13, 2020 at 8:59 am #215030
If there has been some decline, I feel sure the guitar will settle on a lower plateau. My main area of playing has been classical, and guitar is definitely less fashionable in this field than it was in the 1970s and 80s but there remains nevertheless a substantial amount of interest and continuing activity, including new involvement from young people. People always want music, and while today’s easy access to music may be a disincentive to some to start playing an instrument, I cannot believe the instinct to make music oneself will decline very far. Also, the guitar is a great instrument, versatile and present in virtually every type of music, it has harmony and so can be self-sufficient, is easily portable and can produce great sounds. How can it fail? What’s not to like?!
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October 13, 2020 at 2:54 pm #215052
Well, its no true. kids are still playing its just that the music has changed and how to access it and share it. I’ve had countless amounts of young players in my cab going back and forth to their practise nights over the years. The music is now Ed Sheeran or James Mae and countless others who rock their teenage worlds, I recall having a conversation with some teens in my cab about a year or so past, I asked them what music they were into/playing and when I said, no blues?. I was told that’s old peoples music, I couldn’t get them to understand that music is a progression and without the one you wouldn’t have the other.
They don’t go to Guitar shops/centers as a rule cos everything they need to buy can be bought online without the fuss of missing out on whichever games they are group playing.
The youngsters I do see when I visit any of my local guitars/music shops are usually uni students and they are playing allsorts of guitar, from classical to pop.You cant convince me that kids are not out there doing it when there are kids out there doing it like this..
..Billy..
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October 13, 2020 at 5:05 pm #215054
I don’t think guitar players are in decline. I do think that guitar music is in decline. Back in the day (50s-late 80s) pop music was guitar driven. Free Bird, Stairway to Heaven, Layla etc. etc. Not so much any more. I would like to think the large Country music fanbase listens because of the pickin’ but not so. They love the ballads and the “song” so to speak. The guitar took a beating during the disco era and now during the rap period. Maybe it will swing back to guitar, who knows. Most kids today seem to identify with rappers more than guitar players. That wasn’t me. I loved me some Hendrix, Peter Townsend, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, the Outlaws etc. etc. People like us are a testament to the fact that the guitar players are not in decline. My two cents.
John H.
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October 13, 2020 at 11:47 pm #215067
Guitar players are not in decline here in New Zealand. My grandson will soon be 14, and he is in 3 different bands in his junior high school. There is an annual national band competition (Band Quest) which holds eliminations all over the country, and then the final here in Auckland. Thousands of kids bands sign up. It’s 100% rock music, and the kids are all heavy into the classic rock groups, as well as the modern rock groups, like Greta van Fleet, Haim, etc. I go see it every year, and it brings tears of joy to my eyes to see the young kids really getting into it. But what will happen when they finish school and get a job? They will hang their guitars on the wall, and pick them up again when they retire. Just like us.
Hip hop is pretty much only popular here among the polynesians, because they identify with African American culture. But also, reggae is extremely popular with Polynesians, and there are quite a few reggae bands.
There are blues fans here also, mostly middle age and older people. I have seen a few blues bands around in pubs and outdoor venues, but retro rock bands are more popular.
Sunjamr Steve
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October 14, 2020 at 1:58 am #215071
I can only speak for Germany. In the 1960s there was a musical explosion here, triggered by the “British Invasion”, the American folk and rock scene and the performances of the blues veterans. Countless amateur bands and professionals played in many pubs, all songs had a “recognition value”. In the 1970s this creative scene was commercialized and replaced by bubble-gum music and discotheques. After that there was rock music in many varieties, but I didn’t get to hear it anymore because of my job etc. Nowadays pop music is only computer generated, boring, guitar solos are frowned upon. There are only a few opportunities for live musicians to perform. Instead they hire cheap “solo entertainers” who sing along with a canned music, with a little keyboard or simple guitar accompaniment. Unfortunately, commerce has ruined our music. I would be interested to know how the blues is doing in the USA, for example? Do the young black musicians only play rap/hip hop? Does the blues still have a future with them?
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October 14, 2020 at 2:12 am #215076
i think, and this is part of Brian last points, we must take in consideration youth and relationship with time and effort.
Overhelmed by easy distraction from computer, social network, taking time to level up in guitar requires effort and will… and time.
Not that youth are lazy, but time available during the first learning months (or the first year) may be not the one an older dude can arrange. Thus disappointmeent and final withdrawal.
Moreover, sampling other one’s music on computer is not so complex and feedback is more immediate than learning a musical instrument.
Musical school are full and there are still many young musicians, but they have the progression path in their mindset, however guitar is an instrument seen as ‘you can teach yourself’ : pick it up, learn 3 chords and play. and at last, it appears that learning 3 chords is not so simple.
on the other side, we can see a true boost on youth addiction over ukulele , more easy to learn.Where does the white go when snow melts?
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October 14, 2020 at 6:44 am #215094
The popularity of playing guitar is a consequence of the kind of music people are listening to at the time. I analysed the UK top 10 of 2019 and compared it with the UK top 10 of 1969.
In 2019 only one song HAD a guitar in it and that was just one backing Spanish guitar.
In 1969, only one song did NOT have a guitar in it, 3 songs had 1 acoustic guitar, 2 songs had one background electric guitar, 3 songs had 2 prominent electric guitars and 1 song had three prominent electric guitars in them.
Guitars began to recede in the 1980s with the advent of electronic keyboards and synthesizers. They kept their ground in the 1990s but in the last two decades they’ve lost a lot of ground to synthesizers and computers. I guess it will stay that way as just about everyone has one or more computers these days while only a small percentage of young people own a guitar.
Here are the charts:
2019
1 SOMEONE YOU LOVED, LEWIS CAPALDI – Piano, no guitar
2 OLD TOWN ROAD, LIL NAS X – Drums beat, bass, no guitar
3 I DON’T CARE, ED SHEERAN & JUSTIN BIEBER drum beat, bass, no guitar
4 BAD GUY, BILLIE EILISH Bass, claps, synthesizer, no guitar
5 GIANT, CALVIN HARRIS & RAG’N’BONE MAN – bass, piano, organ, synthesizer, drums, claps, no guitar
6 SWEET BUT PSYCHO, AVA MAX – bass, claps, drums, synthesizer, no guitar
7 VOSSI BOP, STORMZY – bass, piano, drums, no guitar
8 DANCE MONKEY, TONES & I – piano, claps, bass, drums, no guitar
9 DON’T CALL ME UP, MABEL – synthesizer, claps, piano, drums, bass, no guitar
10 SENORITA, SHAWN MENDES/CAMILA CABELLO – drums, finger snaps, claps, bass, Spanish guitar1969
1 Archies, Sugar Sugar – Drums, claps, organ, bass, acoustic guitar
02 Beatles With Billy Preston Get Back – drums, bass, organ, 2 electric guitars
03 The Rolling Stones Honky Tonk Women – drums, bass, 2 electric guitars
04 Peter Sarstedt, Where Do You Go To (My Lovely) – accordion, bass, acoustic guitar
05 Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg, Je T’Aime Moi Non Plus – drums, bass, organ, strings, electric guitar
06 Marvin Gaye, I Heard It Through The Grapevine – organ, drums, bass, strings, electric guitar
07 Creedence Clearwater Revival Bad Moon Rising – Drums, bass, 2 electric guitars
08 Fleetwood Mac, Albatross – Drums, bass, 3 electric guitars
09 Frank Sinatra, My Way – Drums, bass, orchestra, no guitar
10 Bobbie Gentry, I’ll Never Fall In Love Again – piano, bass, drums, strings, acoustic guitarJonathan Amos, Matsuyama, Japan
The farther one travels the less one knows.
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October 14, 2020 at 4:14 pm #215125
Wow, that’s profound. And maybe another reason for the decline of guitars is that you actually have to sit down and learn how to play them, and many young people today just don’t have the necessary attention span. I figure that has to do with the popularity of ukuleles today: You can learn to play one in an hour.
Sunjamr Steve
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November 21, 2020 at 4:54 pm #220156
Wow, that list says it all. We boomers are still want-to-be Eric Clapton’s, we have time and money – that’s where the equipment is going. Too bad that arthritic hands, vanished sex appeal, and loss of hearing overcome our musical desire to be the youthful guitar god of the 60’s. The folk based coffee houses are hard to find, the small live music venues are disappearing and the aging talent is well, aging.
Anecdotally, I have noticed that public music venues in small towns and cities have been increasing. “Saturday nite on the square music” seems to be popular in many places. (before covid)
As a boomer, we as a group drove the social and economic environment probably too long. Perhaps it’s time we lay down the guitar icon and make room for the digitally synthesized, overly compressed, infinite pitch corrected, zero dynamic, drum tracked blandness of today’s youth. God, let me die first.FGM
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November 21, 2020 at 6:49 pm #220164
Well, Fred – that was well said, right on! You have a way with words and I hope to see your comments here more often 🙂
🎸JoLa
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October 14, 2020 at 8:44 am #215100
Despite the guitar’s continuing popularity, in the grand scheme of things it’s arguably not as popular an instrument as it once was. From 2005 to 2016 electric guitar sales dropped by an incredible 36 percent. However, according to Gibson and Fender, they have recorded 2020 sales as a bumper year. How much the global pandemic had influenced those instrument sales is perhaps another debate.
I believe that most of the music that truly influenced novice guitar players were from the pre- 90’s. and they were inspired by bands who often had a lead-guitar virtuoso, like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Peter Green, Slash, SRV and many others. These were the role-models that inspired us, we looked up to them and emulated them as best we could.
Unfortunately most of the popular music that tops the charts today is of the pop/hip-hop/dance genre and uses little guitar if any. (Proved by Jonathan’s chart findings above)
I do however firmly believe there will always be a place for guitar players to demonstrate their skills but perhaps on a lesser scale than those heady days in the 60’s to 90’s.Richard
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October 14, 2020 at 4:44 pm #215129
I dont get the list, Sheeran is most noticeable for his for his guitar
Senorita just sounds guitar to me
Old town road..its got to have been written on guitar, cos its just …blues, country blues..whatever
If Calvin harris dont write their stuff on their Scottish guitar then there is something far wrong..
Ellish is just a weird Chick, her music makes me uneasy,…...Billy..
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