VERY Interesting article on the Guitar's Demise.....

[Dr. Cheese]

It's no fun reading that your dealer thinks you're going to die soon (sounds like an addict and a drug dealer,) but even I have been asking myself just how many more basses am I going to buy because I can realistically see me not being able to play, or really play much less in the not distant future.

 

[dtripoli]

Slow death of the electric guitar?
Next they're gonna tell me about the slow death of the lute.
In it's day the really skilled lute players were treated like guitar Gods were in the 70's and 80's as were clarinet and trumpet players in the big band era.
Granted, ever since Eddie Van Halen took the electric guitar to it's limit and then became a parody of himself and jumped the shark, the idea of a revered lead rock guitarist has been on the wane. (Note, I love Eddie and have nothing but admiration for his success.)
The New Wave and Punk movements totally abandoned the soaring lead solos and in many cases
recorded with no guitars at all.
Grunge brought back the basic electric guitar but not the self indulgent lead solos.
So, it can be said the lead rock guitarist today is just another member of the band and not glorified ala Hendrix, Clapton, Page.
But Jeff Beck is still wailing and better than ever.
Also as noted above, guitar sales are doing great, country pop is heavily laden with multiple guitars and most every genre has guitarists.

 

[Thumpin6string]

The only reason the big corps like Fender, Gibson etc. have lost sales is because of China. People want everything for less so they buy the Chinese chit (sometimes unknowingly). They make everything, and I mean everything and they are getting good at it. My brothers manufacturing business is being killed by Chinese ripoffs and you can't stop them. They copied his product and even the instruction manual too. I read an article showing that somewhere around 90% of "name brand" items on fleabay and amazon are counterfeit. Why buy a Fender or even a Squire when you can get a Chinese copy for around 50% less and most of the time free shipping. There have even been "Made in USA" Gibson Chinese copies on my local Craigslist. Sad!

 

[MobileHolmes]

I was born in 1963 and had accordion lessons. It was indeed a thing. My slightly older friends were more serious players in their day.

Middle class homes all used to have pianos as well.

The used piano market has essentially collapsed, except for the fancy stuff. I bought a used console in excellent condition recently for 150 bucks, and probably could have talked them down, but they were selling it for a vets charity and I felt bad about it.

 

[JW56789]

My real fear is WHEN (not if) Guitar Center goes down, Gibson, Fender, and so many others will face dramatic losses from which they may never recover. This is going to cause a huge vacuum in the MI business, and will not be made up by the surviving stores, EBay, Reverb, and Craigslist.

 

[dxb]

The only reason the big corps like Fender, Gibson etc. have lost sales is because of China. People want everything for less so they buy the Chinese chit (sometimes unknowingly). They make everything, and I mean everything and they are getting good at it. My brothers manufacturing business is being killed by Chinese ripoffs and you can't stop them. They copied his product and even the instruction manual too. I read an article showing that somewhere around 90% of "name brand" items on fleabay and amazon are counterfeit. Why buy a Fender or even a Squire when you can get a Chinese copy for around 50% less and most of the time free shipping. There have even been "Made in USA" Gibson Chinese copies on my local Craigslist. Sad!

I'm pretty sure most of the Chinese-made guitars being sold are the ones from Fender, Gibson and other companies. I don't think the lower sales mentioned in the article are primarily because of people buying counterfeit guitars off ebay or amazon. Like I speculated in my earlier post, I think it might simply be due to market saturation. There's just a huge amount of used guitars that already exist in the world and that could be cutting into sales of new guitars.

 

[jjmuckluckjr]

I read recently that over half of all Americans are too young to remember the 1970's, arguably the apex of guitar culture. Combine that with the many schools cutting music education (a proven aid in math comprehension), and 20+ years of questionable pop music trends. Playing an instrument is hard for the uninitiated. In the age of instant gratification, who wants to put in countless hours of practice? Especially when you can hook up your iPad to a PA system and call yourself a DJ. Right now I'd have to say that Country music is probably doing more for instrument sales than Rock at this point.

 

[willbassyeah]

What they all dont understand is how much guitars are already in the market. The used market for instruments are very robust and is eating into their revenue. Why would i buy a fender 2017 Precision bass when the only changes they make is the number of windings in their pickup and some capacitor in the tone control when i can buy a used fender precision for much less.

Innovation is the key, you cant just kept on changing or adding pickup configuration on an instrument and expect the consumer to buy old ideas. Example, Fender Dimension Bass which supposed to be revolutionary is literally just a bass with humbucker which had been done by other manufacturers (G&L, Musicman) way before. You cant kept on cashing in on your brand eg; make a new model with another manufacturer design and slap your own brand to it.

Most musical instruments innovations are driven by pedals or effects companies not instruments manufacturers IMHO.

 

[willbassyeah]

I'm pretty sure most of the Chinese-made guitars being sold are the ones from Fender, Gibson and other companies. I don't think the lower sales mentioned in the article are primarily because of people buying counterfeit guitars off ebay or amazon. Like I speculated in my earlier post, I think it might simply be due to market saturation. There's just a huge amount of used guitars that already exist in the world and that could be cutting into sales of new guitars.

Yup and to add in to your point, most of us are already owning more than one instruments, why would i buy your new Fender/gibson/prs 2017 model when my 2010 model is still working fine for me. Most of my friends who play instruments didnt even take a look at buying instruments new.

 

[NoiseNinja]

I predict an alien invasion of Earth where mankind will serve as slaves and all playing on instruments and music as such is banned, so in that aspect I agree with that articles main conclusion.

 

[RichardW]

You can sum this article up in one sentence: "Old guys are upset that young people aren't like them."

 

[Rib 13]

.

Guitars are cheaper than ever and people only want a strat and/or a Les Paul, which can be had at any price point.

You can sum this article up in one sentence: "Old guys are upset that young people aren't like them."

laptops or pads with looping software are even cheaper than those: learning to run the software is much faster than learning to play an instrument and WAV packages of predone loops get the timbres of all the music heard on pop radio these days (you dont even have to know music theory, chord construction, or what key the song is in). Also, VSTi instruments are also cheap and their tech to emulate is off the charts these days...my 7 year old knows nothing about music, but can slap loops together in Acid and usually come up with something that sounds better than most budding guitar players can sound like.

this thread makes me think of all those trombone players in swing groups in the early 60s, who thought they had job security forever and didnt feel threatened at all when the electric guitar combo mop-tops from across the pond landed in America with their "Yeah Yeah Yeah" sound

and, like anything else, now that is also moving on

The guitar isn't dying, just like the trombone isn't dead either --- like swing music there will always be a market......but as we move forward in time and technological advances are what they are, all you "nay sayers" are just burying your head in the sand to not see that the electric guitar combo is nothing like it was over the past several decades and is now at the beginning of making its slow transition from mainstream market to niche market

 

[Doner Designs]

Guitar will only die when nobody wants to hear any music that includes guitar.

 

[lug]

Paid account required to see the graph

Odd, I have no "paid account" and can go right to it. It shows that profits plummeted from 2005 to 2009 and then rose to where they were in 2005 by 2014 and have gone even higher in 2015 and 2016. Doesn't however show numbers, just profit. This article claims Guitar sales are down 15% over the last decade.
19 Fascinating Guitar Sales Statistics | BrandonGaille.com

 

[rodv66]

My real fear is WHEN (not if) Guitar Center goes down, Gibson, Fender, and so many others will face dramatic losses from which they may never recover. This is going to cause a huge vacuum in the MI business, and will not be made up by the surviving stores, EBay, Reverb, and Craigslist.

Does that mean I won't have to pay off my gear card? Lol

 

[JPaulGeddy]

laptops or pads with looping software are even cheaper than those: learning to run the software is much faster than learning to play an instrument and WAV packages of predone loops get the timbres of all the music heard on pop radio these days (you dont even have to know music theory, chord construction, or what key the song is in). Also, VSTi instruments are also cheap and their tech to emulate is off the charts these days...my 7 year old knows nothing about music, but can slap loops together in Acid and usually come up with something that sounds better than most budding guitar players can sound like.

this thread makes me think of all those trombone players in swing groups in the early 60s, who thought they had job security forever and didnt feel threatened at all when the electric guitar combo mop-tops from across the pond landed in America with their "Yeah Yeah Yeah" sound

and, like anything else, now that is also moving on

The guitar isn't dying, just like the trombone isn't dead either --- like swing music there will always be a market......but as we move forward in time and technological advances are what they are, all you "nay sayers" are just burying your head in the sand to not see that the electric guitar combo is nothing like it was over the past several decades and is now at the beginning of making its slow transition from mainstream market to niche market

Saved me a whole lotta typing. Most thorough/accurate response so far, IMO.

Guitar will only die when nobody wants to hear any music that includes guitar.

I would argue that the vast majority of people under 30 couldn't care less about guitar in music. Pop music, at least. As stated above, no it's not dead, but it is heading straight to niche territory, if it's not there already. There is no electric guitar in the mainstream these days, and it's not coming back.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

I vividly recall in the 80's when the death of electric bass was breathlessly predicted, to be replaced by synth bass. Drums were also scheduled for universal replacement by drum machines or Symmons electric drums........still waiting. Guitar sales are in a slump because the market is so hyper saturated with decent quality cheap instruments, and most end up on the used market,.or sitting under somebody's bed until their mom yard-sales them. A visit to my local GC reveals about a 10:1 guitar to bass ratio hanging on the wall, and I'm usually the only guy in the bass "department", a backwater in the store. Its symptomatic of the whole "death of retail" thing happening everywhere.

 

[dxb]

I would argue that the vast majority of people under 30 couldn't care less about guitar in music. Pop music, at least. As stated above, no it's not dead, but it is heading straight to niche territory, if it's not there already. There is no electric guitar in the mainstream these days, and it's not coming back.

I guess it depends on how you define "mainstream". There are plenty of big genres like country, indie/alt rock, metal, folk, punk, etc. where guitars aren't going anywhere.

 

[guy n. cognito]

Ah, the Washington Post.

Wait for it....

 

[DirtDog]

My feeling is the really good guitar driven rock stuff doesn't get the radio play that electro pop/EDM does. And that's been going on for at least a couple of decades. I blame the "tastemakers"