Murph Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 As newer generations replace older ones, there will be less and less guitar players, per capita, and builders will eventually see sales #'s drop considerably? When I was an early teen, almost all of my friends played "something", drums, bass, guitar, ect. There were several upstarting garage bands within a walking distance. I don't see that now. My generation had far fewer distractions, 3 television channels, no cell phones/texting, no video games, ect. I just wonder how this will effect the number of guitars being built overall? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S t e v e Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 i blame video games... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 I think it's cyclical. When my brother was in high school in the 60s there were many garage bands. I was in h.s in the 70s and of 700 or so students in grades 10-12 I can only remember a handful that played. Then when I had my guitar shop in the 80s there was a resurgence; every 14 year old boy wanted a Floyd Rose on his Korean Strat and an MXR distortion box going into his Gorilla amp. Guitars will never go away, they'll fade away and bounce back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShredAstaire Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 I don't believe that to be the case....i think the musically minded kids will still pick it up.... There is definitely something to be said about distractions or just the fact that kids have SO many options these days. My nephew just told me he wanted to start to learn how to play the guitar...he's 12 so i'm giving him my old Epi Les Paul Junior and buying him a little practice amp to get started. I think it depends on the parenting...you know...do they let the kids play video games for 6 hours straight? Or do they encourage something creative like Guitar lessons? I guess that thought is for the younger kids... Good question, but as of today, it still seems as though guitarists are a dime a dozen....it doesn't seem to have dropped off too much from when I was a kid. *shrug* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanvillRob Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 As newer generations replace older ones' date=' there will be less and less guitar players, per capita, and builders will eventually see sales #'s drop considerably? [/quote'] Yes.....YES......and YES!! Not only Guitar, but every musical instrument.... working on cars....... fixing the light switch....... and every other endeavor that doesn't include a computer..... Also, since kids can't babysit, mow lawns wash cars now without workers comp. insurance, or violating child work laws, they aren't learning the stuff we all had to learn about responsibility, etc. It's a shame, really! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevef Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 Murph, my youngest son just turned 17. There are quite a few "players" around in his age group and younger. His big issue is finding a group that he can feel comfortable with. His music is Pink Floyd, Beatles, Eagles (or late '60s to mid '70s stuff-- Lately he's been listening and working on Johnny Cash stuff). His music relates much better to his teacher's (about my age, 50s to 60s) not many kids his age will work in that era. It ain't just music though, as a kid I played a lot of baseball (I grew up in NYC). We would getup and go to THE field at 06:00 to get a chance to play (rules were play till you lose and "call next", then sit and wait for another chance to play). When my middle son, pretty good baseball player, would call his pals to grab their stuff and let's go play ball, the usual answer was Nah, playing nintendo, sega or whatever.. There are a half a dozen nice fields in our town for the most part there's never anyone on them playing ball. One of the guys that I coached with also grew up in NYC. We used to wonder why none of the kids were on the town's fields. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swleary Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 i blame video games... I blame Steve Too many distractions for kids these days ...I don't know about the United States but here in Canada, music programs have been cut a lot...I think that is a cryin shame.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanvillRob Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 ...I don't know about the United States but here in Canada' date=' music programs have been cut a lot...I think that is a cryin shame..[/quote'] Don't you find it interesting that when School Districts have financial troubles, they cut sports, library, music, etc...but they NEVER cut out the bloated administrator's pay, leather office furniture, seminars in Las Vegas, etc? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 As to the music programs being cut, I have little sympathy, at least on a local level. A couple years ago I offered my repair services pro bono to the local school. Emails and phone calls to the string instructor and superintendent of schools got no reply, not so much as a verbal middle finger. So I donated nine violins and a bunch of bows, rosin and misc stuff to an elemetary school in SC that had students who wanted to play violin and couldn't afford the rent and an instructor who was duct taping things together or paying for it out of her own pocket. My local school dept can #### a rockpile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bowdiddley Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 I don't believe that to be the case....i think the musically minded kids will still pick it up.... There is definitely something to be said about distractions or just the fact that kids have SO many options these days. My nephew just told me he wanted to start to learn how to play the guitar...he's 12 so i'm giving him my old Epi Les Paul Junior and buying him a little practice amp to get started. I think it depends on the parenting...you know...do they let the kids play video games for 6 hours straight? Or do they encourage something creative like Guitar lessons? I guess that thought is for the younger kids... Good question' date=' but as of today, it still seems as though guitarists are a dime a dozen....it doesn't seem to have dropped off too much from when I was a kid. *shrug*[/quote'] I agree! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichCI Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 It seems to me that there are MANY more options for gear than there was when I started playing 25 years ago, particularly when it comes to lower cost gear. Somebody must be buying all this stuff and it's not just those of us in the working world who have some extra disposable income. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hall Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 Seems like if you're exposed to music and instruments the draw is high. Otherwise, it's computers and the Jetsons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Californiaman Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 Sure, I agree Murph. While interest might be down with the younger generation though, it's those who suddenly have some disposable income and a desire to learn guitar or bass or drums or keyboards. I think it will level off and music manufacturers understand this. It's part of the ebb and flow of doing business. Look at Gibson. They save money buy flooding the market with Epiphone. Pretty soon those instruments won't be worth much at all. Frustrated and disinterested kids put them up for sale all the time on craigslist. I mean I can buy one for a couple hundred bucks. I think the pendulum will eventually swing back to the other side where quality American instruments will once again rule the market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swleary Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 Don't you find it interesting that when School Districts have financial troubles' date=' they cut sports, library, music, etc...but they NEVER cut out the bloated administrator's pay, leather office furniture, seminars in Las Vegas, etc?[/quote'] Fender did a study a few years back about kids in school and music...they found that kids learn easier when playing an instrument. I've seen this before, one kid was a C average student at best then took drums...B to an A average after it. Nobody ever want to lose money when it comes to cut backs but that's why I feel that they are just being shelfish...should think of the kids first . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 I think a lot of the responses have a good degree of truth to them. Perhaps first and foremost is that kids today do indeed have far, far more options than youngsters in my own age group. But that's been increasingly true since I was a kid. In fact, my "little" brother who turns 60 this year got hit by a certain 10-year-old's jealousy because the toys and even activities available to him were far greater than those available to me. That seems to have increased in a geometric progression nowadays. "Organized activities" are very much on the rise, and as above, seem to be increasingly geometrically. On the other hand, I agree too that interest in music, and the guitar in particular, is cyclical. In smaller high schools, I've noticed a degree of lessening of music participation after the entry of "Title 9" in the U.S. That's the federal law that functionally required "equal opportunity" for girls in sports. What that ended up doing - and to be really honest about it, I've turned into a big supporter of high school sports for girls, at least in these smaller high schools - is that the girls have the same "sports culture" as the boys. That means they are encouraging more participation from their friends. The band programs tend to have shrunk. Pre-Title 9, I know of one small high school - perhaps 100 kids in four grades - could field about a 50-kid marching band in full tailored uniforms during football season. Today? It's "luck" to have enough to play the national anthem, home and visitor school songs. Still... for the time being, the guitar remains an icon of individual creation that is incredibly easy to learn for basic accompaniment of musically simple songs - and for some, an avenue to go further in musical performance. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShredAstaire Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 Fender did a study a few years back about kids in school and music...they found that kids learn easier when playing an instrument. They should use a third party to perform that study. It won't be fully believed if a Musical Instrument company is doing that study....of COURSE they'll say that playing an instrument will help. *I believe it does, but its the perception of them doing it themselves....revenue generation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MojoRedFoot Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 When I was 12, several kids had a guitar, fewer had a bass, and fewer had a drum set, ALL had video games. Very few kept playing after high school but still play video games. I was the exception. I still only have a Game Boy Advance that gets maybe less than 10 hours of play PER YEAR. Let's face it guys, music takes discipline. To be good at it takes even more. Kids have short attention spans. And it seems they are getting shorter. There are more guitar makers than we are aware of I'm sure. Fender will never go away. Gibson, I'm a little worried about. But there will always be smaller builders. Benevente, McNaught, McInturff, Moog, MTD, Ken Lawrence, Bjarnestein.....etc. Some may even have the same success PRS did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freak show Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 As newer generations replace older ones' date=' there will be less and less guitar players, per capita, and builders will eventually see sales #'s drop considerably? [...'] I just wonder how this will effect the number of guitars being built overall? I've asked myself the same question with respect to the vintage market, i.e. "Will the prices for old guitars continue to rise or will the demand wane, as the Baby-Boomers disappear?" Part of the answer probably has something to do with whether guitar-music continues to be popular. If you grow up listening to Rap and Techno, you're not going to want to learn to play guitar, and you're probably not going to be willing to spend thousands on a vintage instrument. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albertjohn Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 Music is now a disposable commodity and therefore does not have the value it had in years gone by. When they pay, kids can buy a track for whatever for the ipod, listen to it for 10 seconds and move on. Why learn an instrument to produce something which gets consumed and thrown away like a piece of scrap paper? It's a real shame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DAS44 Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 i blame video games... Lord dont get me started... they drive me absolutley nuts Whenever I head someone say COD (call of duty) or 360 I get the urge to climb on top of my house and start picking people off with a rifle. Proudly the oner of 0 video game systems (i.e. Xbox 360)... On another note I got me another guitar! Way better n some POS gaming system. Murph, all I can say is... yup. Popular music has gone down the ****ter too. Makes sense that legitimate musicians (fxck rappers) would decrease too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShredAstaire Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 Pretty high and mighty there DAS.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FirstMeasure Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 I'm not worried. Video Games aren't the "Anti-Guitar". If anything, it'd brought Guitar back to the forefront of music. If Techno Dance didn't kill the guitar then nothing will. Murph - In the original topic you said that almost all your friends were playing something when you were a teen. So were mine. Not very many of mine Kept At It. How many of your friends Kept At It? Personally I think they were a bunch of wannabe's that bought a guitar to show off or be cool, but never did anything with it except try to get laid. My experience as a Young Musician would have been a lot better without their Half Asses contribution. It's a shame they didn't have Guitar Hero back then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dem00n Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 I know like 50 guitar players in my school. Only 10 of them are serious about it. Only 3 of them are acutal ok. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dem00n Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 Lord dont get me started... they drive me absolutley nuts Whenever I head someone say COD (call of duty) or 360 I get the urge to climb on top of my house and start picking people off with a rifle. Proudly the oner of 0 video game systems (i.e. Xbox 360)... On another note I got me another guitar! Way better n some POS gaming system. Murph' date=' all I can say is... yup. Popular music has gone down the ****ter too. Makes sense that legitimate musicians (fxck rappers) would decrease too.[/quote'] If it wasnt for me and thousands of other kids i wouldnt be able to be read if it wasnt for video games. Hell i passed elementry school cause of video games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dom_JEM Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 i blame video games... but im guitar player and i build games lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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