Charlie, the death of guitar was announced in the 1980's with New Wave music.

Still around 20 years later. Synths that sounded like synths and not like sampled instruments were nearly dead for a good 10-15 years during that time frame. Electronica music resurrected the playing around with filters and arpeggios and what not that was missing for quite awhile.

The popularity and content of various genres will forever evolve. Don't be surprised to see ye olde guitare become a dominant instrument in hip hop one day. Wouldn't surprise me one bit. In fact, the classical guitar, not played flamenco style of course, was nearly ubiquitous in R&B 5-10 years ago.

Horns were missing from rock and pop for decades, then in the 90's the ska music popularized by bands like The Mighty Mighty Bosstones made them cool again for awhile with some folks that didn't 'get them' before.

Worry not, guitars will be around for the rest of your and my lifetime; maybe not in the same flavor as we know them today, but they are far too easy to have around and noodle upon to see them disappear anytime soon.

Listen to some metalcore just to see where guitar has gone in the past 10 years - an incredibly popular genre, just not on the radio since music doesn't need radio to be popular any longer. Take a short jaunt over to YouTube and listen to some 'War of Ages', 'The Devil Wears Prada', etc. Try to ignore the guttural growling if you can and you'll see a new type of mastery of the electric guitar that, while doesn't suit my taste, will ensure the sales of guitars and amps and amp simulation and so forth for years to come.

Other oddball guitar developments that I happen to enjoy:

Charlie Hunter (plays all kinds of weird combo bass / guitar things) www.charliehunter.com (go to his media page, then navigate to the .mp3 section for 3 CDs worth of free live gig jazz music featuring Charlie

Zander Zon (reminds me of a mix between Mark Egan and Stanley Clarke) Buy his CD at CDBaby - very relaxing http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ZanderZon

-Scott

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