PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Guitar on its way out

I've noticed, by studying the history of Western Popular Musics going back at least a few hundred years, that these things are generational in nature.

Thomas Jefferson shopped for harpsichords for his friends when visiting the "old country".

Once ubiquitous and therefore affordable, try finding and purchasing a Harpsichord today...

Apparently we mortals are built in such a fashion that at a certain point a certain younger generation declares war on things that the older generation holds dear.

Not to worry, however, as these things also appear to be very cyclical in nature -- the old adage that our children don't want to learn to play the xxxx like we do, but our grandchildren or perhaps great-grandchildren will rediscover that instrument with a vengeance.

The guitar has become rather ubiquitous within our generation, to the point where one might easily make the case that it is also now superfluous. A stroll through any musical instrument store worth its salt should easily prove that at this time, the sheer numbers of guitars hanging on the walls is proof of a fad among consumers and fads just don't last a long time.

But during the Swing Era, the horns were the premier offering in music stores, with only a certain few guitars hanging on the walls. I remember the end of that era, during the late fifties, early sixties or so and maybe beyond, when there weren't a whole lot of choices for the person looking for a new guitar. There were only a handful of companies making guitars, zero inexpensive imports, there was no CAD/CAM manufacturing that insured identical great feeling necks and a "good" guitar cost fquite a bit more money on average than today. Then came the popularity of a younger generation and now we literally have a "glut" of instruments on the market.

My grandsons would rather "play" one of those video game "guitars" all day, the interest in actually learning to play said song on a real guitar being nonexistant.

They'll survive as their own generation, though.

The one sure thing I've learned in this life is that there will always be change.

We are designed such that we don't seem to like change all that much, likely a survival instinct IMO, but I have no proofs on that one. Just an intuition.

What I do know is manufacturing.

And I could easily draw a comparison to other boom markets, such as the CB radio boom of the 70s and compare it to the Guitar Boom of today that apparently has reached its apex and will be replaced with something else.

The good news for the true guitar aficionados (rather than the maddening crowd of wannabes that such always creates) is that there are going to be more and more great values to be had in the guitar market, both used and new, because of this.

Enjoy,


--Mac