Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The slow death of the electric guitar

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 343 posts

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#71

Post by bigtunacan »

cyberferret wrote: post #51
nl wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“You don’t see a bunch of kids emulating John Mayer and listening to him and wanting to pick up a guitar because of him.” Emphasis on a bunch of kids . As someone who likes guitar it pains me to say that this seems true. My son is 11, in a (very) music-heavy school. When I was his age I think almost every boy (and some girls) in my class learnt guitar - it was the instrument. In my son's class I think there are 2 lea…

Genuine question: Has your son seen Mayer play? Either on TV or in a live situation? I remember my son being entranced when I brought home the "Where The Light Is" DVD and put it on to watch it myself. He happened to be in the room, and was hooked from the opening song to the last. Not saying that will be the case in every instance, but I do remember the actual video that got BOTH my sons into music was an "AC/DC Liv…

I also saw AC/DC during the Black Ice tour. I've been to many concerts, but never seen anyone else live who could play the guitar like Angus Young. He truly is an amazing guitarist.

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#72

Post by 0xbear »

There are some amazing players out there: Guthrie Govan, Nick Johnston, Plini... The old guard (Satriani, Vai, Gilbert) are cranking out great albums from time to time. Truth be told, people who really know how to play and write guitar music always were in short supply. They're just in slightly shorter supply now for (IMO) two reasons: 1. One no longer needs to know how to play an instrument to be considered a musician: people are perfectly willing to pay for "music" that's just computer drums and bass, and 2. Kids have the attention span of a house fly, and guitar requires daily practice. Even so, YouTube is full of amazingly talented kids.

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#73

Post by microtonal »

b1daly wrote: post #34

I think the trend will continue down for guitar playing, and for all musical instruments. My theory is based on the fact that learning to play well is difficult and time consuming. Popular music is by and large not the product of humans, moving muscles, energizing mass, thus generating sound waves. "Sounds" that we hear in pop music are in main generated digitally, usually with software instruments, in a computer. Po…

Given the finite amount of time and resources available to individuals, especially young people, it is inevitable that learning more modern pop production will be at the expense of investing in the extensive training needed to perform music in realtime.

And even if you have trained musicians, the are all kinds of social factors that can make things hard, especially in a pop/rock group: infighting, drug abuse, wanting a higher pay, band members that drop out mid-tour, etc.

I think Frank Zappa embodied this realisation: you can deal with all that shit or get a Synclavier [1] and get your ideas played by a full orchestra without the social hassles and pay.

Although I do like a lot of rock music, I think this is a fantastic development. It means that some musically brilliant kid can bootstrap their career in an attic without dealing with all the hurdles they would have to deal with before.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synclavier

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#76

Post by davnicwil »

I think there are strong parallels with the tech/startup world here: the often-touted quote "The next Bill Gates won't build an operating system, the next Mark Zuckerberg won't build a social network" comes to mind.

The next Miles Davies won't play the horn, and the next Jimmy Hendrix won't play guitar. There will always be jazz, there will always be rock n roll, but the level of interest in those styles, particularly amongst young musicians, will slide inevitably towards the niche as the next innovative style comes along.

The world keeps turning. This is a great thing for music.

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#77

Post by srean »

SwellJoe wrote: post #53
tnecniv wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I started to learn guitar several decades ago, I would learn guitar solos off of records by slowing them down to 16 rpm (old turntables could do that) and moving the needle back repeatedly to listen to tricky phrases over and over again. It was frustrating, time consuming, and hell on on the records. This made you a much better player than just looking up a video or tab though. >I would like to see guitar-orie…

"This made you a much better player than just looking up a video or tab though." I disagree. Not about the "just looking up a tab" bit, but about the general gist of your argument that "the hard way teaches you better". Easier access to knowledge is always better when you want to learn things, and the internet is absolutely the best access to knowledge that has ever existed. I've been playing guitar since long before…

I dont think he meant "better because you did it the hardway" but "better because you spent time on the finer details of the phrasing"

That said, it seems you had a lot on your chest and it feels good to get it off

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#78

Post by kyberias »

cyberferret wrote: post #37
paulsutter wrote: post #16

Slash was the last famous guitarist. There's your proof that guitarists used to be a big deal, but are no more. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-guitari...

A more apt description would be "Slash was the last famous guitarist that non guitar players would probably ever remember being mentioned in the popular press". It's along the same lines of saying "McDonalds is the fast food most people have heard of" or "BASIC is the most common programming language that everyone has heard of, so it must be the best". Within each sub-culture, there are dedicated fans that go deeper…

But that's a weird bet to make. What are you trying to prove with that? Why would anyone learn to play something with a very personal style that has taken the artist probably a decade to master... for $10? Of course it has been safe in your wallet. It doesn't prove _anything_ about the versatility or technical skills of that particular artist.

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#79

Post by kowdermeister »

davnicwil wrote: post #76

I think there are strong parallels with the tech/startup world here: the often-touted quote "The next Bill Gates won't build an operating system, the next Mark Zuckerberg won't build a social network" comes to mind. The next Miles Davies won't play the horn, and the next Jimmy Hendrix won't play guitar. There will always be jazz, there will always be rock n roll, but the level of interest in those styles, particularl…

> the next Jimmy Hendrix won't play guitar

This guy comes to my mind: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCafxR2HWJRmMfSdyZXvZMTw :)

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#80

Post by KhanMahGretsch »

SwellJoe wrote: post #59
ThomPete wrote: post #2

Software eating the world. As a guitarist, for some of my years professionally I can only say that this is mostly because you can emulate a lot of things today which normally required different guitars to bring out special sounds and because well most music today don't have guitar solos and thus it's hard to imagine guitar heroes coming out of music which doesn't put guitar in the front. It's not just guitars though…

I for one, welcome the death of the guitar solo. I say this as a guitarist of more than three decades, and as a lover of great guitar playing. Rock and roll guitar solos are, by and large, the wankiest and most pointless waste of notes I can imagine. If we never get another, say Eruption , in exchange for no more awful weedly-deedly musical maelstroms I believe it is a more than fair trade. Even the good rock and rol…

If that moment in Sweet Child O' Mine when Slash kicks on the wah and runs up the fretboard doesn't give you chills... well...
Post reply on HN