The slow death of the electric guitar

> It's not hard to see why. Playing music is hard. The ratio of effort to reward is just terrible. I totally understand why people quit.

Several years ago I worked for Fender on their in-house web development team in the marketing department; it was hell during the holiday turnaround, but there were good times, too. I was one of the few people there who didn't play an instrument. For myself, while I have always wanted to try to play a guitar (who hasn't, right?) - even with an employee discount I couldn't justify yet another expensive hobby (I already have too many expensive hobbies as it is).

You are spot on in saying "playing music is hard" and that the "ratio of effort to reward" is terrible. From what I understand, you throw playing an electric on top of that, and you are only going to have the most dedicated of people willing to keep it up after a few weeks.

Electric guitars are hella-hard on the hands and fingers; I learned quite a lot about guitars and electrics in particular during my time there. I never knew, for instance, that there were so many particulars about the instruments, that could have a great effect on whether you liked to play it or not (like the radius and width of the fretboard (?), for instance); that some of these parts were something you needed to take into account before you purchased a guitar, which is why online purchasing is something that people only did after they went to a store to try out the real instruments (in a way, Fender's online offerings were undercutting their dealer network, but there wasn't any way around that - Fender didn't want that to happen, but that's the way the the market worked).

Then you have the hardness of the strings on the fingers; you literally better be willing to bleed to learn to play an electric. Your hands will turn into claws as you have to build up your finger "muscles" - and there's also the pain of having to really stretch your hand around and apart. Everything I learned about learning made me think "this is something that could really put a damper on my career as a software developer"; it really wasn't for the faint-hearted.

I was let go after a couple of years in a downsizing, with a small severance package; not too long after I had moved on to another employer, Fender had decided to move their headquarters from Arizona back to California, to be closer to one of their main production facilities from what I understand.

I wish them luck, but they were already grousing about getting new players, especially younger ones, when I was there. I wish them luck, because even though I know I'm not likely to ever pick a guitar up and play it (and man, did I choose to lose the opportunity of a lifetime to learn the instrument while working for them), I still love to watch people play the instrument, and listen to the wonderful sounds it can make, in all its variations (oh, and don't get me started on the interesting sound of an electric mandolin!).

I'd hate to see all of that disappear...

Purely to prove a point to some salty poster on a forum who bangs on about John Mayer "not being a real guitarist and not really doing anything that anybody else can't do".

A simple "Well, post a video of you doing that and I will Paypal you $10 as a token of appreciation" is just a simple challenge guaranteed to weed out anyone who is even remotely qualified to make such a call.

So far, none of the more trollish posters have ever come back with evidence of them being able to do it. Better players however (who usually NEVER talk smack about another player of Mayer's calibre, thus never have the challenge gauntlet thrown at their feet) have done so.

Kids don't want to be Mark Zuckerberg. They want to be Wiz Khalifa or Nicki Minaj.

I think the drop in revenue is because the market is really saturated. All those millions of guitars produced are not destroyed, it's not the kind of product that you can apply 'planned obsolescence' to. Instead, the vintage one's are often better sounding and therefore more popular. Also, if you find a good vintage guitar you are almost assured it will remain good as the wood has proven to be stable.

If there is a slow death to guitar than it is because it's almost impossible to earn any money with it, except for the lucky few. Learning an instrument like guitar takes many, many years, which is quite a hobby.. If you would spend the same amount of time in learning software development you are almost assured to have a solid income as result.

Could it be that you're uneducated (which is fine, there's so much music produced nowadays that's hard to be educated in all niches) and listening to shitty electronic music that the mainstream industry is advertising endlessly to recycle the same formula again and again for cheap gains? Similar to shitty music like "The Archies - Sugar Sugar" or anything from The Ramones. There's an endless stream of shit music from all years and genres.

Don't expect subtleties from an industrial product, just like you wouldn't expect them from an apartment building (compared to art-chitecture).

As I said, electronic music is a medium, not a genre. You could listen to an electronic version of Bach's Toccata In D Minor played live by a virtuous pianist and it wouldn't lose subtlety or sensitivity due to the electronic process of sound synthesis. If done well, it could actually acquire new subtleties through timbre manipulation techniques.

Don't confuse medium and product.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EaHMq3Jg5E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkMt4GudJzg

Listen to those back to back and if you still find no subtleties or sensitivity go check a doctor ;) Now seriously, it's fine not to like them, but you have to concede these are very well done pieces of art.