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The slow death of the electric guitar

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Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#141

Post by Applejinx »

dboreham wrote: post #135
crispytx wrote: post #57

I've been saying this for a couple of years now. None of the music I listen to anymore features an electric guitar; it's all made on laptop computers. The fun part about knowing how to play guitar is that you can learn how to play your favorite songs. But if none of your favorite songs feature an electric guitar, what fun is it anymore? I'm 30 years old and have been playing the guitar since I was 12, but it's just n…

I give you Daft Punk with Nile Rodgers as a counter example.

On the other hand, you have to be a Nile Rodgers to groove harder than robots and sequencers.

On the other other hand… guitars still make some of the best 'pluck' sounds. And I say that as someone who owns a x0xb0x, a JP-8000 and an Alpha Juno. People spend a lot of money on synthesizers that can get even close to the immediacy of an electric string. And modern samplers are so accessible you can take that electric string and do whatever you like with it.

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#142

Post by coldcode »

dboreham wrote: post #135
crispytx wrote: post #57

I've been saying this for a couple of years now. None of the music I listen to anymore features an electric guitar; it's all made on laptop computers. The fun part about knowing how to play guitar is that you can learn how to play your favorite songs. But if none of your favorite songs feature an electric guitar, what fun is it anymore? I'm 30 years old and have been playing the guitar since I was 12, but it's just n…

I give you Daft Punk with Nile Rodgers as a counter example.

Anything Niles produces or works on features his guitar, even the stuff he does with people half his age or less. You don't have to be a great soloist to add value to a song, even a modern dance type of music.

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#143

Post by sowpati »

cr0sh wrote: post #82
johan_larson wrote: post #40

Gibson and Fender are like the companies that sell exercise equipment: lots of people buy one with the best of intentions, and three to six months later it's collecting dust in the basement. 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.

> 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 wante…

I'm sorry I couldn't understand from your comment, are you saying an electric is harder on your fingers as compared to an acoustic? If that's what you meant, I must disagree, and please read the full comment. Else, it's my misunderstanding of your comment, and I shall delete my reply.

Electric guitar's strings are far more easier on your fingers compared to a steel-stringed acoustic (not comparing classical guitars with nylon strings). Just about everything is easier to play on an electric, starting with barre chords to slides to bends.

Maybe one reason for more blistering fingers on an electric is because people are more likely to do stuff like slides and bends in solos whereas many people use an acoustic just for chords. But I assure you, if you attempt to do the same stuff on an acoustic, it's going to be far more taxing on your fingers.

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#144

Post by sullyj3 »

watertorock wrote: post #19

Learning an instrument requires commitment and a lot of practice. And more practice. And more practice. And a lifetime of learning. How many people have the patience for that? Particularly in Generation Internet Points Right Now?

There's a whole subculture of bedroom producers making instrumental guitar driven music.

a few examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ipv_l7KoSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18yiVSX7oQk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK5P94toDkI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBztSKccrDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY63_QR6toA

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#145

Post by agumonkey »

coldtea wrote: post #128
agumonkey wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Send me names, I'd gladly feed my ears with beyond jazz subtleties. I'm all for the musical experience, as long as it's well done. But to the point, the thread is about mainstream guitar playing going away. So I was talking about mainstream electro. Surely there are deeply satisfying electronic music out there if you dig.

Here are some examples of some classic stuff -- but like anything new, they probably require repeated listenings to get the layers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgzjFCXCA8g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WTxC8wnXQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnXVIsMimHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw5AiRVqfqk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7bKe_Zgk4o&index=5&list=RDX... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FGtd3oH_PQ http…

IM starts nice, the rest isn't my cup of tea. I'll keep it under my pillow for a second run.

ps: here's a gift https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj3GkvFIqSc

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#146

Post by iainmerrick »

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 partly disagree. Access to endless information is great, on balance, but other things are equally important: hands-on tuition, peer feedback, competition.

I think about folks like Lorde; she was writing fully formed, mature, and extremely competent, music at a ridiculously young age. I doubt it could have happened without tech.

Kate Bush was 19 when she released Wuthering Heights (and had been writing for years before that).

Stevie Wonder signed to Motown aged 11. Not sure when he started writing his own stuff in earnest.

[Edit to add, from Wikipedia:

In 1961, when aged 11, Wonder sang his own composition, "Lonely Boy", to Ronnie White of the Miracles; White then took Wonder and his mother to an audition at Motown

First self-penned number 1 hit aged 13. Wow!]

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#147

Post by hoorayimhelping »

iainmerrick wrote: post #139
d--b wrote: post #27

I think it's a bit naive to believe that guitar heroes can bring the interest for the guitar back. People look back at the guitar heroes time with a nostalgic fondness for a time that doesn't exist anymore. This was already visible in Wayne's world and became more than obvious in school of rock. Guitar-heavy rock has become a geek genre. Pop has moved on. There are obviously various reasons for this: 1. Technological…

There's a whole section near the end of the article about a noticeable bump in sales of guitars to women, inspired by Taylor Swift. You just have to be more flexible about what "guitar hero" can mean.

I think even the most flexible definition of guitar hero shouldn't include Taylor Swift. I'd say that style of guitar - using it for texture under the song - is antithetical to guitar heroism. The guitar became heroic because it broke out of the background music section of the band that supports the singer and became a star in its own right. It was another avenue of expression just by itself. Strumming some chords on an acoustic guitar as part of a song where the focus is the story of the lyrics doesn't require a guitar. It could be swapped with a keyboard, or a mandolin or a piano and it wouldn't really change the song that much.

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#148

Post by Nav_Panel »

d--b wrote: post #27

I think it's a bit naive to believe that guitar heroes can bring the interest for the guitar back. People look back at the guitar heroes time with a nostalgic fondness for a time that doesn't exist anymore. This was already visible in Wayne's world and became more than obvious in school of rock. Guitar-heavy rock has become a geek genre. Pop has moved on. There are obviously various reasons for this: 1. Technological…

> Similarly a solo kind of ruins the dancing.

The right kind of solo can accelerate the dancing. 80s pop had it all figured out in this regard: some of the best dance music ever made while also being phenomenal pop music.

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#150

Post by Applejinx »

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…

The thing is, if EDM's trained probably two generations of producers, DJs and listeners to distinguish the quality of beats based on inhuman, machinelike perfection, you can't really roll that back and try to groove with fallible humans and call that better. So 'canned' only means 'created properly, at leisure, to produce an artifact that's ideal'.

You can manipulate elaborate networks of machines and some of the trance guys are very into that, and it takes a different type of skillset. I've got some ideas on how to incorporate live musical performance into this kind of bionic music flow, but it's important to understand most people won't respond positively to a 'human element' tacked awkwardly onto a machine beat: you need very practiced humans to fit into a context like that, and you need very practiced humans to put together a 'Daft Punk' type human context that grooves as hard as the machines.

And if you work that hard on the human groove it leaves no time to be innovative in the tonal/arrangement zone that EDM absolutely requires, so you end up being like 'wow that's good retread funk' but the real progress is being made elsewhere, in areas you can't really reach.

It's interesting. But just as you can't undistort the electric guitar, you can't un-rhythm the quantized robot rhythm. I'm actually fascinated and delighted with what's been done in trance and psytrance: it's not JUST robot rhythm, it's a very carefully crafted and incredibly demanding thing with no margin for error. You can put a-rhythmic texture stuff across it all you like, but you just can't 'play an instrument' as part of that mix, the timing is way way too tight.

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