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The slow death of the electric guitar

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Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#201

Post by scarecrowbob »

zwieback wrote: post #187
analog31 wrote: post #175

I play an "obsolete" instrument, the double bass. And I play jazz. So my gut reaction is: Welcome to the club. Electric guitar (and electric bass) enjoyed their day in the sun, and it was well deserved. When the Fender guitar came on the scene, a dance band required as many as 19 musicians, all playing instruments that took years of training just to even make a decent sound, much less to play at a performance level.…

Finally bought an upright after years of playing bass guitar. Couldn't be happier but transport is a pain. Still play the bass guitar, though, I don't think anything is going obsolete, half of the electric guitars people bought in it's golden years were just collecting dust anyway.

I play upright (I'm actually getting ready to go my gig for today).

I dunno if it helps, but when I started I did not know I could put it in the front seat of most cars with the seat laid back. That's made transport relatively easy ( though it is a very bulky instrument).

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#202

Post by markeroon »

coldtea wrote: post #106
aguynamedben wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been playing guitar for 20 years, and this is spot on! The John Mayer comment is ridiculous, he's a great guitarist. Even many of John Mayer's biggest pop radio hits have great chord voicings and writing built-in (No Such Thing, Why Georgia, Neon, Daughters). The YouTube factor you mention is also amazing. This article was probably right, but it's so focused on the good ole days that it's sad. Times change. Art chang…

> Diplo and TSwift are as legit as SRV and Dylan. Rock on. First, if they are, then that's part of the focus of the article. That guitar and guitar rock is waning -- and surely Diplo and TSwift are not bringing it back. Second, no Diplo and TSwift are not as legit as SRV and Dylan. Not because they are different genres, but because they are inferior artistically (regardless of genre). They might be equally entertaini…

If you want to argue that Taylor Swift is technically inferior then that's fine, but tens of millions of young women disagree with assertions of her "artistic inferiority", and I'd be curious to know why your opinion matters more than theirs.

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#203

Post by metaobject »

manmal wrote: post #169
anoonmoose wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The writing is juvenile, the band's attitude towards other music is insulting, every album sounds more or less the same, and there's an argument to be made that their fame partially stems largely from a Canadian law requiring Canadian music to make up a certain percentage of radio time. According to sources[0], their new album is getting outsold by Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit's new album, they're a fairly straight co…

You have a rational access to music, and I respect that; though not everybody cares about an artist's street cred while listening to their music. Indeed, country seems to take over the guitar torch, and why not. Coldplay mostly doesn't even have sounds that resemble a guitar anymore. Chili Peppers, yeah why not! I want guitars to somehow stay in the charts, or I'll feel quite obsolete with my hobby (electric guitar).…

I realize that you qualified your remark about Coldplay with "anymore", but it should be noted that their first two releases were guitar-centric and they were actually musically amazing (imo). I don't know about their more recent releases, although I believe they collaborated with The Chainsmokers for at least one of their latest songs. I'm not sure if this is representative of all their new songs, though.

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#204

Post by vidarh »

agumonkey wrote: post #174
vidarh wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many people in the electronic genre could play Bach ? More than you might think. Some, like Isao Tomita, built their careers on electronic versions of classical music, including Bach in Tomita's case (though I don't care much for his adaptations). Others, but many others, like Jean-Michel Jarre has an education in classical music, and took a long time to "break free" from classical formats in his composition.

Tomita's style is so weird. I didn't know about him until your comment. He seems into pure rendering of classical style in other instruments. But I miss something, it's too precise or constricted.

Yes, Tomita is pretty strange. His rendition of Bolero is perhaps the most stereotypical Tomita you can find [1].

I tend to prefer electronic music that is relatively melodic but at the same time uses electronic instruments to do effects you can't easily do with analog instruments, e.g. like these, which are synth "classics":

* Jarre: Oxygene II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD4KMp22jBg

* Jarre: Arpegiator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzAui_gcdhM

At the same time as they play with the synth capabilities of the time, they show Jarre's classical background - more so if you see the scores, and just how structured they are (especially if you look at a whole album; especially his earlier albums were thematically consistent, with very structured progressions from piece to piece).

For music that spans the genres, this is one of my all time favourites: [2] Final Rendez Vous (Ron's Piece), also by Jarre, which mixes electronic music with sax.

It was meant to be played for Jarre's Houston concert by Ron McNair while in space. He was due up on Challenger. The concert was almost called off, but people from NASA convinced Jarre to go ahead with it, and it's taken on an extra dimension beyond the already haunting melody...

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, on the other hand, I also have a soft spot for chiptunes - 8 bit game and demo music, which ranges from trying to emulate classical music, but which are often very inaccessible if you don't know the technical constraints, to going all out with doing weird stuff with the available hardware.

So to give you a taste of something quite different from most modern electronic music:

E.g. this is one of the great triumphs in simulating real instruments on a Commodore 64 [3] (Monty on the Run, by Rob Hubbard). I won't be surprised if you're not impressed, but look at the oscilloscope and consider that it's three voices made on an 8-bit home computer.

Or this "album length" set of tracks from Last Ninja [4]... Both of these are constrained by hardware to 3 voices, no proper samples (sine, triangle, square waves and noise, with some added pulse modulation and lots of dirty tricks).

It does take some effort to look past the tinny sound and limited "instrument", and is probably a greatly acquired taste given that I grew up with it.

But to take two more: Lightforce (C64), by Rob Hubbard [5]. One of the pieces that probably sold more copies of the game than the gameplay did (the game itself was shit), yet which exhibits a lot of similar geometric progressions that the first two Jarre pieces do.

Which brings me to one of the most interesting game music compositions of the era:

Delta (also Rob Hubbard) [6]. It's not really casual listening, but it is extremely fascinating to meditate on. You can really see the limitations in that oscilloscope view: Those are what the other pieces have to work with, stripped bare. In most of the other pieces the composer has worked hard to try to bend it into a richer sound (and sometimes succeeded surprisingly well, like in the case of Monty on the Run - compare the oscilloscope for the middle voice in particular), but in Delta the simplicity is the main feature.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnt_8bUXVpw

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AublfrOW578

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIA_0cvS2gQ

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_miL3Kd6E6w

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFnjA0VraDQ

[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh8SIAZfDKs

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#205

Post by cushychicken »

One thing this article mentions, in an offhand way, is the effect of media outlets on mass appeal. There was a time where things like Dick Clark and Ed Sullivan were not just major tastemakers - they were some of the only tastemakers. The internet cracked this singular, self-reinforcing media loop wide open by allowing people to explore alternative genres and art forms. That's not to say that people aren't still influenced by guitars and guitarists; they're still selling almost a million of them every year! But I can't help but wonder how many of those other sales got robbed by people inspired by other artists.

Anecdotally, my own experience confirms the "robbed interest" theory. I got into bluegrass music early in college, found and listened to a bunch of it online, and ended up learning to play the dobro. I doubt I'd have ever managed that if I hadn't had the internet to interact with the genre's community, or consume more media in the same vein.

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#206

Post by InitialLastName »

cyberferret wrote: post #115
coldtea wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sorry, but my 17 year old son was so inspired by Mayer about 5 years ago that he invested a LOT of time learning how to play guitar and sing like him, and other artists with similar styles. I'm sure we can find kids into Foxtrot too, but I don't think we'll see a Foxtrot revival. Emulating Clapton, or Hendrix, or Page, etc was a mass phenomenon, which is what the "bunch" alludes to. The last to inspire anything of…

As fragmented as the music world is now, there is still capacity for a groundswell movement I believe. In keeping with the 'guitar sales are dying' theme - back in the 80's Fender Jazzmasters, Jaguars and Mustangs were pariah guitars. They were nothing more than the oddly shaped relics from the 'surf music' craze of the 50's and 60's. Then Kurt Cobain played one on stage in the 90's. And not played like a guitar god…

I bought a Gibson SG in high school because Angus Young and the guitarist in my favorite local band played them.

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#207

Post by JoeDaDude »

ssharp wrote: post #193

There isn't much evidence that EDM is much more than a passing fad, either. Rock music has held fairly strong on over the past 60-70 years and has been able to accommodate and integrate fads, shed them, and then reincorporate them in throwback form. 70s glam rock gave way to 80s emo synths. Grunge brought things back into simple form, which gave way to the rap/rock craze that then gave in to the Stokes, White Stripes…

You never can tell how long a fad will last, but to be fair, EDM aka House aka Techno has been around in one form or another since the late 80's or early 90's depending on who you ask. That's almost 30 years right there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_dance_music

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#208

Post by dexterdog »

I think a large part of this might be the outlets that are available to the major introverts because of tech. All of the best guitarists I knew as a kid were major introverts who would lock themselves away and practice for large parts of the day. Kids that are like that have so many more options now.

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#209

Post by InitialLastName »

johan_larson wrote: post #41
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…

The electric guitar is now what the saxophone was in the fifties: the iconic instrument of the hottest music of dad's generation.

Let's be fair, the saxophone had a quick resurrection in the late 90's/early 00's.

Source: Played baritone sax in an early 2000's ska band

Re: The slow death of the electric guitar

#210

Post by colbyh »

coldtea wrote: post #106
aguynamedben wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been playing guitar for 20 years, and this is spot on! The John Mayer comment is ridiculous, he's a great guitarist. Even many of John Mayer's biggest pop radio hits have great chord voicings and writing built-in (No Such Thing, Why Georgia, Neon, Daughters). The YouTube factor you mention is also amazing. This article was probably right, but it's so focused on the good ole days that it's sad. Times change. Art chang…

> Diplo and TSwift are as legit as SRV and Dylan. Rock on. First, if they are, then that's part of the focus of the article. That guitar and guitar rock is waning -- and surely Diplo and TSwift are not bringing it back. Second, no Diplo and TSwift are not as legit as SRV and Dylan. Not because they are different genres, but because they are inferior artistically (regardless of genre). They might be equally entertaini…

how does it feel up on that high horse? there are no absolutes in music (as an art form) so you really can't say that Diplo is less important than Dylan until long after both are dead. even then, Diplo is influencing a ton of kids and will have impact that way for decades to come so where do you draw the line?

Dylan himself probably never thought he'd be as important a musician as his heroes - Elvis, Little Richard, etc. but now they are all in the same conversation.

music is fun. the expected almost never happens.

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