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Is The Guitar Market Really Dying?

vintageguitarprice.com

21–30 of 78 posts

Re: Is The Guitar Market Really Dying?

#21
post #3

Maybe, but isolating particular trends from overall changes in search interests is challenging. Here's the trend for "music": https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=music which is also decreasing. Is music dying?

Software changed the industry. There are more efficient places to search for music than Google. They are more efficient because from search to playing or playlist is one click.

Re: Is The Guitar Market Really Dying?

#23

Reverb.com was #18 on the Inc. 5000 this year, so there is definitely still potential in selling musical instruments. Guitar is more niche than it used to be, though. The rock stars these days are rappers and DJs and they don't play guitar. You have to diversify your offerings (which I think the success of Reverb.com shows)

> The rock stars these days are rappers and DJs and they don't play guitar. And nearly every kid can afford a shitty chinese USB->MIDI controller and a cracked version of Live/Logic/FL Studio. The DAW and a controller is the weapon of choice for today's pop music industry. The fact that guitar is dying as "mainstream" shouldn't come as much of a surprise.

We just need to wait a generation. Then digitally generated pop will be seen as"mom and dad's music" and real instruments will be novel and interesting.

Re: Is The Guitar Market Really Dying?

#24

As a life-long guitarist, and skeptic of capitalism, I have an anecdote: I own a few high-quality guitars. They have served me well for many a decade, and they are still in perfect condition. Why buy any more guitars? Perhaps the total number of guitars in circulation is enough? Businesses seem to think that there should be infinite growth forever, but that seems ridiculous to me. I don't think capitalism has a good…

The high end guitars are usually pretty boring, but it's really nice to have one or two. I'd rather have a decent variety, but one or two of those can by a high quality guitar. My favorite guitar is still my 60s Norma (Teisco) with gold foil pickups. Other favorites include 80s Korean Squier with new pickups, 60s Yamaha acoustic, 60s 1444 Silvertone/Danelectro bass. A lot of the new Fender/Squier guitars are really interesting too.

I'd probably buy a nice Les Paul Jr, Tele, or Ric, and it'd probably be my main guitar, but owning 10k+ worth of Les Pauls sounds boring.

Re: Is The Guitar Market Really Dying?

#25

As a life-long guitarist, and skeptic of capitalism, I have an anecdote: I own a few high-quality guitars. They have served me well for many a decade, and they are still in perfect condition. Why buy any more guitars? Perhaps the total number of guitars in circulation is enough? Businesses seem to think that there should be infinite growth forever, but that seems ridiculous to me. I don't think capitalism has a good…

Capitalism and the unrealistic idea of infinite sales growth is what gives rise to "services" and "subscriptions", no?

Hush! Don't speak of such things, or before you know it there will be DRM enforced IoT dongles with 4G cellular radios, requiring a subscription plan and annual fee before the guitar pick-ups will serialize their signal to a 1/4 inch patch cable.

Re: Is The Guitar Market Really Dying?

#26
Some interesting and related Google Trends:

- "Learn Guitar": https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=learn%20...

- "Play Guitar": https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=play%20g...

- "Guitar vs Piano": https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=guitar,p...

Re: Is The Guitar Market Really Dying?

#27
Did you know you can buy a $350 "Gibson Les Paul" that says "made in the USA" on AliExpress? The guitar in question is CNC cut and then hand assembled. I may speak from experience when I say the item is very high quality and is a pretty danged good guitar.

The point here being that it's an industry what are the American players have not modernized their manufacturing process... We live in an amazing age where you can own an extraordinary instrument for very little money.

Re: Is The Guitar Market Really Dying?

#29

As a life-long guitarist, and skeptic of capitalism, I have an anecdote: I own a few high-quality guitars. They have served me well for many a decade, and they are still in perfect condition. Why buy any more guitars? Perhaps the total number of guitars in circulation is enough? Businesses seem to think that there should be infinite growth forever, but that seems ridiculous to me. I don't think capitalism has a good…

Capitalism and the unrealistic idea of infinite sales growth is what gives rise to "services" and "subscriptions", no?

Musical instruments are one area where "services" are quite valuable. Anyone with enough time and effort could learn to play entirely on their own and maintain (or build) their own instrument, but for many people it makes sense to take lessons and to pay someone to repair or adjust their instrument as needed. This is one reason why guitar shops are at least partially protected from being driven out of business by Amazon: most have a guitar technician on staff who can troubleshoot problems and fix things.

Re: Is The Guitar Market Really Dying?

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be my question, too. People were puzzled when tablet sales came to a crawl, until they started to consider whether people stopped buying them because they were good enough and still worked . I mean realistically, how many guitars does one need? I'm an amateur bass player. I have a cheap-ass practice bass and, if I get some pocket change, I may buy a $1500 professional bass. I would think that should last m…

My personal answer to "how many guitars do you need?" is basically one for each tuning that I use regularly. Unless it's simply changing one string from E to D, re-tuning a whole guitar is a pain in the ass and just being able to swap guitars is a lot nicer. I have one for standard tuning, one tuned like a cello, and one in open D-minor. I do admit if you're playing a bass guitar this rule isn't as applicable.

My dad loves to tell a story about a Q&A session with Norm Abram of PBS [Edit: This Old House, New Yankee Workshop] fame, which your answer reminds me of. Why does Norm own an entire drawer full of routers?

Well, he used to ask himself the same question. All these companies kept giving him free tools as a promotion. Especially routers. He had dozens of them. WTF do I need all these routers for?

It occurred to him that if at the start of a project you put a bit into a router and don't touch it until the end of the project, all of your routed edges will match exactly. Even if you screw up and have to redo a piece. So he kept enough routers to do that. He still gets teased about it by his coworkers though.

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