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Don't Give Up on the Guitar, Fender Is Begging You

• paublyrne 10y ago
  And people quit electric guitars more often than acoustic ones, he said, because of the pain factor: Steel strings hurt delicate hands. I would say electric guitar is more comfortable for most people than acoustic, even nylon, as the actions tends to be harder.
  • mping 10y ago
    True, but imho only after a couple of weeks. In the beginning, the metal feels really sharp!
    • laumars 10y ago
      It's common to wire acoustic guitars with steel strings too. The problem with acoustic guitars is the fretboard. With acoustic you need to press down harder and further to get a clean sound than you would with an electric guitar. Anecdotally I found acoustic guitars to hurt my fingers more than electric - both wired with steel strings. Yet to play with nylon.
    • falcolas 10y ago
      Part of this is also because beginners use too much force on the strings to fret them. It took starting on a bass guitar to learn how little force it actually can take if fretted properly.
  • cyberferret 10y ago
    Yes, I noticed that too. Perhaps the writer could have clarified and mentioned 'Classical guitar' or 'Nylon string guitar' as what he meant. Most 'acoustic guitars' are steel stringed, and have a MUCH heavier gauge than electric guitars, thus making it more difficult for a beginner to fret notes and chords. But look at any entry level (sub $200) guitar and the biggest problems aren't going to be the type of strings, but rather the height of the action (distance from the strings to the fretboard), uneven frets or warped necks - all of which would even make a pro player curse and struggle. Which is why whenever a parent or friend approaches me to ask what guitar they should buy their kids, I always say to avoid the really cheap ones and go for the mid range ones, which usually have markedly better build quality. That way also, when little Johnny or Susie decides guitar is not for them, there is better resale value in a mid range guitar.
    • jdietrich 10y ago
      >But look at any entry level (sub $200) guitar and the biggest problems aren't going to be the type of strings, but rather the height of the action (distance from the strings to the fretboard), uneven frets or warped necks - all of which would even make a pro player curse and struggle. The situation has improved drastically in recent years. The no-brand department store guitars are still awful, but there are plenty of perfectly playable guitars at the ~$200 mark. Chinese-made guitars used to be unplayable junk, but they're now producing excellent instruments in the $200-$1000 range, matching or even surpassing Korean guitars.
      • cyberferret 10y ago
        Agreed. Asian made guitars nowadays are a several orders of magnitude better than they were a couple of decades ago. I guess what I was trying to say is that the chances of a finding a decent sounding guitar at the $150 mark is still a hit or miss affair. But at $300+ they seem to be consistent, and quite playable 'out of the box'.
        • jdietrich 10y ago
          Also agreed - that extra ~$100 buys you a lot of consistency and quality. It has to be said that the defects you do see on low-end guitars are increasingly cosmetic and superficial; I don't see very many warped necks these days, but I do see a lot of bad finishes and sharp fret ends. Some brands are far better than others in this respect - I've seen a fair number of unplayable Squiers and Epiphones, but I don't think I've ever seen a genuinely bad Yamaha Pacifica.
  • mfukar 10y ago
    Yup. While the steel strings will leave you sore for a while, the lower action largely compensates for that. The classical, in comparison, requires must more finger strength, more exercise, and generally more soreness.
• paulgrimes1 10y ago
  Most beginners (quitters?) don't receive fenders for their first guitar. If they do, the gifter is obviously LOOOADED.
  • dri_ft 10y ago
    I guess that's why Fender have an interest in getting people beyond the beginner stage.
  • reducesuffering 10y ago
    I wouldn't say that. The classic fender stratocaster is around $400 iirc. It's a great guitar for the price and that is by no means a high end guitar or high end fender. The other "classic" guitar is the Gibson Les Paul which start at $1500. If a beginner got THAT, the gifter would be loaded.
    • thraxil 10y ago
      And a Fender Squier can be had for $150 or less. I know a lot of people who started on one of those.
    • manarth 10y ago
      The classic fender stratocaster is around $400 iirc. It's a great guitar for the price and that is by no means a high end guitar or high end fender. "$400 looks a little pricey, what about this $100 guitar? Oh, that one is a Fender? Fender are a good make, right? I don't think they need a Fender just yet, they're only just starting. We'll go with the cheaper one. If they like it, maybe we'll get them a Fender if they stick with the lessons."
  • jdietrich 10y ago
    Fender Squier guitars start at around $150. They've been a popular first guitar for decades. Fender sell a substantial quantity of "guitar starter packs" through retailers like Wal-Mart and Costco.
    • mfukar 10y ago
• alexander-edge 10y ago
  I've recently got back into playing after a 10 year break. Back then I was learning from tablature online displayed in monospaced font, the quality of which varied from nothing like the music to pretty good. Today, I find not a lot has changed, except the sites where I used to go to find tablature are now charging for the same material. I'd like to pay for quality transcription of music (like the official music books) but available online or in an app.
  • hrnnnnnn 10y ago
    Not sure what's out there for pop music, but for jazz iRealPro is indispensable. Thousands of chord charts for jazz standards are available on their forums (which is linked within the app) and the it can do playback, including the ability to silence particular instruments.
  • kenoph 10y ago
    I know how you feel. I studied piano as a child but I learned a bit of guitar by myself. I often find myself looking up tabs and then switch to learning by ear because not only they are wrong but also "stupid" (as in, use weird and difficult hand positions which don't make any sense). And yeah, pretty much all the main websites try to force you into paying for some service you don't want or need with popups and stuff that you would only see on a torrent search engine. I think the main problem is that most people use tablets/phones to look up songs and so they most likely use Apps or learn from YouTube videos. I find the latter option quite time inefficient. I have been thinking about implementing a github-style website for tabs but it seems that the interest for tab sites is slowly fading away.
    • liveoneggs 10y ago
      you would be sued into poverty if you launched such a site
      • serge2k 10y ago
        This is why tabs are doing badly. Really think it's a dumb move to sue people for putting out tabs, but there you go .
• sqldba 10y ago
  I've had a metallic blue electric guitar for ten years now. Bought so many beginner materials and they're fucking awful. I can't understand jack shit. The closest I got to sticking to anything were the eMedia programs, at least the acoustic one. I bought the metal one but I'm not sure it works anymore on current Macs and I didn't want to rebuy it. Bought a piano and the situation is even more dire. Music is awful for self teaching. Absolutely awful.
  • cousin_it 10y ago
    Ignore all that, sit down with your guitar and start picking out simple melodies by ear, note by note. Begin with "Happy Birthday" or the alphabet song. That's hard and scary, but you'll make more progress in a week than you did in your whole life. Most importantly you'll defeat your fear of music.
  • joslin01 10y ago
    Have you checked Udemy? I had good success with a guitar class on there.
    • slig 10y ago
      Care to share the name of the course? Thanks!
      • joslin01 10y ago
        Hey sorry didn't see this -- https://www.udemy.com/complete-guitar-system-beginner-to-advanced https://www.udemy.com/complete-guitar-system-beginner-to-adv...
        • slig 10y ago
          Thank you! I imagined it was this one and bought it last Monday.
  • estefan 10y ago
    > Bought a piano and the situation is even more dire. https://pianowithjonny.com https://pianowithjonny.com It's awesome :-) I'm playing passable blues riffs and have taught myself to read music with the help of some free apps (Music Tutor on iOS). There's also a great series of books by Joseph Alexander for the guitar (fretboard fluency, etc). Definitely worth checking out. For me, the most important thing has always been motivation. Right now I want to be able to walk into a bar/hotel/train station and bash out "Great Balls of Fire" a la Goose in Top Gun. So damned cool... :-D
• cyberferret 10y ago
  There are two distinct marketplaces for guitars, and almost any musical instrument. There is the 'beginner' level, which is basically school aged children where parents may purchase a guitar for them for school, or private lessons. This is where most big chain music stores aim at. Then there is the high end collector market, who spend the big bucks, and often purchase multiple guitars to stash away. Most guitar companies (such as Fender) try to become the 'be all and end all' across this range. Fender do have a high end custom shop to cater for the more wealthy or boutique market, but at the end of the day, they are spread pretty thin with their Mexican range, USA Standard range, Custom shop range etc. The biggest problem with the low end market is that kids these days just don't seem to realise the work ethic required to become proficient at guitar. I've played for over 40 years, I have two young sons who play, and I have done some teaching. Lots of kids seem to think that they can be playing at a performance level after only a couple of lessons (perhaps Guitar Hero has something to do with that?), and they quickly become disenchanted and lose interest once they realise the gruelling (boring) practice routine that they have to repeat over and over again in order to build muscle memory etc. But for a lot of beginners who approach me, I try and model the same thing I do when learning a new programming language, i.e. the best way to learn - REALLY learn - a new language is to actually build something with it. Which is why I find that it is useful to get a kid to tell me his favourite song, and just work out the melody or the riff to the song and build on that, just to keep their interest going and make the inconvenience of the other exercises less of a burden. The world is also sadly lacking in 'guitar heroes' these days. Not the game, but actual players. Guys like Hendrix, Page and Clapton inspired kids in the 60's and 70's. Van Halen etc. in the 80's, but then the guitar solo ceased to be a central 'thing' in most bands. Modern guitar players like Joe Bonamassa, Guthrie Govan or Julian Lage etc. just don't pull the crowds in like they used to.
  • StavrosK 10y ago
    > Lots of kids seem to think that they can be playing at a performance level after only a couple of lessons That's not just kids and guitar, it's everyone and everything. Most people have a high-level concept of "I would like to be good at X" without actually liking X, they just like the perks that come with being good at it. These people quit after realizing how much effort it's going to be, be it playing an instrument, programming or woodworking. > the best way to learn - REALLY learn - a new language is to actually build something with it That's the best way to learn anything, i.e. to like the process of learning, and the best way to like the process of learning is to work on something you like working on. Nobody likes doing scales, even though they're necessary, so you have to intersperse it with something that will keep people practicing.
• dizzystar 10y ago
  I never once heard someone say that acoustic guitars are easier to play than electrics. It goes without saying that the first thing you do when you buy a guitar and pull off the strings and put on something else. The stock strings are, more often than not, old, out of tune, and feel terrible. I use Elixer, which are soft and easy to play. Maybe guitar stores should start tossing in a free set of good strings with every new purchase. This would keep the complaints down, I think. Long term, a guitarist will keep going back for the good string as well. But Fender as a brand is facing a few issues. First, the death of the rock star, so to speak, but more specifically, the death of the 70s rock star. There are so many brands to choose from that are equally as good, if not far superior, to Fender for the price point. Fender is still riding on the Strat and Tele, looks that haven't been updated for many years, and the quality of the pickups haven't kept up with the times, especially on the lower end models. When you are talking about the low-end, meaning guitars up to $500 or so, Fender doesn't offer much that is convincing. For $500, you can buy an Epiphone SG or Les Paul + Orange practice amp for about that price point. It's hard to argue here considering this is a professional grade setup that one would keep and use for their entire life, really. People quit playing music because playing music is really hard. Even if you are only going to strum C-G-E all your life, getting good at strumming those chords takes considerable practice and conviction. If you want to play leads well, that's a huge rabbit hole. I think that every musician I've met is plain and simple, a music junky. This was much easier to spot in the old days, as this person would carry around a binder of CDs and read liner notes on the bus. Today, it is harder to spot, but the dead giveaway is someone who lives and breathes music naturally. This person listens to Lady Gaga with the same zeal as they listen to Led Zepelin. This person is now interested in discovering who inspired their favorite bands and they leap down a crazy rabbit hole and try to figure out why the heck all of the shredders are covering Bach, Beethoven, and Paganini. After all of this, they are excited to show you a brand new song by the Junior Boys they discovered on YouTube. If you don't "get" why this person has a wide and apparently conflicting taste in music, you have a natural musician on your hands and get that music instrument. I don't know, I may be overstating the spirit of a musician, but honestly, I've never met one who didn't have some surprising influences and tastes, and I never met one who couldn't appreciate a night of eclectic open mics. The point is, to play music, you have to be willing to suffer, which includes chopping your fingers up on guitar strings or putting ice on your crimped next from holding a violin for 3 hours. It takes an innate drive and desire that is inexplicable to those who left their instruments for the dust. Unfortunately, Fender can't make a musician, but they can still sell guitars to those who want to try it out, and that's not a bad thing.
• jasode 10y ago
  >Almost everyone who picks up a guitar, about 90 percent, abandons it within the first year, according to Mooney. I'd guess that a similar 90+% of beginners quit the clarinet, violin, piano, drums, etc. If the macro trend of hobbyist guitar playing has declined, I think it's correlated with its lack of prominence in current music. For curiosity's sake, I just clicked through the top songs on Billboard Hot 100 chart[1]. As of today November 22, 2016, the top 20 songs do not have any obvious guitars. It's all synths, electronic beats, and other artificial sound effects. The first song with obvious guitars is the country song "May We All" by Florida Georgia Line sitting at position 30. In previous decades with higher guitar sales, you had the popularity of 50s Elvis, 60s Beatles, 70s Led Zeppelin, 80s hair metal bands, 90s Nirvana, etc. It's easier for guitar novices to stay motivated when everything on the radio had lots of guitars in it. At the moment, the zeitgeist is electronic music until guitars make a comeback in mainstream pop. However, it's possible guitars will never become fashionable again and will recede further into isolated genres like country and folk music. [1]http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100 http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100
  • SyneRyder 10y ago
    Are the Hot 100 likely to be guitar driven though? Taking a look at the #1 songs from 1991 (chosen because it was just as Nevermind broke), most of the songs back then were R&B and electronic pop too. There's Bryan Adams, Extreme and Roxette in there, but nothing else leaps out to me as guitar driven (it's Mariah Carey, Michael Bolton, Madonna, Whitney Houston, C+C Music Factory etc): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_number-one_singles_of_1991 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_numb... I remember the guitar bands of the 90s being album bands, so I thought I'd do a quick check of today's Billboard Top 200 albums. But before I even got there, at the top of the search results was a news headline from today: "Metallica On Course for Sixth No. 1 Album on Billboard 200": http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/7581705/metallica-sixth-number-1-album-billboard-200 http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/7581705...
    • bhouston 10y ago
      "Alternative" (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, I Mother Earth, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, Stone Temple Pilots, Oasis, etc.) was big in the early 1990s. That is exactly why I took up guitar in early high school.
• Neliquat 10y ago
  Then they need to fund a new RockSmith game that is cheaper. Even clueless friends can bang out chords in a few hours. Like most of the worlds problems, education is the answer.
• Noseshine 10y ago
  In this context, I would like to recommend the excellent lecture series about the history of the guitar captured on video offered by Gresham College and Professor Christopher Page. They are very entertaining, with lots of historic background stories! It is mostly about England but the rest of the world is mentioned to give context. "Men, Women and Guitars in Romantic England" http://www.gresham.ac.uk/series/men-women-and-guitars-in-romantic-england/ http://www.gresham.ac.uk/series/men-women-and-guitars-in-rom... (I almost didn't find the video - it's at the top of each lecture page, I thought that's a static image.) The lectures are also available on their Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/GreshamCollege/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/GreshamCollege/videos > ...it has been almost universally forgotten that there was an intense guitar craze in England > between about 1800 and 1835, spanning the lifetimes of Keats, Byron, Shelley and Coleridge, and a > craze whose history has never been traced. Histories of English music and society in the > nineteenth century continue to be written as if it never happened, and yet the instrument was > cultivated from the royal family in the person of Princess Charlotte (d. 1817) down to the > poorest laundress. > This is much more than the story of an instrument and its music: the rise of romanticism, the > creation of an urban poor hungry for self improvement, the proliferation of newspapers, > serialised fiction and printed sheet music, the social position of women and other aspects of > English society and culture in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars all have a place within it.
  • FiatLuxDave 10y ago
    Awesome, thank you for posting this.
• ilamont 10y ago
  I heard an interesting theory (alluded to in the story) that high-quality PC and console videogames caused a seismic shift beginning in the 1990s, as teens gravitated to an immersive, often collaborative indoor activity. If gaming (or apps, social media, whatever) are drawing away a large population of teens, not only are fewer people picking up a guitar or drumsticks but the number of available local bandmates declines, further weakening the allure of playing music. It makes a big difference if you have friends who also play. If your peers aren't doing it, music is more likely to be a solo activity which is not as much fun. Another factor: from the 1950s to the early 2000s pop music heroes more often than not could also play guitar. I grew up in the 80s, and learned to play bass starting at age 16 by intently listening to cassettes of The Beatles, Who, Led Zep, U2, REM and the Sex Pistols so I could play with my friends and explore a new dimension of the music I loved. I was never a hotshot player, but did play in lots of cover and original bands through my late teens and 20s and some of my best friends today are people I played with decades ago. My tween & teen kids have almost no interest in guitar-based pop music, although my daughter's middle school music curriculum included a segment on "90s music" which later prompted her to ask me, "Dad, did you know there was a song about a sweater unraveling?" (man, that made me feel old). They do listen to modern-day pop music, though, and sometimes to pop from previous decades that is not guitar-centric (Michael Jackson, etc.) On the other hand, the apps and other tools that are now available to everyone--not to mention the ability to connect with like-minded people--can spark different types of musical creativity, collaboration, and insights. I did a double take a few months ago while listening to a radio special about Philip Glass and my son casually remarked that one of his pieces from the late 1960s "sounds like 'My Singing Monsters'." I hope my kids do get interested in creating music and find an opportunity to collaborate, but I accept that it may not involve rock music.
• DanielStraight 10y ago
  If you're interested in guitar, it's worth looking at some music from West Africa. A lot of music from that region (at least a lot of what gets exported as "world music") relies heavily on guitar. Maybe the renaissance of the guitar just won't happen in the US / Western Europe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvVe1iKltAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvVe1iKltAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gINDDDo3do8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gINDDDo3do8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW1s84p17ec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW1s84p17ec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cimqPFZvo4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cimqPFZvo4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7My5IpEzVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7My5IpEzVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhL_asWgVTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhL_asWgVTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4-uq8cTF7o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4-uq8cTF7o
  • lcbiazon 10y ago
    Bombino is amazing: https://youtu.be/J2slSNR0d1A?t=11m49s https://youtu.be/J2slSNR0d1A?t=11m49s
• niix 10y ago
  Discovering guitar is the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I was gifted a guitar at a very young age and haven't been able to put it down since then. Through high school and college I played in various local bands and now it serves as a daily therapy session. In fact, while I'm trying to figure out a complex problem (I work as a software engineer) I often pick up my guitar for inspiration.
  • 6stringmerc 10y ago
    If you'd like some affirmation that having music in your life is likely a very constructive habit, I think you might enjoy reading about how fond Albert Einstein was of playing his violin.
• squozzer 10y ago
  Long term, I think guitars (and the four-piece rock setup) will go the way of Glenn Miller. It's just so much easier to make music on a computer. And frankly, electronic music isn't as limited by physics (vibrating strings, reeds, lips, etc.) as conventional instruments. Another headwind for Fender et al. is the supply of used guitars, from which guitar makers make exactly 0 USD. And with due respect to current rock acts, the corpus of rock music is so extensive that originality probably doesn't exist - a situation any fan of classical music knows too well. That said, I have a few guitars and look forward to buying and selling a few more. I use Rocksmith to learn songs and techniques. The other apps probably work as well or better. Still not a great or even good player, but my playing is better now than when I started. And suffering no illusions of rock stardom. It's closer to meditation.
  • zzalpha 10y ago
    It's just so much easier to make music on a computer. As though making music and playing music were the same thing...
  • Neliquat 10y ago
    That, and the mostly true perception that that 'don't make em like they used to' drives most amatuers and pros alike to older equipment. I can buy an american made guitar and tube amp from the late 60s for under 500$ that blows away anything under 3k made today, not to mention having already depreciated and will be worth what I paid for it when I sell. Cars are similar, and even cash for clunkers did not help.
    • serge2k 10y ago
      > I can buy an american made guitar and tube amp from the late 60s for under 500$ that blows away anything under 3k made today I call BS.
• jsz0 10y ago
  The ergonomics of the guitar are the main reason I don't play much anymore. I hit a roadblock where the amount of practice required to improve further wasn't really worth the physical discomfort. For example barre chords just push my fingers past their limits to stretch. No matter how many hours I practice them I can't make the ergonomics work. For other things that I've gotten pretty good at there's still some general ergonomic problems of sitting and repeating the same motions over and over. I fully understand the pain/gain required to improve but for a hobbyist such as myself it's hard to justify it past a certain point. What I'd really like to see is Fender or some other company develop something like a SmartGuitar. I feel like there's a lot of potential to improve the ergonomics, accessibility and functionality if the strings were replaced with a multi-touch input surface with haptic feedback. Maybe the pick could be replaced with an input device that included an accelerometer, pressure sensitivity, and haptic feedback. On the software side the possibilities are endless. The multi-touch input could be 'auto-corrected' to make the fingering of complex chords more forgiving.
  • keeganjw 10y ago
    Yeah, barre chords suck, no doubt about that. I've been playing for 12 years now and really I just avoid them. There are a lot of work-arounds for most music. I find I only might need one or two for a song. That makes it much more manageable. But for other chord forms, the dexterity takes practice. I haven't found a way around that. If the tips of your fingers are burning, stop and pick it up again tomorrow. Your finger will still probably hurt but after a month of that, you won't feel a thing and you'll be good to go.
  • Gravityloss 10y ago
    What you're looking for is a keytar?
  • hoorayimhelping 10y ago
    Out of curiosity, what kind of guitar do you play? Different guitars have different necks have different characteristics; some thinner, some narrower, some with more curve, some flatter. I could imagine you'd be much more comfortable with a neck more suited to your hands.
• 6stringmerc 10y ago
  As a second generation player getting on in years, if a bunch of the next generation doesn't pick up the guitar and goes the DAW/laptop/plug-in route I can't blame them. Sure, there are big selling pop or rock-adjacent bands with guitars - Coldplay, Radiohead, Maroon 5, The Strokes - and country stars like Miranda Lambert, Brad Paiseley, and The Dixie Chicks feature it well. It's not going to die out as long as those kind of groups speak to young audiences. Have you taken a look at the local used instrument market in the US? Try not to drown in oversupply. Maybe not in other markets - actually I see there are lots of complaints about that - import taxes, etc, making it nearly impossible for passionate players to get even reasonable models for prices less than a cheap beater car. That's a genuine problem I think, but not that players don't have enough colors to choose from. Really? Nah... Also it's strange to me that real, loud & proud rock & roll is still very American and very present with a group like Black Stone Cherry[1], and yet they seem to do best overseas (England, Europe), not in the US. I've seen them several times live and they bring it - like groove rock, thunderous sync of bass, guitar & guitar and then vocal melodies - but I don't see them having any crossover appeal to pop or country, so they go where the audiences are. As a result, the Chris Robinson signature PRS guitar is actually not slated for US market distribution - only England and Europe. Business decisions like this add up. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFmIlJUYXeo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFmIlJUYXeo The flip side though is maybe the guitarist market has been oversaturated - "a dime a dozen" was the joke we tossed around. Guitar does have a steep learning curve, a lot more like the decibel scale in how it's logarithmic in many ways. Reaching 80% proficiency is staggeringly different than 95% from what I've seen. That's part of the fun of the frustration with the guitar - hard to play, takes maintenance, pisses off the neighbors, heavy to carry around, and then you get people assuming you are a party-all-night-sleep-all-day rock star wannabe, which hey, may be true. The web has been wonderful for guitar. Tabs. Easy access to streaming songs. Excellent teachers like www.JustinGuitar.com who are constantly being discovered by new people searching for ways to improve. It's great!!! Pretty funny an article about Fender starts off referencing the memorable "Sweet Child O' Mine" which was famously crafted by Slash on a Les Paul. I'd gotten wind when John Mayer left in 2015 that changes at Fender were afoot (he since signed with PRS). Something about a Beats executive joining the board and that having an effect on the company's direction (the can be fact checked, the result is simply speculation however). Not having enough guitar heroes go go around might be a valid issue though...I still miss Dimebag Darrell.
• timdellinger 10y ago
  I'll be curious to see what happens to the musical instrument market when the baby boomers start dying off - I'm thinking that a lot of really great used instruments will start flooding the market. Decent quality musical instruments have a long lifetime, and tend to be treated fairly well.
  • 6stringmerc 10y ago
    This is true, and I'm sure the internet will play a big role in it now more than ever. As in, local CraigsList "closet clean outs" will perhaps be the new "Pawnshop Find" because the seller doesn't take the time to research the item and a savvy watcher shows up, does the deal in cash, and moves along. Free-market and all. But, people who choose to go to sites like Reddit and ask "Hey found this how much is it worth?" have a much better chance of receiving market value, whatever that may be. Personally I think a lot of used guitars are woefully over priced and I'd enjoy watching the market change a bit more.
• mrkgnao 10y ago
  > And people quit electric guitars more often than acoustic ones, he said, because of the pain factor: Steel strings hurt delicate hands. Huh? I can only imagine that they meant s/acoustic/classical/, because both acoustics and electrics have steel strings (and, of course, steel strings on an acoustic have significantly higher tension than those on an electric). Classicals have nylon strings.
  • XCSme 10y ago
    Yeah, I find it much less painful to play on electric than on acoustic. I don't play on electric that much because of the time it takes to get the cable, plugin in the amp, turn it on, etc...
  • arnold_palmur 10y ago
    Maybe they were inferring the bending that one usually does more often on an electric guitar vs. an acoustic or classical - without calluses, a persons fingers can get chewed up pretty quickly on an electric.
    • navbaker 10y ago
      It's not really the bending that chews up your fingers, it's the steel strings in general. I haven't played an electric in years, but play jazz and classical on a steel string acoustic several days a week. It doesn't hurt like when you first start, but I definitely still notice the bite!
  • rglullis 10y ago
    Most people that play on electric would use a pick, while on acoustic guitar there is more finger-picking involved, no?
    • robotmlg 10y ago
      True, but finger picking doesn't really hurt your fingers (or at least it never has for me, a guitar player of 14 years now). It's definitely pressing on the strings with your left hand that's the pain point for pretty much every budding guitarist I've ever talked to.
• Hydraulix989 10y ago
  Just a heads up, this is likely content marketing from Fender.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • phkahler 10y ago
    >> Just a heads up, this is likely content marketing from Fender. So let me counter it by saying "you gotta see this chick". https://www.youtube.com/user/malabar777 https://www.youtube.com/user/malabar777 Who plays a competitors product ;-) The Fender article was correct, women play now too...
    • Hydraulix989 10y ago
      Well played.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• gist 10y ago
  Serious question here (really). Any truth to the idea that being able to play guitar in college or high school is a great way to get girls?
  • gregn610 10y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neoz092AiCo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neoz092AiCo
  • 6stringmerc 10y ago
    Yes. Because a guitar is portable and often used for sing along purposes (see: church youth groups, camping like outings, sitting outside in the Spring) there is nearly an immediate draw once people see one. The second part is the choice of music, in that playing "Wonderwall" by Oasis or maybe a Ryan Adams version of a Taylor Swift "1989" song will be much more interesting than laying down an expert technical rendition of "Classical Gas" - well, probably. This may be a very problematic study, but I think it's good to laugh at because it tends to reinforce the supposition / superstition / myth about the attractiveness of guitarists: http://www.mensfitness.com/life/entertainment/study-women-more-attracted-guys-who-play-guitar http://www.mensfitness.com/life/entertainment/study-women-mo... It's a well worn joke that playing to impress non-musicians is a very lucrative career path - playing to impress other musicians leads to poverty more than likely.
  • Neliquat 10y ago
    The younger you are, the better it works. The magic aura surrounding artists and performers fades for most in their 20s.
• closeparen 10y ago
  I wonder how instruments will fare in the "raise your family in a downtown studio apartment" world advocated here. Instruments take space, and some amount of separation from neighbors (and other household members) seems necessary for practicing to be socially acceptable. How does children's music practice work in tiny apartments with paper-thin walls? Do European parents rent space in communal practice rooms or something?
  • JBReefer 10y ago
    I think this is part of it. You can't really practice acoustic in an apartment building, unless you're my rude upstairs neighbor. You can practice electric piano, FLP, and rapping - which just happens to be the major modes of musical production these days. Odd. Good thought, thanks closeparen.
  • VLM 10y ago
    In the rush toward luxurious cappuccino bars and climbing walls I don't know if college dorms still have music practice rooms but in the old days we used to have those in the dorm basements. This should scale to apartments, but in the dog eat dog world of urban living those little windowless rooms are probably be rented out for thousands of dollars per month. I used to work with a guy who smoked (yeah I'm old, nobody smokes anymore) but the point is if he spent fifteen minutes every hour on smoke break I should be able to take my flute to work and get in a quick practice session maybe twice a day.
  • Grishnakh 10y ago
    A guitar doesn't take up much physical space, but if you want to play with amplification, the noise issue does become a big factor. It is possible, however, to play with headphones, so that your neighbors won't hear you at all.
    • Grishnakh 10y ago
      I'll also add that with an electric guitar, it's totally normal to practice without amplification. If you're playing non-distorted parts, and your room is quiet, and you're not totally deaf, an unamplified electric guitar is loud enough to be heard well, while not being loud enough to be heard outside the room. Playing distorted parts doesn't work so well, however, because you can't really hear all the harmonics very well without the amplifier, and the distortion changes the sound so much.
• ianai 10y ago
  I think this is also an income effect. People are experiencing flat income with slightly inflating prices. Over time, that forces people to demand fewer and fewer luxury goods. To put it another way, if average income increased then demand for guitars should increase to some extent. It's not linear, of course. People also have very little free time with the current job landscape. As an anecdote, another HN thread is about Microsoft's ad campaign for "working 14 hour days, 7 days a week with pervasive Microsoft technology [surface devices, office 365, etc]." All of that will add up to fewer people spending fewer hours on a guitar and many other things.
• silveira 10y ago
  I play some instruments, including a semi-hollow electric guitar. I live in an apartment, so I have to carefully control the volume and which hours I play, I think this is a major difficulty for music in general nowadays. The electric guitar requires an amplifier, and to use an amplifier in a low volume requires strict discipline. Sometimes I use over-ears headphones which while gives me a more clean sound it does not have the same feeling, and you cannot share the music with other people. It's specially bad when I'm playing with other people. Apartments/Condos in US have paper-thin walls, they are becoming more common, it creates an extra difficultly to learn to play instruments, specially drums, bass and electric guitars.
  • 6stringmerc 10y ago
    The trouble you describe is, kid you not, one of the foundations for the technique Wes Montgomery developed of brushing with his thumb. I can genuinely say that for about $100 a person can get a PC or Mac sound card that enables 1/4" guitar line-in, probably comes with ProSumer level amp modeling and a DAW license, a set of headphones, and explore a world of tone and recording and jamming along. I also completely agree that doing so is very, very different than filling a room with the din of a jangly tune or distorted growl. Finding a practice space though is as old as I can remember, because between parents, room mates, neighbors...police...people tend to like listening to music but not the practicing part it takes to get good haha.
• fotbr 10y ago
  Anecdote, from someone who gave up. I was fortunate to grow up with parents that played various instruments. Mom played the piano. Dad played the guitar and clarinet. Grandparents played the piano and the pipe organ at church. We kids were encouraged to pick an instrument we liked, and even though we didn't have much money, lessons were always something my parents figured out how to pay for. In return, we were expected to take it seriously, and learn both the instrument and the meaning of a commitment to something difficult. I took piano lessons from age 5 until 12, when they agreed that I could stop piano lessons if I took up another instrument, so I played the violin for 5 years with the public school's music & orchestra program. I quit playing altogether about the time I started driving, because having a car meant having a job, and that took the time I was using to practice. Fast forward many years, through college, and a decade afterwards. I don't have the room for a real piano; keyboards & digital pianos just aren't the same for me. The violin is something I don't really enjoy any longer, especially without an orchestra to play in, and I do not have the time for such an endeavor. In college, I fell in love with classical and flamenco guitar. Figuring that another instrument wouldn't be terrible to learn, since I already knew how to read music, I picked up a $200-ish classical guitar, some books of chords, and attempted to teach myself. After that miserable failure, I then attempted to find someone who could teach the style of guitar I wanted to learn, and teach it to someone who wasn't a little kid. That turned out to be a nearly impossible task, and I think that's a big point of failure. The teaching methods out there have a focus on "kid music" to the exclusion of nearly everything else. On top of that, there is the assumption by most teachers that wanting to play guitar means you want to play rock 'n roll or pop-country. Those that don't assume that fall into the trap of thinking that you want to play in a gospel band. None of them were willing to sit down and teach the fundamentals without pushing me into playing extremely simplified versions of music I hate. So my guitar sits in its case, in the back of the closet, unused. I gave up. Not because it was too much work. Because no one wants to teach what I want to know.
  • dizzystar 10y ago
    Have you looked at guitar stores that are luthiers as well? I bet they know someone that knows someone at the least. A good luthier has a lot of relationships with the flamenco and classical music community, since their entire living depends on it.
• gaveuponfendr 10y ago
  I haven't given up on the guitar. I have given up on buying new guitars from Fender, Martin, Gibson and the other big names that peddle overpriced kit justified by the name stamped on it alone. There's no reason their kit needs to be as expensive as it is. Lower end guitars from other brands are fine for beginners. Yeah Fender has $200ish Strat and Tele clones. But you can find those all over CL thanks to the focus of this article. The days of arena rock are probably long gone. Fender wants to encourage people to take up guitar? Then get off your high horse and cut prices? It's a piece of Americana most Americans can't even afford. It's their own damn fault.
  • soylentcola 10y ago
    Yep. As I got older and had a little bit of play-budget, I was able to buy a few guitars even though I only play occasionally. Even then, I didn't go for anything too pricey or "flagship" (although I might if I was gigging or recording). Instead, I got a knockoff Les Paul style from a Korean company called Agile. It's not quite as nice as the high end Les Pauls but for under $400? Hell yeah and it sounds/plays better than the Epiphones of similar price. Also got a Squier Jaguar off Craigslist for $150 because I always wanted a Jag...just not enough to shell out for the really nice ones. Add in a cheap travel electric for campfire jam sessions, an absolutely crap bass that I only have because it was $10 at Goodwill (seriously the strings I bought for it cost more) and the cheap acoustic I bought for $50 as my first guitar in 1992 and I've got more than I really need for the occasional practice or just because I have a song stuck in my head and want to play along with the album for the hell of it.
• scelerat 10y ago
  People probably quit electric guitars more than acoustics because you have to plug them in to get a decent sound. Not because of the steel strings (which are generally pretty light and forgiving on an an electric compared to a typical steel-string acoustic guitar). It's the hassle and volume factor rather than a physical hurdle. Plus, there's possibly nothing more irritating than a novice guitarist hacking away on an electric quitar.
  • soylentcola 10y ago
    Sure, but there are also practice amps that accept headphones and even "headphone amps" like the thing I was mandated to buy by my parents when I insisted on getting an electric guitar in high school. Plugged right into the guitar and let you connect headphones for non-obnoxious practice. Even had some overdrive built in (although it sounded like crap). Of course then I just plugged the headphone-out into the aux-in on my boom box and had something approaching an amp. Plus it had a mic-input so I could record one part to tape via the phone-out, then use a walkman or other tape player to play into the mic-in while playing the second part over top and recording out to my amp/boombox. Fun times with crappy guitar playing :) (this was the headphone amp in question) https://i.sli.mg/yVbr0J.jpg https://i.sli.mg/yVbr0J.jpg
• arkaic 10y ago
  Have been playing guitar off and on for over five years, no musical training. I found the best way to keep playing is to play along to songs you know, and routinely practice them every day. Hours go by without you even noticing, it's great. What's hard, though, are things like actually moving to the next step. Are you even practicing correctly, continually pushing yourself to new heights, or are you defaulting to the riffs or melodies that you like to play because they're easier? The hardest part for me, currently, is trying to learn music theory on my own. I've tried getting into the creative side, writing songs and melodies, but so far, that process isn't very fun at all because of my lack of knowledge in scales, chords, and progressions.
  • mistercow 10y ago
    I highly recommend at least learning the pentatonic scale. It's very easy, and it's the basis for most rock and roll lead guitar. If you're in the right key, you can noodle around on the pentatonic along to songs, and it will generally sound decent. For learning chord progressions, learn all the basic major and minor chords, then experiment with putting them together. There's a lot of joy to be had in that simple exercise, and with practice, you'll start to get an intuitive sense about it. Once that starts to make sense, you can start looking into the more unusual variants on chords. Also, lessons can be fun, especially early on, because a teacher can point you in a specific direction for practicing that will cause you to grow.
  • jamestnz 10y ago
    > The hardest part for me, currently, is trying to learn music theory on my own As someone who is currently learning piano and music theory as an adult, I can recommend the youtube channel of Shawn Cheek. This guy has posted something like 3000 videos on various piano and music theory subjects. A good starting point would be his series on the Circle of Fifths https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdF-uIeM33o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdF-uIeM33o I find this guy to be an excellent teacher, I like his teaching style, and could listen to his accent all day :)
  • open_bear 10y ago
    Try Yousician. It's an app for learning the guitar (I think they are working on adding the piano lessons). There are some theory lessons with practice sessions. I tried learning the guitar by tabs and accords of the songs I liked, but did not get too far. Yousician shows a clear skill progression (easy melodies->hard melodies) and provides some foundation for further learning and improvement. If only I had more time to practice :)
• racl101 10y ago
  Another way to view this is the reward at the end of the rainbow. Back in the '60s and probably all the way to the '90s. There was a reward for young men to pick up that guitar. If you played it enough and you got good, you could be a rockstar. And, yes, I suppose you have to start at the bottom, playing in small bands and doing gigs for peanuts but you could work your way to the top and be successful. I can't imagine that incentive exists anymore for the average kid who doesn't love the idea of playing guitar for the joy of being a musician, but rather, for the promise of fame, money and girls. Especially if they are ugly dudes, like the members of Kiss, or Ted Nugent or all the guys from Metallica, or Tommy Lee etc, etc. Which means, so what if you learned to play the guitar and you learned it well? How lucrative is it to be a lead guitarist these days? Do you have a good chance of getting a sweet record deal as a guitarists these days? Or will you be relegated to be the in the background, letting all your talent and potential be squandered playing pop song arrangements for Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande? Well either that or you can remain indie, beloved by many people whose financial support barely sustains you and always obscured by the shiny pop talent. I think the modern version of the rockstar today is the DJ. It's much more rewarding to learn to be a DJ (or a producer for that matter) and whether it be for the fame, the money or the girls.
• exabrial 10y ago
  What frustrates me about Fender and Marshall is a 100% dedication to "WE ONLY DO THINGS THE WAY THEY DID IN 1970" and 0 innovation in their amplifier and guitar designs. Granted the 1970s set the bar of what good "guitar tone" sounds like, but no one has even tried to raise the bar as far as making it even better. As a result we still amplifiers that create blocking distortion, and we still have guitars that have intonation problems, and we still have guitars that pick up electrical noise. And why can't I change my amplifier settings from my pedalboard? That's some clever Adruino programming and some digital potentiometers. None of these are particularly hard problems to solve, but it's frustrating as and engineer and musician to be stuck in another world. Everything above is an opinion, not a fact, so take as you will.
• pcsanwald 10y ago
  One thing that isn't often pointed out is that most music making is a social activity. Everyone I know that has stuck with music throughout their lives has actively played in bands/groups/ensembles. There's a misconception that music requires a lot of solitary practice before playing in groups. I'd hazard a guess that most people don't stick with guitar because they don't have anyone to jam with. As a kid, I started playing in bands way before I got serious about practicing music as a discipline, and most musicians I know fall into this category. I am not trying to undervalue the benefit of practice: in my 20s I practiced 3-6 hours a day pretty much every day. But, that was long after I had been working professionally as a musician and playing in bands.
• zumu 10y ago
  Rock and roll is no longer the rebellious mouthpiece of the youth. Increasingly kids make and listen to electronic music. Akai, Ableton, Traktor, etc. do not share this problem.
• calebm 10y ago
  Anyone know how something like the MI Guitar (https://magicinstruments.com/products/mi-guitar https://magicinstruments.com/products/mi-guitar) would compare in terms of functionality to a real guitar? It seems logical that a person should be able to pre-program the chords they want to use into the guitar before playing a song.
• serge2k 10y ago
  > That means more apps, more connected devices, and a newfound focus on helping folks learn how to play their guitars Rocksmith got me back into guitar after playing on and off for my teens. and I bought an american deluxe tele earlier this year. The system works. > And people quit electric guitars more often than acoustic ones, he said, because of the pain factor: Steel strings hurt delicate hands. Wat.
• agumonkey 10y ago
  Fender entry level brand Squier did produce a weird line of Bass Guitars called the Vintage Modified. These go between 200-300 on second hand markets. I can't thank them enough for it, I spent 5 years on what I now call a shovel [1] that is the musical equivalent of a resistor. I never got the Fender craze, but they put just enough of their savoir faire in this VM serie to allow students to tickle beautiful sound and ergonomics [2]. I went from deadended hopeless student to inspired and happy the minute I bought mine. Sometimes the instruments makes the player. [1] Ibanez SR400, funny enough, I used to love high end brands made by Ibanez designer; smooth like butter in every way [2] as counterintuitive as it can be, Fender bass are larger, heavier, thicker than others, but you don't feel it while playing. It's not tiring. And you get a pinch of the famous Fender sound, beautiful mediums (even unplugged) and a tiny growl.