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>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 qu

by 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.
  - jawilson2 10y ago
    Right, but that was the "Alternative" to the Top 50 Billboard stuff at the time (and also arguably 80 hair metal). Most pop was not guitar driven, and it wasn't until alt rock became mainstream in the mid 90s that guitars were featured again.
- soundwave106 10y ago
  From my quick survey of the charts in 1991 versus now, I would say that the guitar bands overall have declined. In 1991, you had bands like harder rock bands like Van Halen, Metallica, Skid Row, and Guns N' Roses on the charts along with some more "alternative" bands (REM, U2) and a little dose of country (Garth Brooks). Now? Alternative bands (now labeled "indie") are increasingly all electronic -- how much guitar is in the Twenty One Pilots album currently on the charts, for instance? Hard rock is still on the charts (Avenged Sevenfold and In Flames among others have albums on the charts) but it's a shade less prominent. Country is probably the one genre in the US which is both very popular and has prominent guitar, but even that is more electronic than it used to be -- just listen to all the synth in certain Keith Urban tracks. The synthesizer is now what rules pop music these days, in my opinion. Even hip hop, which always used electronics as long as I'm aware, reflects some of this change (a lot of hip-hop has abandoned samples in favor of pure synthesizer tracks). This change makes sense to me. As long as you have a computer, you can nowadays download an entire studio for practically pennies, and start creating satisfactory loops fairly quickly. A guitar most likely will cost more and definitely will take a lot more practice to get to that "instant gratification" point.
  - SyneRyder 10y ago
    I'd agree with that, and especially the part about downloadable studios & instant gratification. I don't make much music anymore, but when I do play around I'm more likely to fire up some software & run some programmed synth sounds through the AmpliTube Fender effects plugins, than to grab my guitar & StealthPlug & Tube compressor & remember that I'm not actually very good at playing anyway...
fsloth 10y ago
" However, it's possible guitars will never become fashionable again and will recede further into isolated genres like country and folk music." Guitar is a cross-over instrument in the sense that it can be used for rock, jazz, blues as well as classical. It's supported by a wide selection of composed music for all. Although electric guitar and classical guitar are not the same, learning one of them gives a huge amount of resources to learn the other.
- dizzystar 10y ago
  I won't link to the awesome guitar solo by Lil' Wayne, but it is interesting to see that guitars can be found on stages for rap and pop bands. It just isn't a front-and-center instrument anymore, but it still looks better than a piano on stage. I'm also of the opinion that if you are learning music to become a star, you aren't learning for the right reasons. If you become good enough to make money at it, that's awesome, but I don't know many musicians that do earn any money.
  - soylentcola 10y ago
    When I was a teenager in the 90's I got into guitar thanks to fantasies of being a famous musician (but also more attainable ones of attracting the interest of girls). I never had the time, resources, or motivation to become anything close to professional but over the years I'm still quite glad I took it up. I don't practice often but as an adult I have a little disposable income to pay for a couple of guitars and an amp. I even picked up a cheap travel electric guitar with a built-in amp/speaker which is honestly awesome for noodling around over top of someone playing acoustic around a campfire or some such. Not really trying to make any point I guess. I had vague dreams of fame and fortune but found that over time, it was still pretty rewarding to be able to play something even if I don't give it as much of my time as I might. It's a creative outlet, it can be a way to relax, and you know...occasionally, girls still dig it :)
dominotw 10y ago
>I'd guess that a similar 90+% of beginners quit the clarinet, violin, piano, drums, etc. I blame this soley on how piano is taught. Instead of focusing on music and sound, music teachers try to teach note names, sitting posture, curving your hands ect. You are sent of with the impression that you'd need years of daily practice to be half decent. This is an immediate turn-off. I want to play music, not memorize ridiculous memory tricks like ' every good boy does fine' . I would imagine most people are trying to make new music and play existing music. 99% of ppl are not trying to become professional pianist. Yet music teachers just teach how they have been taught, with endless instructions about keeping your back straigt, keeping the curve in your fingers ect. This makes one feel like they are not "cut out" for music and they give up . We need a new crop of music teachers that can take advantage of new midi instruments, iphone apps ect to teach music. Piano should be introduced much later one you have grasped the how notes sound, how chords sound, why you need them ect on a simpler interface instead of endless repetitions of twinkle, twinkle from day one. Classical music should not be taught to a hobbyist. Instruction should be fun from day one, you should be making new music from day one. Endless learning of grammar doesn't make one a good author.
- otoburb 10y ago
  The Suzuki method[1] uses a similar approach to teach music by introducing notation later on in the learning process, after desire, curiosity and music appreciation has been sparked first. [1] https://suzukiassociation.org/about/suzuki-method/instilling-desire-to-learn/ https://suzukiassociation.org/about/suzuki-method/instilling...
  - analog31 10y ago
    My kids both started in Suzuki programs. In fact, from what I can tell, Suzuki is now the leading teaching method for small kids on nearly all instruments. Teachers tend to modify the method somewhat. Since "Suzuki" is a brand, it comes with a specific repertoire. American teachers tend to draw from a larger repertoire, and also introduce reading fairly early depending on the kid's aptitude and interest. In my observation, classical music is not a turn-off for kids, if they are young enough that they don't have a strong sense of what is "cool." Reaching teenagers is a whole nother ball o' wax, and I suspect, is rarely as successful. Part of Suzuki's ideology involved the parents. He expected them to be enthusiastic partners in their kids learning music. This can be a problem if: 1) The parents don't like classical music. Many people viscerally dislike it. 2) They oppose all structured musical education for whatever reason, including their own childhood experience. I grew up when Suzuki was still controversial in the US, and my training (on the cello) was along classical European lines. Music is a huge part of my life, though I now play jazz on double bass almost exclusively. I'm not sure that the less structured approach to learning guitar actually leads to less attrition. Among people I know (for instance at my workplace) who still pursue an interest in music at any level, relatively few play the electric guitar. Without supporting evidence, I wouldn't assume that the supposedly structured, old-fashioned approach to teaching music is actually less successful in the long run.
ragazzina 10y ago
>If the macro trend of hobbyist guitar playing has declined, I think it's correlated with its lack of prominence in current music. >the top 20 songs do not have any obvious guitars >It's easier for guitar novices to stay motivated when everything on the radio had lots of guitars in it. How do you explain the booming popularity of the ukulele then?
- TylerE 10y ago
  Cost certainly doesn't hurt. You can some very decent ukes for around $90... any guitar you get in that price range is going to be worse than garbage.
  - soylentcola 10y ago
    I dunno. I'm nothing special when it comes to guitar but my first was a $50 pawnshop special that worked well enough. Then my second (this time an electric) was a crappy Strat knockoff, also used, for $150. Nowadays you can even get them cheaper from Walmart-type brands like First Act or online from importers like Rondo Music. Sure, they're nothing great but they work for learning to play and screwing around with your friends in the basement or around a campfire (which is probably all you'd be doing with a uke as well if you're a beginner).
    - TylerE 10y ago
      Keyword: USED. The $90 Ukes I'm talking about are brand new.
  - elihu 10y ago
    There was a major Ukulele boom during the great recession. A lot of people found themselves out of work and needed a way to fill their time, and as you say they are inexpensive compared to a guitar.
- cobalt 10y ago
  Definitely a bit of a college trend, but it's certainly been in multiple pop songs in the past couple years
shubhamjain 10y ago
Apologies for a bit of digression, but a reason why HN is worth getting hooked to is precisely comments like this. Perhaps, my excitement might be eccentric but someone correlating declining guitar sales to general billboard-100 trends is amazingly profound.
- rglullis 10y ago
  Not to take away from the OP, but if you read the article, the two last paragraphs read: "Detractors have predicted the death of the electric guitar for years, pointing to the rise of rap and electronic dance music on pop charts. But Mooney isn't worried. More women are playing guitar these days, he said—something he credits largely to Taylor Swift—and Fender now sees as many women as men playing the acoustic guitar, if not the electric(...)" This "profound correlation" is suggested in the article itself.
- Balgair 10y ago
  It is not profound. It is one of the first things that you should look for. Outside of supplier issues, which are not mentioned in the article, the idea that the music landscape is changing and that is affecting the sales is straightforward. I don't want to discount the work that the grandparent post put into listening to the top 30 songs for a single HN comment, but the idea is more than reasonable, it is a clear choice. On the grandparent comment, maybe we should look at YouTube or Spotify's lists of the top tracks as well. BB does take in the streaming and digital services for the calculation [0] but the YT tracks may be less skewed to the older set. Radio play is strongly associated with car drivers, an older cohort, while YT can be considered to be less skewed in that direction, though it has it's own problems like everything else. [0] https://www.customchannels.net/billboard-hot-100-music-chart/ https://www.customchannels.net/billboard-hot-100-music-chart...
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  To be fair, pop music charts are rarely guitar driven. Even in the 90s where we had this big rock revival it was Mariah Carey, Michael Bolton, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Boyz II Men, etc leading the charts most of the time. Remember, the Beatles were famously turned down in the early 60s because "Guitar groups are on their way out." Well, that was true as the charts had so few guitars and no one really saw 60's and 70's rock/folk/funk/psychedelia coming. Rock definitely is less popular now in the charts, but its worth mentioning that a lot of guitar-styles tend to get eaten up the whole Indie/DIY scene, which still has prominent guitar-work and rock-based styles. Again, perhaps not as much as the 90s, but the analysis above seems much more damning than it needs to be. I imagine Fender is unhappy with this anyway as Indie types are very much into buying used and vintage guitars, which means no profit margin for Fender. Fender sold a hypothetical guitar in 1975 and made, say, $25. They see nothing of a recent re-sale that can be thousands of dollars easy, perhaps even tens of thousands in rare cases. I think if companies like Fender want to survive they need to do what Apple did and make their own stores to sell their own brand and to sell/broker vintage fender guitars and amps.
nandorsky 10y ago
I agree. I imagine anyone who picks up an instrument, about 90 percent abandon it within the first year. I also would be almost anyone who picks up learning to code, abandons it within the first year. Learning to play an instrument is hard and like anything else that is hard, you need to put in the work to reap the rewards.
- deveac 10y ago
  "The industry's challenge—or opportunity—is getting people to commit for life," said Andy Mooney, Fender's chief executive officer. "A pretty big milestone for someone adopting any form of instrument is getting them through the first song." Goal: Get players through first song. Solution: Package with each guitar a mini songbook written in guitar tablature, not sheet music, containing a small collection of classic, canonical three-chord songs demographically targeted towards age of buyers. It could be a page or two front and back. Something physical they can take out of the packaging in the middle of the floor and start working through right there. Include a link to youtube videos of instructors playing them, but really it's about the piece of paper they can look at right there and go.
  - andyjsong 10y ago
    How about this solution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0yyTun_MQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0yyTun_MQs
    - coldpie 10y ago
      I understand you have something to contribute, but sending multiple links to your own products comes off as really self-promoting. Try engaging in the discussion about the article. Do you agree with it? How does the article make you feel? How does your solution attack the problems described by the article?
      - andyjsong 10y ago
        I do agree, the guitar industry is in crisis mode since their main customers (older men) are dying off, literally. How does the article make me feel? Makes me feel super excited to the nth degree! As the article states, it's a pretty big milestone to play your first coherent song, but in most people, they never get there and quit. We have a low entry, high ceiling instrument that gets you playing right away. We are trying to disaggregate almost every part of the guitar, but when you actually play it, you can play the entire song from day 1, check out the video if you haven't!
mack73 10y ago
>It's easier for guitar novices to stay motivated when everything on the radio had lots of guitars in it. Statistically when it comes to most things I'm almost always an outlier and I'm unsure as to why that is. Perhaps I'm just a willful person. Ever since I first heard Oasis' Live Forever I wanted to become Liam Gallagher or Noel. Things happened in my life that made it impossible for me to pursue that dream. Then, two years and 11 months ago I thought to myself: hey, nobody is producing radio friendly (pop(ular)) rock'n'roll anymore. I saw it as an opportunity and gave myself three years to write my first song. The fact during these years I never once heard a decent rock'n'roll song on the radio motivated me enourmously to continue practicing. So, six hours a day for almost three years. Practice practice practice. I even called in sick once from my programming gig because I thought I was so near a billboard #1 that, well, I could quit my day job. Well, three years later and I think I am dangerously close to a Swedish top list #1 ;) https://soundcloud.com/marcus-lager/jag-blir-galen https://soundcloud.com/marcus-lager/jag-blir-galen
- agmcleod 10y ago
  Sounds pretty nice, can't understand any of the lyrics as I don't speak or write swedish. Been playing 15 years, and I have yet to write a complete piece. Have improvised with friends a lot, learned a number of songs of interest. Wrote some short music for game jams, but nothing special. Anyways good luck on producing. So agree with practice practice practice.
Yhippa 10y ago
I can't remember within the past year I saw a band which had prominent guitars other than Pearl Jam. Mostly listen to indie music these days.
- soylentcola 10y ago
  I guess "indie" is such a broad term that you could be swimming in guitars or never hear them. Most/many of the independent bands and artists around me have at least some (if not mostly) guitar-based music in their repertoire. If I just go by the bands I saw at a local camping/music festival this past summer, probably 85% of them at least featured a guitar and more than half were some variant of the typical guitar/bass guitar/drums/keyboard setup. Granted a lot of them do weird, unholy, and awesome things with those traditional rock band setups but they're definitely around in the indie world even while the pop world finds studio samples, synths, sequencers, and DAWs to be more efficient at producing guaranteed radio/club hits.
draw_down 10y ago
Yes, I played guitar a lot 15-20 years ago. But these days I listen to very little guitar-based music at all, and it's a big reason I don't play anymore.
drzaiusapelord 10y ago
>I'd guess that a similar 90+% of beginners quit the clarinet, violin, piano, drums, etc. Or coding. How many people pick up a "How to make a video game" book or tutorial and get flabbergasted at all the learning, practice, time, and work you need to do just to get something very basic working? These are classic motivation and personality/talent problems. The guitar is just as unforgiving as the compiler, unless your goal is to learn a few chords and 'fake' your way through a song, the same way you get can RPG Maker and 'fake' your way into a playable game. I have an entry-level guitar collecting dust and I think ultimately its because I just don't care a lot about making music, find it tedious, and the work needed to get something that sounds remotely like your favorite artists is difficult. Even if it did come more naturally it still wouldn't be a significant part of my life. The problem is its hard to know this until after you've bought the instrument and had lessons and tried your hand at it, thus all these things collecting dust in basements and pawn shops. I think this is a normal and healthy part of being a curious person. We all laugh at the failed musicians and coders, but at least they tried and some of them tried and succeeded greatly. We can't have an Elvis or Beatles without millions of basements full of dusty guitars. Only the .001% are successful professionally.
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rebootthesystem 10y ago
I disagree. The reason people abandon guitar at such rates is that it is far more complex than, say, the piano. I don't have data to back this up other than the fact that I play both instruments, my wife plays the piano and we have taught all three of our kids. At some stage on the guitar your left hand (assuming right-handed player) has to start doing some really unnatural and difficult things for you to be able to play anything interesting. Then there's the fact that notes are found in multiple places on the fret board and certain sets of notes cannot be played effectively unless you switch your left hand to those other "magical" positions. Then there's the need for precise placement of the left hand fingers as they land on the string/fret in order to avoid making weird noises. If you are learning classical guitar, there's keeping your fingernails to the right length and shape and constantly having to fiddle with them. If you don't have good nail genetics (my case) you have to resort to nail strengthening magic cures and even such extreme solutions as painting on a couple of layers or epoxy onto your nails to thicken them up and allow you to play without them breaking. For example, my right hand's thumb fingernail is weak and quickly develops this little notch where it contacts the string. I have been suffering with this since I was a kid. It's a pain in the ass. I've done some crazy things at times to deal with it, like bonding a thin piece of carbon fiber sting to the very edge of my nail. Being creative and improvisational with the guitar is hard and takes a lot of work and study. You need to get past all of the above and that means at least a year, if not two, of daily (and correct) practice. Piano is easier. You remove a lot of the instrument and musician "organic" factors the guitar introduces. With proper hand position and fingering progression can be steady. It is a one-to-one relationship between note and key, which makes it magical when compared to the guitar. Chords and arpeggios written for piano are generally within the domain on a single hand. Even if it takes two, it's no big deal. I truly think that someone can achieve much more satisfying results by practicing piano one-half to one-quarter of the time of someone achieving equivalent results with guitar. And, ultimately, I think this is the reason so many people quit guitar early, it can be very frustrating when compared to the piano.
- pcsanwald 10y ago
  I agree with everything you said, although I do think it applies much more towards jazz and classical rather than pop music. Making satisfying music by yourself on the guitar is definitely difficult, especially if you don't sing. However, playing johnny ramone style 3 chord punk in a band is, as you know, just not that difficult. So, I think it's not just the inherent complexity of the instrument, but also the context you are trying to make music in.

by jasode 10y ago

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.
- jawilson2 10y ago
  Right, but that was the "Alternative" to the Top 50 Billboard stuff at the time (and also arguably 80 hair metal). Most pop was not guitar driven, and it wasn't until alt rock became mainstream in the mid 90s that guitars were featured again.
soundwave106 10y ago
From my quick survey of the charts in 1991 versus now, I would say that the guitar bands overall have declined. In 1991, you had bands like harder rock bands like Van Halen, Metallica, Skid Row, and Guns N' Roses on the charts along with some more "alternative" bands (REM, U2) and a little dose of country (Garth Brooks). Now? Alternative bands (now labeled "indie") are increasingly all electronic -- how much guitar is in the Twenty One Pilots album currently on the charts, for instance? Hard rock is still on the charts (Avenged Sevenfold and In Flames among others have albums on the charts) but it's a shade less prominent. Country is probably the one genre in the US which is both very popular and has prominent guitar, but even that is more electronic than it used to be -- just listen to all the synth in certain Keith Urban tracks. The synthesizer is now what rules pop music these days, in my opinion. Even hip hop, which always used electronics as long as I'm aware, reflects some of this change (a lot of hip-hop has abandoned samples in favor of pure synthesizer tracks). This change makes sense to me. As long as you have a computer, you can nowadays download an entire studio for practically pennies, and start creating satisfactory loops fairly quickly. A guitar most likely will cost more and definitely will take a lot more practice to get to that "instant gratification" point.
- SyneRyder 10y ago
  I'd agree with that, and especially the part about downloadable studios & instant gratification. I don't make much music anymore, but when I do play around I'm more likely to fire up some software & run some programmed synth sounds through the AmpliTube Fender effects plugins, than to grab my guitar & StealthPlug & Tube compressor & remember that I'm not actually very good at playing anyway...

fsloth 10y ago

" However, it's possible guitars will never become fashionable again and will recede further into isolated genres like country and folk music." Guitar is a cross-over instrument in the sense that it can be used for rock, jazz, blues as well as classical. It's supported by a wide selection of composed music for all. Although electric guitar and classical guitar are not the same, learning one of them gives a huge amount of resources to learn the other.

dizzystar 10y ago
I won't link to the awesome guitar solo by Lil' Wayne, but it is interesting to see that guitars can be found on stages for rap and pop bands. It just isn't a front-and-center instrument anymore, but it still looks better than a piano on stage. I'm also of the opinion that if you are learning music to become a star, you aren't learning for the right reasons. If you become good enough to make money at it, that's awesome, but I don't know many musicians that do earn any money.
- soylentcola 10y ago
  When I was a teenager in the 90's I got into guitar thanks to fantasies of being a famous musician (but also more attainable ones of attracting the interest of girls). I never had the time, resources, or motivation to become anything close to professional but over the years I'm still quite glad I took it up. I don't practice often but as an adult I have a little disposable income to pay for a couple of guitars and an amp. I even picked up a cheap travel electric guitar with a built-in amp/speaker which is honestly awesome for noodling around over top of someone playing acoustic around a campfire or some such. Not really trying to make any point I guess. I had vague dreams of fame and fortune but found that over time, it was still pretty rewarding to be able to play something even if I don't give it as much of my time as I might. It's a creative outlet, it can be a way to relax, and you know...occasionally, girls still dig it :)

dominotw 10y ago

>I'd guess that a similar 90+% of beginners quit the clarinet, violin, piano, drums, etc. I blame this soley on how piano is taught. Instead of focusing on music and sound, music teachers try to teach note names, sitting posture, curving your hands ect. You are sent of with the impression that you'd need years of daily practice to be half decent. This is an immediate turn-off. I want to play music, not memorize ridiculous memory tricks like ' every good boy does fine' . I would imagine most people are trying to make new music and play existing music. 99% of ppl are not trying to become professional pianist. Yet music teachers just teach how they have been taught, with endless instructions about keeping your back straigt, keeping the curve in your fingers ect. This makes one feel like they are not "cut out" for music and they give up . We need a new crop of music teachers that can take advantage of new midi instruments, iphone apps ect to teach music. Piano should be introduced much later one you have grasped the how notes sound, how chords sound, why you need them ect on a simpler interface instead of endless repetitions of twinkle, twinkle from day one. Classical music should not be taught to a hobbyist. Instruction should be fun from day one, you should be making new music from day one. Endless learning of grammar doesn't make one a good author.

otoburb 10y ago
The Suzuki method[1] uses a similar approach to teach music by introducing notation later on in the learning process, after desire, curiosity and music appreciation has been sparked first. [1] https://suzukiassociation.org/about/suzuki-method/instilling-desire-to-learn/ https://suzukiassociation.org/about/suzuki-method/instilling...
- analog31 10y ago
  My kids both started in Suzuki programs. In fact, from what I can tell, Suzuki is now the leading teaching method for small kids on nearly all instruments. Teachers tend to modify the method somewhat. Since "Suzuki" is a brand, it comes with a specific repertoire. American teachers tend to draw from a larger repertoire, and also introduce reading fairly early depending on the kid's aptitude and interest. In my observation, classical music is not a turn-off for kids, if they are young enough that they don't have a strong sense of what is "cool." Reaching teenagers is a whole nother ball o' wax, and I suspect, is rarely as successful. Part of Suzuki's ideology involved the parents. He expected them to be enthusiastic partners in their kids learning music. This can be a problem if: 1) The parents don't like classical music. Many people viscerally dislike it. 2) They oppose all structured musical education for whatever reason, including their own childhood experience. I grew up when Suzuki was still controversial in the US, and my training (on the cello) was along classical European lines. Music is a huge part of my life, though I now play jazz on double bass almost exclusively. I'm not sure that the less structured approach to learning guitar actually leads to less attrition. Among people I know (for instance at my workplace) who still pursue an interest in music at any level, relatively few play the electric guitar. Without supporting evidence, I wouldn't assume that the supposedly structured, old-fashioned approach to teaching music is actually less successful in the long run.

ragazzina 10y ago

>If the macro trend of hobbyist guitar playing has declined, I think it's correlated with its lack of prominence in current music. >the top 20 songs do not have any obvious guitars >It's easier for guitar novices to stay motivated when everything on the radio had lots of guitars in it. How do you explain the booming popularity of the ukulele then?

TylerE 10y ago
Cost certainly doesn't hurt. You can some very decent ukes for around $90... any guitar you get in that price range is going to be worse than garbage.
- soylentcola 10y ago
  I dunno. I'm nothing special when it comes to guitar but my first was a $50 pawnshop special that worked well enough. Then my second (this time an electric) was a crappy Strat knockoff, also used, for $150. Nowadays you can even get them cheaper from Walmart-type brands like First Act or online from importers like Rondo Music. Sure, they're nothing great but they work for learning to play and screwing around with your friends in the basement or around a campfire (which is probably all you'd be doing with a uke as well if you're a beginner).
  - TylerE 10y ago
    Keyword: USED. The $90 Ukes I'm talking about are brand new.
- elihu 10y ago
  There was a major Ukulele boom during the great recession. A lot of people found themselves out of work and needed a way to fill their time, and as you say they are inexpensive compared to a guitar.
cobalt 10y ago
Definitely a bit of a college trend, but it's certainly been in multiple pop songs in the past couple years

shubhamjain 10y ago

Apologies for a bit of digression, but a reason why HN is worth getting hooked to is precisely comments like this. Perhaps, my excitement might be eccentric but someone correlating declining guitar sales to general billboard-100 trends is amazingly profound.

rglullis 10y ago
Not to take away from the OP, but if you read the article, the two last paragraphs read: "Detractors have predicted the death of the electric guitar for years, pointing to the rise of rap and electronic dance music on pop charts. But Mooney isn't worried. More women are playing guitar these days, he said—something he credits largely to Taylor Swift—and Fender now sees as many women as men playing the acoustic guitar, if not the electric(...)" This "profound correlation" is suggested in the article itself.
Balgair 10y ago
It is not profound. It is one of the first things that you should look for. Outside of supplier issues, which are not mentioned in the article, the idea that the music landscape is changing and that is affecting the sales is straightforward. I don't want to discount the work that the grandparent post put into listening to the top 30 songs for a single HN comment, but the idea is more than reasonable, it is a clear choice. On the grandparent comment, maybe we should look at YouTube or Spotify's lists of the top tracks as well. BB does take in the streaming and digital services for the calculation [0] but the YT tracks may be less skewed to the older set. Radio play is strongly associated with car drivers, an older cohort, while YT can be considered to be less skewed in that direction, though it has it's own problems like everything else. [0] https://www.customchannels.net/billboard-hot-100-music-chart/ https://www.customchannels.net/billboard-hot-100-music-chart...
drzaiusapelord 10y ago
To be fair, pop music charts are rarely guitar driven. Even in the 90s where we had this big rock revival it was Mariah Carey, Michael Bolton, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Boyz II Men, etc leading the charts most of the time. Remember, the Beatles were famously turned down in the early 60s because "Guitar groups are on their way out." Well, that was true as the charts had so few guitars and no one really saw 60's and 70's rock/folk/funk/psychedelia coming. Rock definitely is less popular now in the charts, but its worth mentioning that a lot of guitar-styles tend to get eaten up the whole Indie/DIY scene, which still has prominent guitar-work and rock-based styles. Again, perhaps not as much as the 90s, but the analysis above seems much more damning than it needs to be. I imagine Fender is unhappy with this anyway as Indie types are very much into buying used and vintage guitars, which means no profit margin for Fender. Fender sold a hypothetical guitar in 1975 and made, say, $25. They see nothing of a recent re-sale that can be thousands of dollars easy, perhaps even tens of thousands in rare cases. I think if companies like Fender want to survive they need to do what Apple did and make their own stores to sell their own brand and to sell/broker vintage fender guitars and amps.

nandorsky 10y ago

I agree. I imagine anyone who picks up an instrument, about 90 percent abandon it within the first year. I also would be almost anyone who picks up learning to code, abandons it within the first year. Learning to play an instrument is hard and like anything else that is hard, you need to put in the work to reap the rewards.

deveac 10y ago
"The industry's challenge—or opportunity—is getting people to commit for life," said Andy Mooney, Fender's chief executive officer. "A pretty big milestone for someone adopting any form of instrument is getting them through the first song." Goal: Get players through first song. Solution: Package with each guitar a mini songbook written in guitar tablature, not sheet music, containing a small collection of classic, canonical three-chord songs demographically targeted towards age of buyers. It could be a page or two front and back. Something physical they can take out of the packaging in the middle of the floor and start working through right there. Include a link to youtube videos of instructors playing them, but really it's about the piece of paper they can look at right there and go.
- andyjsong 10y ago
  How about this solution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0yyTun_MQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0yyTun_MQs
  - coldpie 10y ago
    I understand you have something to contribute, but sending multiple links to your own products comes off as really self-promoting. Try engaging in the discussion about the article. Do you agree with it? How does the article make you feel? How does your solution attack the problems described by the article?
    - andyjsong 10y ago
      I do agree, the guitar industry is in crisis mode since their main customers (older men) are dying off, literally. How does the article make me feel? Makes me feel super excited to the nth degree! As the article states, it's a pretty big milestone to play your first coherent song, but in most people, they never get there and quit. We have a low entry, high ceiling instrument that gets you playing right away. We are trying to disaggregate almost every part of the guitar, but when you actually play it, you can play the entire song from day 1, check out the video if you haven't!

mack73 10y ago

>It's easier for guitar novices to stay motivated when everything on the radio had lots of guitars in it. Statistically when it comes to most things I'm almost always an outlier and I'm unsure as to why that is. Perhaps I'm just a willful person. Ever since I first heard Oasis' Live Forever I wanted to become Liam Gallagher or Noel. Things happened in my life that made it impossible for me to pursue that dream. Then, two years and 11 months ago I thought to myself: hey, nobody is producing radio friendly (pop(ular)) rock'n'roll anymore. I saw it as an opportunity and gave myself three years to write my first song. The fact during these years I never once heard a decent rock'n'roll song on the radio motivated me enourmously to continue practicing. So, six hours a day for almost three years. Practice practice practice. I even called in sick once from my programming gig because I thought I was so near a billboard #1 that, well, I could quit my day job. Well, three years later and I think I am dangerously close to a Swedish top list #1 ;) https://soundcloud.com/marcus-lager/jag-blir-galen https://soundcloud.com/marcus-lager/jag-blir-galen

agmcleod 10y ago
Sounds pretty nice, can't understand any of the lyrics as I don't speak or write swedish. Been playing 15 years, and I have yet to write a complete piece. Have improvised with friends a lot, learned a number of songs of interest. Wrote some short music for game jams, but nothing special. Anyways good luck on producing. So agree with practice practice practice.

Yhippa 10y ago

I can't remember within the past year I saw a band which had prominent guitars other than Pearl Jam. Mostly listen to indie music these days.

soylentcola 10y ago
I guess "indie" is such a broad term that you could be swimming in guitars or never hear them. Most/many of the independent bands and artists around me have at least some (if not mostly) guitar-based music in their repertoire. If I just go by the bands I saw at a local camping/music festival this past summer, probably 85% of them at least featured a guitar and more than half were some variant of the typical guitar/bass guitar/drums/keyboard setup. Granted a lot of them do weird, unholy, and awesome things with those traditional rock band setups but they're definitely around in the indie world even while the pop world finds studio samples, synths, sequencers, and DAWs to be more efficient at producing guaranteed radio/club hits.

draw_down 10y ago

Yes, I played guitar a lot 15-20 years ago. But these days I listen to very little guitar-based music at all, and it's a big reason I don't play anymore.

drzaiusapelord 10y ago

>I'd guess that a similar 90+% of beginners quit the clarinet, violin, piano, drums, etc. Or coding. How many people pick up a "How to make a video game" book or tutorial and get flabbergasted at all the learning, practice, time, and work you need to do just to get something very basic working? These are classic motivation and personality/talent problems. The guitar is just as unforgiving as the compiler, unless your goal is to learn a few chords and 'fake' your way through a song, the same way you get can RPG Maker and 'fake' your way into a playable game. I have an entry-level guitar collecting dust and I think ultimately its because I just don't care a lot about making music, find it tedious, and the work needed to get something that sounds remotely like your favorite artists is difficult. Even if it did come more naturally it still wouldn't be a significant part of my life. The problem is its hard to know this until after you've bought the instrument and had lessons and tried your hand at it, thus all these things collecting dust in basements and pawn shops. I think this is a normal and healthy part of being a curious person. We all laugh at the failed musicians and coders, but at least they tried and some of them tried and succeeded greatly. We can't have an Elvis or Beatles without millions of basements full of dusty guitars. Only the .001% are successful professionally.

deleted 10y ago

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rebootthesystem 10y ago

I disagree. The reason people abandon guitar at such rates is that it is far more complex than, say, the piano. I don't have data to back this up other than the fact that I play both instruments, my wife plays the piano and we have taught all three of our kids. At some stage on the guitar your left hand (assuming right-handed player) has to start doing some really unnatural and difficult things for you to be able to play anything interesting. Then there's the fact that notes are found in multiple places on the fret board and certain sets of notes cannot be played effectively unless you switch your left hand to those other "magical" positions. Then there's the need for precise placement of the left hand fingers as they land on the string/fret in order to avoid making weird noises. If you are learning classical guitar, there's keeping your fingernails to the right length and shape and constantly having to fiddle with them. If you don't have good nail genetics (my case) you have to resort to nail strengthening magic cures and even such extreme solutions as painting on a couple of layers or epoxy onto your nails to thicken them up and allow you to play without them breaking. For example, my right hand's thumb fingernail is weak and quickly develops this little notch where it contacts the string. I have been suffering with this since I was a kid. It's a pain in the ass. I've done some crazy things at times to deal with it, like bonding a thin piece of carbon fiber sting to the very edge of my nail. Being creative and improvisational with the guitar is hard and takes a lot of work and study. You need to get past all of the above and that means at least a year, if not two, of daily (and correct) practice. Piano is easier. You remove a lot of the instrument and musician "organic" factors the guitar introduces. With proper hand position and fingering progression can be steady. It is a one-to-one relationship between note and key, which makes it magical when compared to the guitar. Chords and arpeggios written for piano are generally within the domain on a single hand. Even if it takes two, it's no big deal. I truly think that someone can achieve much more satisfying results by practicing piano one-half to one-quarter of the time of someone achieving equivalent results with guitar. And, ultimately, I think this is the reason so many people quit guitar early, it can be very frustrating when compared to the piano.

pcsanwald 10y ago
I agree with everything you said, although I do think it applies much more towards jazz and classical rather than pop music. Making satisfying music by yourself on the guitar is definitely difficult, especially if you don't sing. However, playing johnny ramone style 3 chord punk in a band is, as you know, just not that difficult. So, I think it's not just the inherent complexity of the instrument, but also the context you are trying to make music in.