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Software eating the world. As a guitarist, for some of my years professionally I can only say that this is mostly because you can emulate a lot of things today

Software eating the world. As a guitarist, for some of my years professionally I can only say that this is mostly because you can emulate a lot of things today which normally required different guitars to bring out special sounds and because well most music today don't have guitar solos and thus it's hard to imagine guitar heroes coming out of music which doesn't put guitar in the front. It's not just guitars though it's most other instruments. The real heroes today are the composers and producers.

emodendroket 9y ago
Well, the article says that in a more detailed and nuanced way.
CodeTheInternet 9y ago
Guitars (and other instruments) will remain even with the prevalence of electronic means of creation, in the same way the paintbrush and pencil are in no danger from Photoshop. The typewriter was replaced by software because instruments and implements offer what a typewriter cannot. Nuance. The "art" of paintings, drawings, and music lives in the nuances and life of the art; the imperfections or subtle changes. Writing is an assembly of language characters to convey the art. The nuance is how those character elements are arranged and interpreted, and thus the means of doing so are unimportant. However, an errant bristle or subtle slide down a string give life and nuance to an art without explicitly standing out on its own.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  No one is saying they are going away completely just that they are mostly replaced (just like many other instruments). The number of people who live from playing the guitar has dropped to almost nothing the last 30 years. Even really really great musicians are hardly being booked any more.
SwellJoe 9y ago
I for one, welcome the death of the guitar solo. I say this as a guitarist of more than three decades, and as a lover of great guitar playing. Rock and roll guitar solos are, by and large, the wankiest and most pointless waste of notes I can imagine. If we never get another, say Eruption, in exchange for no more awful weedly-deedly musical maelstroms I believe it is a more than fair trade. Even the good rock and roll guitar solos often aren't all that good compared to the song that surrounds them. (There are exceptions, and there are moments where the only thing that could have possibly worked was a wailing guitar...I'm thinking of something like the ending of The Chain by Fleetwood Mac...but that's not really a solo so much as a real and vital part of the song).
- KhanMahGretsch 9y ago
  If that moment in Sweet Child O' Mine when Slash kicks on the wah and runs up the fretboard doesn't give you chills... well...
  - Applejinx 9y ago
    But that's a real PART. It's kind of like the Jay Graydon solo in Steely Dan's 'Peg'. Yes, you can have a bunch of exciting notes doing things, but it can't be just any bunch of notes: fast or slow, content matters.
    - KhanMahGretsch 9y ago
      Absolutely, content matters, and so does context. Take the solo in Living Colour's "Cult of Personality", a gibberish mess of seemingly random notes; he abuses that instrument like it owes him a lot of money! It works perfectly in the song however, so I suppose it's all a matter of taste. p.s. Aja is an absolute classic :)
      - SwellJoe 9y ago
        Here's the problem with talking about guitar solos, especially saying, "I hate guitar solos, in the general case": Everyone immediately thinks of their favorite guitar solo, and gets defensive. How am I supposed to argue against a Vernon Reid solo? Vernon Reid is a brilliant musician. I've loved his playing since I was a kid. He was one of my earliest musical heroes, and unlike a lot of musicians I liked when I was a kid, his playing (and the music of Living Colour) holds up extremely well to adulthood listening, even as someone that's got years of musical training since the first time I heard it and loved it. I might even enjoy some of their songs more today because I understand the depth of it. If we could have the geniuses without the wankers, I'd have a lot less disdain for guitar solos (though even the Vernon Reids of the world usually have a few pointless rambling solos on record out there). But, we don't. Every wanker who ever picked up a guitar has shared their gifts with anyone who'd listen...sometimes, the world has been unlucky enough for it to have been recorded and somehow become a hit, and now we all have to hear that goddamned Freebird solo every now and then, no matter how hard we might try to avoid it. Wankers outnumber geniuses by orders of magnitude. The sheer weight of guitar solo mediocrity in this world is staggering.
aries1980 9y ago
At some places, it is the other way round :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwAj-jzeedw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwAj-jzeedw

emodendroket 9y ago

Well, the article says that in a more detailed and nuanced way.

CodeTheInternet 9y ago

Guitars (and other instruments) will remain even with the prevalence of electronic means of creation, in the same way the paintbrush and pencil are in no danger from Photoshop. The typewriter was replaced by software because instruments and implements offer what a typewriter cannot. Nuance. The "art" of paintings, drawings, and music lives in the nuances and life of the art; the imperfections or subtle changes. Writing is an assembly of language characters to convey the art. The nuance is how those character elements are arranged and interpreted, and thus the means of doing so are unimportant. However, an errant bristle or subtle slide down a string give life and nuance to an art without explicitly standing out on its own.

ThomPete 9y ago
No one is saying they are going away completely just that they are mostly replaced (just like many other instruments). The number of people who live from playing the guitar has dropped to almost nothing the last 30 years. Even really really great musicians are hardly being booked any more.

SwellJoe 9y ago

I for one, welcome the death of the guitar solo. I say this as a guitarist of more than three decades, and as a lover of great guitar playing. Rock and roll guitar solos are, by and large, the wankiest and most pointless waste of notes I can imagine. If we never get another, say Eruption, in exchange for no more awful weedly-deedly musical maelstroms I believe it is a more than fair trade. Even the good rock and roll guitar solos often aren't all that good compared to the song that surrounds them. (There are exceptions, and there are moments where the only thing that could have possibly worked was a wailing guitar...I'm thinking of something like the ending of The Chain by Fleetwood Mac...but that's not really a solo so much as a real and vital part of the song).

KhanMahGretsch 9y ago
If that moment in Sweet Child O' Mine when Slash kicks on the wah and runs up the fretboard doesn't give you chills... well...
- Applejinx 9y ago
  But that's a real PART. It's kind of like the Jay Graydon solo in Steely Dan's 'Peg'. Yes, you can have a bunch of exciting notes doing things, but it can't be just any bunch of notes: fast or slow, content matters.
  - KhanMahGretsch 9y ago
    Absolutely, content matters, and so does context. Take the solo in Living Colour's "Cult of Personality", a gibberish mess of seemingly random notes; he abuses that instrument like it owes him a lot of money! It works perfectly in the song however, so I suppose it's all a matter of taste. p.s. Aja is an absolute classic :)
    - SwellJoe 9y ago
      Here's the problem with talking about guitar solos, especially saying, "I hate guitar solos, in the general case": Everyone immediately thinks of their favorite guitar solo, and gets defensive. How am I supposed to argue against a Vernon Reid solo? Vernon Reid is a brilliant musician. I've loved his playing since I was a kid. He was one of my earliest musical heroes, and unlike a lot of musicians I liked when I was a kid, his playing (and the music of Living Colour) holds up extremely well to adulthood listening, even as someone that's got years of musical training since the first time I heard it and loved it. I might even enjoy some of their songs more today because I understand the depth of it. If we could have the geniuses without the wankers, I'd have a lot less disdain for guitar solos (though even the Vernon Reids of the world usually have a few pointless rambling solos on record out there). But, we don't. Every wanker who ever picked up a guitar has shared their gifts with anyone who'd listen...sometimes, the world has been unlucky enough for it to have been recorded and somehow become a hit, and now we all have to hear that goddamned Freebird solo every now and then, no matter how hard we might try to avoid it. Wankers outnumber geniuses by orders of magnitude. The sheer weight of guitar solo mediocrity in this world is staggering.

aries1980 9y ago

At some places, it is the other way round :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwAj-jzeedw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwAj-jzeedw