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One can't just look at revenue, debt and Moody's rating of guitar makers and dealers and proclaim the guitar, the most popular instrument today by a huge margin

One can't just look at revenue, debt and Moody's rating of guitar makers and dealers and proclaim the guitar, the most popular instrument today by a huge margin, is dying. But the lack of prominence of the guitar in the top charts and the way social pop culture influences people today does have a significant impact in new guitar purchases. When I was a kid learning the guitar, dad's old Fender wouldn't do. I HAD to have a Satriani-style Ibanez, my guitar hero at the time. I have a friend that, throughout the years, has invested over $100K getting himself each and every one of his heroes guitars over and over. As guitars are not as prominent in mainstream music anymore guitar sales dwindle. Add to that a huge "installed base" of used guitars, a good that is unparalleled in durability, and you have a very stale market for new guitars that will generate a gap for years to come.

fredley 9y ago
Really what you want to look at is sales of guitar strings as an indicator of how much guitar is being played.
- thatwebdude 9y ago
  Long-lasting alloys/coatings/technology will skew your results. Especially considering all they had back in the heydey was Nickel (soft). But that's a great idea!
  - fredley 9y ago
    Factoring in relative longevity of different string types would not be too hard, but as with all these things it's just getting your hands on some high quality, representative data...
coldtea 9y ago
>One can't just look at revenue, debt and Moody's rating of guitar makers and dealers and proclaim the guitar, the most popular instrument today by a huge margin, is dying. The "most popular instrument today" is misleading, considering modern R&B, Hip Hop (and to a lesser degree) EDM dominate everything charts and sales wise, and they use mostly computer DAWs and plugins, something that wont register in "instrument sales" lists or music schools.
- ojosilva 9y ago
  Can't compare a DAW to an instrument though. Lots of guitar players use DAWs as well, so that's not really comparable. It's a whole different segment in fact. To correctly account for "computer-only musicians" we would have to also eliminate electronic artists that have a primary instrument such as keyboards or drums/percussion. And in any case, computer-based instruments do register sales and have their place in most music schools.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >(Can't compare a DAW to an instrument though. Lots of guitar players use DAWs as well, so that's not really comparable.* Yes, but they use it as a recording/mixing device, whereas for electronic musicians they use it for music generation.

fredley 9y ago

Really what you want to look at is sales of guitar strings as an indicator of how much guitar is being played.

thatwebdude 9y ago
Long-lasting alloys/coatings/technology will skew your results. Especially considering all they had back in the heydey was Nickel (soft). But that's a great idea!
- fredley 9y ago
  Factoring in relative longevity of different string types would not be too hard, but as with all these things it's just getting your hands on some high quality, representative data...

coldtea 9y ago

>One can't just look at revenue, debt and Moody's rating of guitar makers and dealers and proclaim the guitar, the most popular instrument today by a huge margin, is dying. The "most popular instrument today" is misleading, considering modern R&B, Hip Hop (and to a lesser degree) EDM dominate everything charts and sales wise, and they use mostly computer DAWs and plugins, something that wont register in "instrument sales" lists or music schools.

ojosilva 9y ago
Can't compare a DAW to an instrument though. Lots of guitar players use DAWs as well, so that's not really comparable. It's a whole different segment in fact. To correctly account for "computer-only musicians" we would have to also eliminate electronic artists that have a primary instrument such as keyboards or drums/percussion. And in any case, computer-based instruments do register sales and have their place in most music schools.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >(Can't compare a DAW to an instrument though. Lots of guitar players use DAWs as well, so that's not really comparable.* Yes, but they use it as a recording/mixing device, whereas for electronic musicians they use it for music generation.