# The guitar no longer a lead instrument



## novaburst (Feb 20, 2018)

So then has the curtains finally been drawn for the guitar.

According to this article it may be on its way out

I mean for the last decade it has been used as the lead instrument some times taking place over the lead singer so what has taken its place.

Do you agree with this article.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....icblog/2012/jun/29/readers-panel-guitar-music


----------



## gamma-ut (Feb 20, 2018)

Recessions tend to be good for guitar music - it's easier to play angry music with a guitar.

I think we're just at one end of a pendulum swing – think of the disco boom of the 1970s and the (unfortunate) backlash that ensued.


----------



## fiestared (Feb 20, 2018)

novaburst said:


> So then has the curtains finally been drawn for the guitar.
> 
> According to this article it may be on its way out
> 
> ...


No


----------



## gsilbers (Feb 20, 2018)

novaburst said:


> So then has the curtains finally been drawn for the guitar.
> 
> According to this article it may be on its way out
> 
> ...



wierd, your thread was quadrupled in the forum.

but yes, guitar has been on the way out as the main instrument for a while. might explain some of gibsons troubles.

doesnt mean it will desapear of course. but if you see so many edm festivals with soo many poeple, so many media music using orchestra and synths and pop music is using more and more synths and/or rap.

i went to Europe in 2000s... even way back then i saw how advance they where in terms of using synths for pop music. almost everything i heard on normal radio was sequenced. here in the US we would only listen to some sequenced stuff and it was those nsync and britney but nothing else. the reason i kept thinking, was technology and the old ways that music was distributed. it was all on cd and the music distributors decided what goes on the shelfs. and they said , kids like rock and they kept pushing rock, then maybe some rap. i think it europe didnt have such a stronghold on distirbution and tings like electronic music florished. suddenly music didnt have to have 2 verses, 2 choruses a bridge and outro. and people loved it. raves etc. and pop music on radio was almost the same as normal pop made with guitars but had a different tone.
but ask someone in the US about guitar and cars and they are ADDICTED to it. a invisible box around their heads that nope, anything else besides rock/gitar based music is bad and not having car is socialist 

so now i think its happening but with rap music. suddenly all radio stations here like to play hiphop. and all kids are into rap. but now that computer based music has advance so much things are changing again. to me, one of the next thing will be epic music. or some derivative of it thats more commercial.
or even stuff like what andrew huang makes which is extremly tied to youtube and social media but the music is a little more disposable (if thats possible) until it gets a good hit but the concept of just releaing tons and tons of music a month.

anyways, i think guitar music has been in the downlow for a long while now. i dont know why, specially a UK publication would say "it might be" when UK only has i think coldplay that uses guitar  
the rest is mostly EDM after EDM After EDM.


----------



## Rodney Money (Feb 20, 2018)

I personally believe the decline of the lead guitar correlates with the decline of guitar solos found within "hits." I believe the last song I regularly heard on the radio featuring a guitar solo was "Closing Time" in 1998 where you can tell that it is watered down and pales in comparison to something like "No More Tears" from 1991.


----------



## storyteller (Feb 20, 2018)

I read a similar article recently on how guitar sales have dropped off the map for music stores. As a guitarist, it is a sad story on the music of today. But I personally think the opinion that the guitar is on its way out is short sighted and narrow minded. I do think guitar styles can come-and-go like any fad in what’s popular in music. But as an instrument, they have a voice that no other instrument can replace. Like every good thing, the mainstream money maker controllers push every fad to its death nail. And, non coincidentally, we are in the front part of an age of home studios and do-it-yourself music producers. Many start with a dream and no instrument training. The first instrument they pick up is a keyboard because it is the most important tool of a digital studio. Years ago, every songwriter brought an acoustic guitar to the room since you couldn’t transport your Steinway to your friend’s house to write. Now it is a MacBook and a keyboard.


@gsilbers As for Gibson, having lived in Nashville and known the ins-and-outs of that company very well - their failure has nothing to do with guitar sales. It has everything to do with a political lawsuit brought upon them for using “illegal” wood in their guitars coupled with an IT department that drained money and had a new CIO every couple of years. Technology was a hole their leadership team couldn’t figure out how to fix, or even coexist with an originally mom-and-pop shop.


----------



## AdamKmusic (Feb 20, 2018)

We need some new guitar heroes! (People not the game)


----------



## gsilbers (Feb 20, 2018)

storyteller said:


> @gsilbers As for Gibson, having lived in Nashville and known the ins-and-outs of that company very well - their failure has nothing to do with guitar sales. It has everything to do with a political lawsuit brought upon them for using “illegal” wood in their guitars coupled with an IT department that drained money and had a new CIO every couple of years. Technology was a hole their leadership team couldn’t figure out how to fix, or even coexist with an originally mom-and-pop shop.



i thought about the illigal wood suits but didnt think it was too pertinent becuase the fine was about 300-500k but they make a billion a year in sales. so i thought it might of been something else. the IT dept and bad management sound more like it.


----------



## Saxer (Feb 20, 2018)

Instrumental solos are out of pop music since EDM came along 30 years ago. No matter if played by a synth (yes, they played syntheszier soli back in the days) a guitar, a sax or a trumpet.
But it changes from time to time. In the 80s it was forbidden to play a snare elsewhere than 2+4 and the outest thing was Whawha pedals. In the 90s sax soli were cancelled (ok, they produced enough of them for decades in the 80s) and the 4/4 kick started and never stopped since. Vocals, drums and EFX are the featured elements these days.

But all of that is just the little window of mainstream media. I closed that window for me long ago. There's incredibly lot of good and diverse music out there. Easier to reach than ever.


----------



## germancomponist (Feb 20, 2018)

Maybe the best time to bring guitar solos back to the market. I am producing a pop album with 12 songs, and half of them have guitar solos.


----------



## Saxer (Feb 20, 2018)

germancomponist said:


> Maybe the best time to bring guitar solos back to the market. I am producing a pop album with 12 songs, and half of them have guitar solos.


Good luck 

Remember: every guitar solo with distortion has to be played with a distorted face too!


----------



## NoamL (Feb 20, 2018)

storyteller said:


> Many start with a dream and no instrument training. The first instrument they pick up is a keyboard because it is the most important tool of a digital studio. Years ago, every songwriter brought an acoustic guitar to the room since you couldn’t transport your Steinway to your friend’s house to write. Now it is a MacBook and a keyboard.



I believe this nails it.

The electric guitar was only important because it's a good composer's tool. You can pick it up, write a tune, change the color of the guitar to express what you want, and record a demo. With bedroom producing, the starting singer-songwriter has many more tools available.

@Saxer is also right. It's part of a general decline for instrument-performance music. Where is the 2010s band that is just a bunch of great session musicians, like Toto? Pop music today is overwhelmingly about singing. Hopefully the pendulum will swing back one day.


----------



## chimuelo (Feb 20, 2018)

Just stroll through the airport at Nashville and you’ll know that’s poppycock.
No other city I’ve ever travelled has so many musicians carrying instruments through the airports in cases.
Nor does any other airport have so many string quartets or Grand Pianos to jam on.
Not that I’m a big fan of new Country music where every song has “Momma told me” in its lyrics.
But lots of pedal steel, fiddle and guitar solos in just about every “hit” coming from Tennessee.


----------



## Jimmy Hellfire (Feb 20, 2018)

I don't know man. Can't relate to this at all. Does the guitar have a place in whatevertheyrecalled's latest charts song? Of course not. Have you listened to pop music in the last 10 years? It's nonsense that's at times hard to classify as music. No "serious" music listener cares about what kind of instruments are used on the latest Justin Timberlake track. This is a genuine question: who actually _listens_ to "pop" music?

There's tons of guitar music being played today. Even some serious "athletic guitar". There are genuinely interested and dedicated audiences for all kinds of guitar-driven music. Modern blues rock, jazz, progressive, Metal. We live in different times, everything's decentralized. Mainstream radio and media outlets are conveyors of an aural backdrop for degenerate lifestyles and are in no way indicative of what musicians do or what music listeners care about.


----------



## novaburst (Feb 20, 2018)

Thanks to mod for taking care of the mess I made


----------



## novaburst (Feb 20, 2018)

gsilbers said:


> but yes, guitar has been on the way out as the main instrument for a while. might explain some of gibsons troubles



Some nice points in your post, but when you think about it why not the piano, the drums, or let's say the synth, becuase the synth player has always been the guitars best friend, why the guitar, 

Guitar has always been there while rap was doing its thing and electronic, and sequencing has been doing its thing.



Rodney Money said:


> I personally believe the decline of the lead guitar correlates with the decline of guitar solos found within "hits."



I think this could be the real issue of the dicline have we stopped writing great parts for the guitar for the most part I am sure guitarists rely on great parts written for them.


storyteller said:


> Many start with a dream and no instrument training. The first instrument they pick up is a keyboard because it is the most important tool of a digital studio. Years ago, every songwriter brought an acoustic guitar to the room since you couldn’t transport your Steinway to your friend’s house to write. Now it is a MacBook and a keyboard.



Yes I agree with this in part but the keyboard has been around for many years, it's not new but I do wonder how many great guitarist have put there guitar down for the DAW, and samples


----------



## novaburst (Feb 20, 2018)

Saxer said:


> But all of that is just the little window of mainstream media. I closed that window for me long ago. There's incredibly lot of good and diverse music out there. Easier to reach than ever.



I think this fever is taking ahold of a lot of one instrument musicians, the need and desire to explore or create more music perhaps wanting more than what the instrument can offer


----------



## novaburst (Feb 20, 2018)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> There's tons of guitar music being played today. Even some serious "athletic guitar". There are genuinely interested and dedicated audiences for all kinds of guitar-driven music. Modern blues rock, jazz, progressive, Metal. We live in different times, everything's decentralized. Mainstream radio and media outlets are conveyors of an aural backdrop for degenerate lifestyles and are in no way indicative of what musicians do or what music listeners care about.



Nice post and you could be right on this but even without the Gibson trouble, it is only the guitar that has hit the headline of a declining instrument

Now I would have thought even the sax would have more trouble than the guitar,

But something must be happening because in the media even BBC it is being noticed and alerted to this news.

So what's next the piano......


----------



## Garry (Feb 20, 2018)

Saxer said:


> Good luck
> 
> Remember: every guitar solo with distortion has to be played with a distorted face too!



Oh yes! This brought back memories of this video, which is so hilarious! He gives what seems to be a genuine lesson on how to make guitar faces, but I think it’s hysterical! Especially ‘smelling the skunk’!! Awesome!


----------



## Iskra (Feb 20, 2018)

Saxer said:


> all of that is just the little window of mainstream media.


This.


----------



## Darren Durann (Feb 20, 2018)

Rodney Money said:


> I personally believe the decline of the lead guitar correlates with the decline of guitar solos found within "hits." I believe the last song I regularly heard on the radio featuring a guitar solo was "Closing Time" in 1998 where you can tell that it is watered down and pales in comparison to something like "No More Tears" from 1991.



NMT was a good solo.

I started out with rock guitar, worked with guys like Graham Bonnet (Rainbow) awhile back. That whole classic metal thing doesn't make any real money anymore (forget making a living at it, and I mean _REALLY FORGET, _you'll end up miserable), but that's only one of the reasons I got out of it (maybe someday I'll write a blog about it, then I can put even more people to sleep yay!).

One thing I learned is that there was Hendrix, and then there was everybody else. There hasn't been a Hendrix since, nobody that earth-shattering (though Van Halen was close). I know a lot of the (erroneously named) "neo-classical" kids might not like hearing it, but the recordings speak for themselves.

I advise anyone considering trying to make a career from lead guitar (unless you are touring one heck of a lot) to find something else to do, unless you already have a bunch of cash.

I played guitar for thirty years...once I put it down I opened myself more than ever to so many other instruments (including the more expressive ones). Due to feeling limited by just one instrument (not even a super loud guitar can match a tutti orchestra, folks) and the aforementioned lack of any lucrative future in the genre (even though I had two or three well known singers in the genre) I put all that away. And I learned a TON more about music by doing so. Can't regret that, in fact I regret having spent so much time in the lead guitar hero realm. Very myopic.


----------



## R. Soul (Feb 20, 2018)

This is the Top 200 albums in US 2017.
https://www.billboard.com/charts/year-end/2017/top-billboard-200-albums

I went from the top and downwards. 3 or 4 albums in Top 20 are guitar based but it's Pop, Country or Metal.
Not until no. 24 is there something I'd consider calling Rock. I had no idea Rock had dropped so heavily.


----------



## Darren Durann (Feb 20, 2018)

R. Soul said:


> This is the Top 200 albums in US 2017.
> https://www.billboard.com/charts/year-end/2017/top-billboard-200-albums
> 
> I went from the top and downwards. 3 or 4 albums in Top 20 are guitar based but it's Pop, Country or Metal.
> Not until no. 24 is there something I'd consider calling Rock. I had no idea Rock had dropped so heavily.



Kanye says hip hop is the new Rock. I was mad at first. Now I think he's probably right. MTV killed Rock, but then it was doing pretty much what all Pop is doing today: treading water. Musically it's all the same, even worse the female singers almost all sound exactly the same (though I blame a lot of that on modern production techniques).

But hey, I'm a big sour grape eating mah. I don't know a single song by Beyoncé, Rianon, Bieber, Drake, Jay Z, Timberlake. It all sounds the same. I'm an old bastard, Black Sabbath and Bathory rule!


----------



## chimuelo (Feb 20, 2018)

I actually demand any group I have to play covers in cover it all.
It was truly done in a group in St. Louis I worked in where we did Soul Disco & R&B.
I said I’d love to play with you guys if we could do some Deep Purple.
We ended up adding Grand Funk and Black Sabbath.
I was lucky because the guitarist grew up playing Hendrix.
The band became popular enough to charge 1000 vrs. The door, whichever is greater.
True diversity has no better home than music.
Nothing is more fun than watching white folks dance to disco, or black folks twirling round to Hiway Star.


----------



## lux (Feb 20, 2018)

sax has been a victim of the "bloody" nineties. Every time i listen good sax stuff I think it will be back sooner or later, such a cool instrument. One of my overall favourite 80's songs, The Working Hour by TFF has an awesome sax intro to it.

I feel guitar solos will be back as well. Everything will be back if we just find a way to get people listen to music on a sofa with something physical in their hands, like it once was. Instruments solo require some additional patience, as much as non mainstream music styles. You can't really enjoy them with a pocket sized cellphone in your hand with a big skip button on it.


----------



## gregh (Feb 20, 2018)

Rodney Money said:


> I personally believe the decline of the lead guitar correlates with the decline of guitar solos found within "hits." I believe the last song I regularly heard on the radio featuring a guitar solo was "Closing Time" in 1998 where you can tell that it is watered down and pales in comparison to something like "No More Tears" from 1991.


I think there are some clues here - basically the guitar solo within a rock setting became musically empty and exhausted - the No More Tears solo is a great example of a bunch of shitty cliches cobbled together, most of which having nothing at all to do with the song itself. The Closing Time solo is more textural and again doesn't really do anything with the melody in the song. Solo guitar - as against lead guitar - is very much alive, guitar playing has transformed enormously over the last 30 years or so, but it is not surprising that rock music of the No more Tears kind has become just another genre, and somewhat frozen in time at that. Not that some amazing guitar players haven't appeared since then, but they aren't "radio friendly", with all that implies under mainstream production systems


----------



## novaburst (Feb 20, 2018)

[/QUOTE]

But I can tell that was a fender has a nice tone



Darren Durann said:


> One thing I learned is that there was Hendrix, and then there was everybody else. There hasn't been a Hendrix since, nobody that earth-shattering (though Van Halen was close).



Well you can't talk about guitar without Hendrix, there were some other legends and great players that won the hearts of many

Jimmy played the guitar in many ways but all was not musical.

Here just some other players

Brain Mays was a killer player.


----------



## novaburst (Feb 20, 2018)

lux said:


> I feel guitar solos will be back as well. Everything will be back if we just find a way to get people listen to music on a sofa with something physical in their hands,



I think it's a lot to do with the writing of the song, if I am correct was it not Brain Mays that did most of the writing for Queen, so the guitar really worked well.

As has been said a lot of today's music is about style, fashion, cars, there does not seem to be any room for the guitar to work in today's music Timberland and so on.

It seems today's music is all about visuals and not to much about feel and emotions.

The guitar is one of the instruments that connects to us through feel weather it is rock, or John Williams classical guitar.

A lot of listeners of music today find connection through visuals and not so much through the feel and emotions of the actual music.

Hear is an example of some great writing for the guitar to work well and it really connects, it's not a solo but it does carry the piece I wish there was more of this type of compersition.


----------



## chimuelo (Feb 20, 2018)

Hendrix, Van Halen, Richie Blackmore, Wes Montgomery, Pat Metheny, George Harrison....


----------



## Jimmy Hellfire (Feb 21, 2018)

novaburst said:


> Now I would have thought even the sax would have more trouble than the guitar,
> 
> But something must be happening because in the media even BBC it is being noticed and alerted to this news.
> 
> So what's next the piano......



Indeed, the sax was the first thing I thought about when I first saw the thread. But I wouldn't overrate all this. This isn't "news". It's just one of the many vapid opinion pieces that everyone and their mother publishes on the internet now, and lately, I've been shocked to see that supposedly respectable and "serious" mainstream media increasingly covers all this internet crap. I really feel that these outlets really don't even know what to talk about any more - so much stuff I see on the TV or read in the newspapers daily is incredible bullshit - but they need to keep up with the constant stream of information in the internet. I wouldn't automatically assume that something's a "thing" just because it keeps suddenly popping up from different sources. There are mechanisms to this, party deliberate, partly pandemic.

I remember reading this same old "guitar is dead" rap 10 years ago already. Often it's the same people who were trying to tell you that "rock'n'roll is dead". And I understand that a 19 year old youngster who's been socialized on living in virtual worlds 24/7 and who's head is full of "EDM" might think so. When I was 19, I too thought I had it all figured out. Meanwhile, it couldn't be farther from the truth.

Rock music isn't mainstream any more, that's true. But it doesn't have to be. It probably shouldn't be in the first place. Rock music - at least in its authentic, genuine form - is hand-made, physical, and is defined by the volatile grit of the electric guitar. Today's normative society isn't big on "hand-made" and "physical". And the defining element of rock music is rebellious energy. Conversely, people - especially young people - have never been bigger sissies and more assimilated than they are today. Always apprehensive, always trying to do everything "right", face no "rejection", and trying to systematize their whole lives, while always desperately giving off the image that they were having all this fun, living the dream and having all this "passion" for things.

The electric guitar, culturally in many ways a roaring, flaming phallic symbol, doesn't fit into the whole current social atmosphere at all. It's no wonder it's not present in the self-image and "soundtrack of one's life" of today's generations. I also think that what killed the big time rock scene in the early 90ies was exactly the fact that the genre got its teeth pulled. It stopped being dangerous, experimental, and rebellious, and went to the stadiums and billboards, where it reached a point of absolute shallow oversaturation.

Of course, the guitar has largely disappeared from pop music as well. But I would argue that it never was a defining element of this kind of music in the first place. Many pop bands in the 80ies didn't use the guitar because of its distinct features and sound - that's how rock and also blues people use it. In pop, it was used because it was practical at the time. A portable, more or less easy to use, more or less reliable sound source for writing and accompaniment. In today's times, a software synth fulfills this role even better.

Therefor, I would argue that it's largely irrelevant what instruments are used in pop music. It's background noise for a certain kind of mass industry.


----------



## blougui (Feb 21, 2018)

you’re not right about Queen, Novaburst. They shared the hits, actually. Sometimes as a whole band, sometimes with one composer.


----------



## blougui (Feb 21, 2018)

This is most probably a trend thing. 
Remember how the early 90’s put annend to everything synth? Grunge and britpop were all the rage.
Then techno and house raised up but not that much on the mainstream medias apart from a few hits.

As the way we consume music has exploded in many medias, official sales aren’t as relevant and indicative of what people are listening to, rather what is bought, may be ?

I’ m’confident EDM as a mainstream thing won’t last.

I’m a synth guy. Always been since, say, 1976. But I’ll swap 20 synths solo for one electric guitar solo. Such an expressive instrument! But a marvelous solo doesn’t make a good song.


----------



## gregh (Feb 21, 2018)

Darren Durann said:


> NMT was a good solo.
> 
> 
> One thing I learned is that there was Hendrix, and then there was everybody else. There hasn't been a Hendrix since, nobody that earth-shattering (though Van Halen was close). I know a lot of the (erroneously named) "neo-classical" kids might not like hearing it, but the recordings speak for themselves.



I'm not going to lay shit on Hendrix, who was an astonishing unique voice through guitar, but I would also include Fripp in the group of people who completely changed the way guitar was used, and brought a unique voice and musicality as well. 

the solos here 
 
and here 
 

are good examples of his early style which could be both ecstatic and aggressive and , particularly when a sideman, less controlled and self conscious than in his own compositions


----------



## novaburst (Feb 21, 2018)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> I've been shocked to see that supposedly respectable and "serious" mainstream media increasingly covers all this internet crap. I really feel that these outlets really don't even know what to talk about any more - so much stuff I see on the TV or read in the newspapers daily is incredible bullshit - b



I also believe the media likes to control what is and what is not allowed when it comes to music, when you look at it it is perhaps the most powerful tool the world has, with out it you want know anything and would be near impossible to get any music out there.

It can swing who ever gets into parliament or the next president it can turn the tide of world war I guess we can kind of suck up to it no and then,

I guess we need to make good use of the utube and the sound cloud before the system gets its hands on that too



Jimmy Hellfire said:


> Rock music isn't mainstream any more, that's true. But it doesn't have to be.



Maybe this is a good thing it could well be the guitar has lost its lead role simply becuase now music is split up into divisions

Perhaps if I was into rock music that kind of news would be hot air, but for sure music has many divisions and it seems media has chosen the visual music to take centre stage and also is influencing how the world looks at music perhaps this is why I dived into orhcestral music becuase a lot of the stuff outside is not making a lot of sense to me.


----------



## novaburst (Feb 21, 2018)

blougui said:


> ’ m’confident EDM as a mainstream



EDM was underground at one time and looked like it would never be accepted into the music world but for whodeenee media

Amazing how things change


----------



## blougui (Feb 21, 2018)

And we always have to bear in mind it’s all about youth. Young listeners are the target of the mainstream music industry.


----------



## Darren Durann (Feb 21, 2018)

I'm wondering if we're entering the age of the Sample Library Hero. Black light poster merchandising, a "Star Wars" template poster...only here the protagonist wields a giant, magical Kontakt player instead of a saber....

or guitar.


----------



## Darren Durann (Feb 21, 2018)

sorry dbl post


----------



## novaburst (Feb 21, 2018)

blougui said:


> And we always have to bear in mind it’s all about youth. Young listeners are the target of the mainstream music industry.



Is this the whole truth becuase music is a mediam that touches all ages and culture,
And its i mighty big world out there could this idea that youth is the mainstream listener come from the media becuase what we see and know mainly comes from the media.

Perhaps a certain type of music has grabbed ahold of young people but there is just to many types of music to only say young people are the majority listener.



Darren Durann said:


> I'm wondering if we're entering the age of the Sample Library Hero.



Can't really say no to this it does make you believe you can do anything if you dare.

Also the birth of trailer, Epic has really come alive becuase of samples, it is also winning 1000s of real life performers and samples are state of the art now no mombo Jombo
You can really make head way with samples if you know what your doing

But this could be having a true effect on guitars especially when new comers understand the depth of what samples are capable of.


----------



## lux (Feb 21, 2018)

novaburst said:


> I think it's a lot to do with the writing of the song, if I am correct was it not Brain Mays that did most of the writing for Queen, so the guitar really worked well.
> 
> As has been said a lot of today's music is about style, fashion, cars, there does not seem to be any room for the guitar to work in today's music Timberland and so on.[/MEDIA]



Guitar had a memorable life in the late 70's when disco was all over, in the 80's where people had sprayed hairs and synths carried a nice slice of mainstream music and in the 90's where it was basement for of grunge, alternative rock and new metal where house and techno got their epic early steps. So I honestly don't think it has to do with music trends in writing.

I believe it' has to do with how currently people listen to music and how they relate to it. Probably rock is just not great as ringtone.


----------



## blougui (Feb 21, 2018)

Of course Novaburst, music is a media that touches all ages and culture.Don't make me say what I didn't write 
I think here we're talking about the decline of guitar in mainstream pop music rather than music in general. Hence me saying : Young listeners are the target of the mainstream music industry. 

Mainstream music : it has always been a question of young listeners. Certainly because they are the trend setters and have since the early 60's the buying power of their parents, post-WW2 in the West. 
Look at it this way, rock-n'roll was not an adult thing in the early 60's. It was the music young based their rebelion against the establishment on.

Then came Woodstock, for instance. Sex,drugs and R&R. Not particularily attented by a 30+ demographic.
Let's talk about the punk scene... Ladies and gentlement in their 40's ?
Synthpop. Not a grand-da thing at the time.
Nore was the rave scene : couldn't see a lot of parents eating pills and nodding head there.
Rap is at its core and inception the rage of a young demographic.
EDM is not especially geared toward the 50 body shakers.

Then we would be at odds naming as much pop bands or single artist who have their breakthrough after their 20's. Could happen, like Franz Ferdinand but really, it's not the rule. 

Most of us have our musical taste(s) freezed after we've reached 25ish. If you have enjoyed and listened to jazz music for 15ish years, few are the chances you suddenly applause at Applaude. Could happen, but not the trend. General attitude is rather "it was better music back then made by real musicians, now is the just utter crap compiled by so-called DJ's" rather than "I embrace every new genre and trend with the same open mindedness I had when in my teen".

Sure, there're adults cashing in behind these musicians and listeners. Don't forget we live in a society, at least in the west, who is particularily obsess about youth, an aching paradoxe when you consider this very society is aging rapidly. I wouldn't be surprised this mainstream pop/radio/streaming hype of the moment is remotely imposed by corporations or whatever big money making business, just like in fashion : some fine people are paid to feel the pulse of the street then do whatever is possible to them (marketing to begin with) to influence a larger audience listening to it. Sure, thing have gone a tad more complexe since the inception of the Interweb - pirating is mostly reponsible for the demise of the major actors in the music industry but I'm confident the accessibility of so much more music genres is playing a role too.

As an aside, I could write a few words about the state of the mainstream pop music in the late 70's,in France : mostly what we call "variété", sort of easy listening or adult contemporary, rather cheesy, sung by aging artists we saw and heard for ages and ages. Then Mitterand was elected president and he (and I believe his team) decided to free the FM radio frequencies. Suddenly, a whole new bunch of radios and programmers began to play totally different songs and artists. At the head of our TV channels (If I remember correctly we had only 3 of them, and 2 were state owned) were placed newcomers. Rock began to be aired, after decades of mostly "variété artists" who began to disappear, at east on the airwavesand screens. Complete renewal of the pop and rock scene. Sure, you could buy records from other genres before than golden age of new freedom, but when you lived in a small town, it was rather difficult to even know such music existed.
Then this fairy dust settled, the "radio libres" as we called them (free radios) began to have such a weight in making or breaking hits that the inevitable big business stepped in.


----------



## novaburst (Feb 21, 2018)

lux said:


> alternative rock and new metal where house and techno got their epic early steps. So I honestly don't think it has to do with music trends in writing.
> 
> I believe it' has to do with how currently people listen to music and how they relate to it. Probably rock is just not great as ringtone



I think this is where we differ slightly, I think something written specifically for the guitar can give it good exposure so that listeners can see what a great instrument it is.

But today the type of music written is just for visuals no where for guitar exposure.

It's quite simple really, I am sure you have heard great string sections, great horn sections, cello sections that can really carry the piece, in the same way writing can be accomplished for a guitar section or solo.



blougui said:


> Of course Novaburst, music is a media that touches all ages and culture.Don't make me say what I didn't write
> I think here we're talking about the decline of guitar in mainstream pop music rather than music in general. Hence me saying : Young listeners are the target of the mainstream music industry.



I just merely pointing out the fact that this information comes from media control, what we see and hear is what they want us to hear in turn influences what we say and talk about music

Hence it may or may not be true that what we see through media has the biggest influence on young people But the media can not cover everything and at most what it does not cover it is because it does not want you to see it so I would even say there is a lot of mind control going on there too


----------



## PaulieDC (Feb 21, 2018)

AdamKmusic said:


> We need some new guitar heroes! (People not the game)


That would be great, but the younger kids are no longer an audience. I stood outside Conventional Hall in Asbury Park, NJ in August 1979 just so I could hear Ed Van Halen play through the flimsy front doors because I didn't have the money for a ticket. Is that even a passion of today's device-driven EDM youth? Methinks they prefer a Roli block that you can just smear around and get cool sounds out of it, then playing an instrument. Search YouTube, you'll see what I mean. But guitar players that are phenomenal will never die, they'll just be a specialized group. Case in Point: Tommy Emmanuel. Best acoustic player IMO. He sells out 300 dates a year in theaters literally world-wide, playing his acoustic guitar as a solo act. Never heard of him? Here you go , HE'S in no danger of losing his audience, lol. It really is worth watching both tunes in the vid, it's 12 minutes that any musician can appreciate, even if you don't play guitar. And this vid doesn't even scratch the surface of the songs he write or arranges.

As far as Gibson goes, that's another story entirely and look upwards a few entries for a very good description of the internal meltdown by @storyteller. Having work at the Kramer Guitar Factory for 7 years and saw it go from #1 in the world in 1987 to doors-closed by 1990, the Gibson thing isn't the first guitar company to implode. What's a shame is that Gibson is a long-time part of the guitar foundation, equivalent to the Original Six in the NHL. Oh well.


----------



## Soundhound (Feb 21, 2018)

The idea of lead guitar died as a big part of popular music many years ago, along with the popularity of rock music. There were many great practitioners of that form, Hendrix, Duane Allman, Dickie Betts, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Clapton. Like everything, it got homogenized, with the advent of 80s big hair music it became repetitive and unimaginative, losing its edge and interest. As blues based rock became less popular, so did the kind of guitar playing that marked rock’s early days. What’s left of it now is some great rhythm playing, dave grohl comes to mind, and some adventurous playing by people like Nels Cline. The newer generation of jazz blues and country players, Mike Stern etc carried on, and that’s where the idea of guitar as a melodic instrument wound up. In pop music it hasn’t been a thing in a long time.


----------



## Darren Durann (Feb 21, 2018)

The really distinctive players like Blackmore probably made a bigger mark that I gave them credit for. Malmsteen and Van Halen were in some ways sped up versions of his style.

Fripp is an excellent guitarist. But we're going off into fusion realm there, or what is erroneously referred to as "Prog". I really like the first KC album, plus the first one with Belew.


----------



## lux (Feb 21, 2018)

novaburst said:


> I think this is where we differ slightly, I think something written specifically for the guitar can give it good exposure so that listeners can see what a great instrument it is.
> 
> But today the type of music written is just for visuals no where for guitar exposure.



this is definitely a good point, yes. The money went out from records (and listening for the sake of it) to serve the visuals, so basically lot of people started writing with that in mind, probably in hope of synchronization.

Who knows, perhaps keeping stuff out of streaming platform will be a good business move for the future. Music can be pirated nonetheless, but at least it needs some effort in the process, visiting unsecure websites, installing peer to peer softwares and such.


----------



## novaburst (Feb 21, 2018)

PaulieDC said:


> players that are phenomenal will never die,



Here is another great guitarist


----------



## novaburst (Feb 21, 2018)

Classical this time John Williams beautiful just beautiful


----------



## Hired Goon (Feb 21, 2018)

Rodney Money said:


> I personally believe the decline of the lead guitar correlates with the decline of guitar solos found within "hits." I believe the last song I regularly heard on the radio featuring a guitar solo was "Closing Time" in 1998 where you can tell that it is watered down and pales in comparison to something like "No More Tears" from 1991.



No more tears... One of the best solos from that era. I never get tired of it.


----------



## blougui (Feb 22, 2018)

@novaburst : are you talking about fake news? The übermediaplot against people ?
Like, in reality, there's more people willing to attend an Agnes Obel concert than a Martin Garrix' and it's just media control that prevents young listeners to enjoy this kind of music ?

Sure I agree mainstream medias (and not media per se) are willing to follow trends or be a tad ahead of them (but not too much, vanguard is not their thing) because, well, it sells. I find it difficult and interesting to try to understand what comes first : street tastes and then mainstream media or the other way 'round? Of course, all kind of music is being enjoyed by many different "tribes". But is mainstream pop something else than, well, mainstream pop ? (and at the moment this mainstream pop is urban stuff (R&B, Rap(s), Trap...)or EDM (Future Bass, Bro Step -not that much anymore - Psy Trance) - and both Urban and EDM core infusing pop song arrangements.

More to the point : I honnestly believe mainstream medias amplify trends (launched by young listeners/musicians) that serves their clients/advertisers.

Edit : typo. I’m not a native english, so sorry for not being as crystal clear as I’ld like.


----------



## Jimmy Hellfire (Feb 22, 2018)

blougui said:


> More to the point : I honnestly believe mainstream medias amplify trends (launched by young listeners/musicians) that serves their clients/advertisers.



Absolutely!


----------



## novaburst (Feb 22, 2018)

blougui said:


> Sure I agree mainstream medias (and not media per se) are willing to follow trends



I don't believe media follows trends I believe media sets the trend for the time we are in.

Any way that's just me and my conspiracy no need to take it seriously.


----------



## Darren Durann (Feb 22, 2018)

novaburst said:


> I don't believe media follows trends I believe media sets the trend for the time we are in.
> 
> Any way that's just me and my conspiracy no need to take it seriously.



Or maybe it's not so conspiratorial.


----------



## novaburst (Feb 22, 2018)

Darren Durann said:


> Or maybe it's not so conspiratorial.



Just a little off topic, @Darren Durann so you don't believe the truth about aliens is hidden it's just a thought

Ok back on topic


----------



## Darren Durann (Feb 22, 2018)

novaburst said:


> Just a little off topic, @Darren Durann so you don't believe the truth about aliens is hidden it's just a thought
> 
> Ok back on topic



Wait, the truth about aliens_* ISN'T*_ hidden?


----------



## novaburst (Feb 22, 2018)

Darren Durann said:


> Wait, the truth about aliens_* ISN'T*_ hidden?



What about guitar playing aliens


----------



## storyteller (Feb 22, 2018)

*Found.*
One guitar playing alien.


----------



## novaburst (Feb 22, 2018)

Some great players in this world here is another


----------



## n9n9n9 (Feb 22, 2018)

it was always, always, always really frustrating to be an electric guitarist. You spent a lot of money to get a setup and all that let you do was play Jimmy Page licks in your room. 99% of the people that I grew up with that played guitar, took lessons, spent the money, etc, never had more than a half dozen jam sessions with others. I joined and formed a bunch of bands and really loved playing in them... but even then guitarists were constrained: you needed drummer and a (good) drummer is very hard to find. Then you needed a singer and someone needed to buy a PA and then you needed to convince another guitarist to play bass. Again: so many barriers to entry, so many people that loved music that never got to really play.

Nowadays if you are an engaged hobbyist you can spend 1/4 of what it would have cost to buy guitar, amp and pedals and have an enormous ITB production environment that you can play around with for thousands of hours. You can compose beats, melodies and harmonies. It's just a much more pleasing and integrated experience. It's my guess that most of those guitarists that existed in the 80s and 90s get to the point of frustration where they want to do more than play Jimmy Page riffs and then try something else.

..and it is all a huge shame. My first real band was two guitars, bass, drums and an amazing singer. We wrote all our own songs and had a local following that would fill up a medium sized club. Our shows were rough edged and loud as hell and people would sweat. It was great. 25 years later and a million other projects (including 15 years of ITB studio work) and those shows in DC back in the day and the 7"s that we put out are the high points. The amount of work that it took to get there was HUGE, though.


----------



## Darren Durann (Feb 22, 2018)

n9n9n9 said:


> it was always, always, always really frustrating to be an electric guitarist. You spent a lot of money to get a setup and all that let you do was play *Uli Jon Roth* licks in your room.



Misquoted from my perspective. Good post, though I imagine some younger folks won't be happy with it (I can't blame them, I loved guitar at one time, too).


----------



## Soundhound (Feb 22, 2018)

Playing live was always an adventure, and for me at first it was all about playing live. My era was late 60s and the 70s. A band was a group effort, the pieces had to fit, the whole needed to add up to more than the sum of the parts. And bands were like families, you loved some members, wanted to kill others, and some you both loved and wanted to kill. 

Bands were about songs and creating a whole, but my focus was mostly on playing. I didn't get into songwriting until almost the end of my playing out days. Now composing is almost all I do, and I spent so many years playing out I don't miss it that much. I got the itch in the early aughts, got my chops back up and went out and played a lot for a few years, but it seemed a different world. Clubs seemed less about music, more about... I don't know what, but it wasn't music. And hired guns were getting the same $ I was getting in 1976. Yikes.

It's fine, time moves on, things change. I get the same charge out of composing now that I used to out of playing. Just a different perspective, kind of like being a coach or general manager rather than a shooting guard.


----------



## lux (Feb 23, 2018)

novaburst said:


> Some great players in this world here is another




this is interesting, I had mixed feelings about Lee for years, mostly because I felt him to be a bit too "polished" as playing, but in the last decade I found myself often relistening him and feeling lot of nostalgia for that serious and passionate approach to music and for its formal quality. I'm also a big Dave Grusin fan since the 80's. I still put stuff like "Early AM Attitude" in my playlists a lot. Also I look at the whole GRP period as a golden age of great players and arrangers.

On the other side Larry is in my top 5 most influencial players, with Steve Lukather, Steve Morse, Pat Metheny and Gary Moore


----------



## novaburst (Feb 23, 2018)

I believe they have recorded some classical music together Lee and David


----------



## PaulieDC (Feb 23, 2018)

novaburst said:


> Here is another great guitarist



OH yeah, Larry Carlton has been a favorite for me for 30+ years.


----------



## novaburst (Feb 23, 2018)

Not to much into the jazzy music, but because of the feel and vibe coming from this man Larry Carlton it is hard not to pay attention great feel from that guitar playing.


----------



## NYC Composer (Feb 25, 2018)

Seems like electric guitar is out of favor (both lead and rhythm) but with the rare exception of pianist-singers, you can hardly be a "singer-songwriter" without acoustic guitar. I read some stat a year or two ago that said that electric sales were down but acoustic sales were holding steady.


----------



## lux (Feb 25, 2018)

I wonder what moves could bring us back electric guitar in its deserved shape. I somehow feel that it all started in early 90's with the almost disappearing from scene of virtuoso guitar players, which were pretty much in vogue in late 80's and first half of 90's.


----------



## stacever (Feb 26, 2018)

Guitar might repeat the pattern of accordions, which were very popular in first half of 20th century but declined and now mostly are treated as funny outdated instruments. Even really good virtuoso accordion playing often is treated as cheap acrobatics.
Similar with guitar, today you are not going to impress or shock anybody with heavy distorted guitar tone and hundreds of notes per second technique like you could decades ago. And if you try too hard you may look like a clown, not as guitarist.


----------



## novaburst (Feb 26, 2018)

stacever said:


> you are not going to impress or shock anybody with heavy distorted guitar tone and hundreds of notes per second technique like you could decades ago.



Yes i believe guitar players took a wrong turn when they first started out it was yes i will do a 1000nd notes in this run that will empress them.

And often forgot that it was not all about technical play but it was how you can connect with listeners.

I think it was not only guitar players that suffers from this but keyboard player, drummers, brass, bass, and many more all suffered from self gratification instead of how can i touch others.

I think as time goes we begin to understand what music really is and how we can use it to connect to some one then our performance starts to change with some very nice compersitions and that goes for the guitar too


----------



## Rodney Money (Feb 26, 2018)

The world forgot to tell South Korea that the guitar is no longer a lead instrument at the Olympic closing ceremonies.


----------



## chimuelo (Feb 26, 2018)

Hendrix’s Star Bangled Banner sounds better than Kenny Gs snake charming version too.
On another note Chuck Mangiones Guitarist did a solo decades back that still haunts me. I doubt even know the songs name. I’m good with distorted tones but clean well slurred perfectly played solos like that.
I pray nobody tells to cover that. Could be embarrassing.


----------



## burp182 (Feb 27, 2018)

"Feels So Good" was the Chuck Mangione tune. The guitarist (Grant Geissman) made a bunch of money as the music supervisor on "Two and A Half Men". All the cool little vocal pops between scenes were his too, I believe. Did a very nice solo album a couple of years back. Nice human, too.


----------



## Soundhound (Feb 27, 2018)

If it's the same solo I'm thinking of it was on Mangione's big hit, in 1978 or so. Took me two months to learn how to play it. Forget who that guy was but he was killer.

Edit: Just saw the previous post, Feel So Good! Right! thanks for that...



chimuelo said:


> Hendrix’s Star Bangled Banner sounds better than Kenny Gs snake charming version too.
> On another note Chuck Mangiones Guitarist did a solo decades back that still haunts me. I doubt even know the songs name. I’m good with distorted tones but clean well slurred perfectly played solos like that.
> I pray nobody tells to cover that. Could be embarrassing.


----------



## Soundhound (Feb 27, 2018)

Speed demon guitar playing is such a snore. There are some guys who play a lot of notes and do it for a reason. Wayne Kantz makes it worthwhile sometimes:


----------



## chimuelo (Feb 27, 2018)

Soundhound said:


> If it's the same solo I'm thinking of it was on Mangione's big hit, in 1978 or so. Took me two months to learn how to play it. Forget who that guy was but he was killer.
> 
> Edit: Just saw the previous post, Feel So Good! Right! thanks for that...



Dude if you can play that solo your chops are dipped in Gold.
I worked in an 11 Piece Horn group back then.
Our guitarist was really well trained, Joe Pass quality and he stuggled keeping it tight.

Feel So Good, that’s right.
I was 16 then, old man had to sign permits for me to play where booze was.
4 decades later and I still remember when Gtr solos made the tunes....

Yeah Wayne is a great live performer.
Would love to be his EPiano guy.


----------



## novaburst (Feb 27, 2018)

Soundhound said:


> Speed demon guitar playing is such a snore. There are some guys who play a lot of notes and do it for a reason. Wayne Kantz makes it worthwhile sometimes:






Your link is saying unavailable so I found another, but not sure if this is the track you wanted us to hear


----------



## Soundhound (Feb 27, 2018)

Thanks, yup that's the one, from the Two Drink Minimum ep...



novaburst said:


> Your link is saying unavailable so I found another, but not sure if this is the track you wanted us to hear


----------



## Soundhound (Feb 27, 2018)

I was 22 and I learned it, but never got to play it in a band so I don't know if I could have pulled it off live. I was playing in Billy Joel/Jackson Browne style singer songwriter bands around then. Showcases, backup singers, you know the drill... I was never a proper jazz player (chord tones, what's a chord tone?) but learned how to play a lot of the solos from that era.

Ever heard Derek Trucks' tune 'Elvin'? It's like Duane Goes to Berklee, he was 18 or something at the time, can't find it online anywhere...

And yeah Wayne Krantz is a killer. When I was back into playing a while ago I tried studying his approach which he put in a book . It was like trying understand quantum theory, made some very interesting sounds though...




chimuelo said:


> Dude if you can play that solo your chops are dipped in Gold.
> I worked in an 11 Piece Horn group back then.
> Our guitarist was really well trained, Joe Pass quality and he stuggled keeping it tight.
> 
> ...


----------

