The death of guitar?
No, ridiculous hype from a few bored writers.
Also, people who based reality on statistics instead of their own common sense: new guitar sales down doesn't mean interest in guitar is also down. It means new guitar sales are down. Where is the tracking for used sales? Particularly sense Reverb.com seems to have really come into its own, and there is no Craigslist tracking, and how about sales of guitars direct from China?
On the other hand...
I haven't had a Musical Purist in a long while as a student.
Most everyone I've taught in the past 5 years will not simply state one genre of music as their preference. Usually when pressed, it will cross at least one other "traditional" genre. Everyone today has hybrid tastes.
Which is a great thing in my opinion. I've always wanted it this way, it is as it should be; I've never only listened to just one genre.
On the other hand, most of my life has been ... wrecked... by musicians insisting on a curiously conservative adherence to staying genre specific. This is still pretty much true today, but - I see it waning.
Which means it will take a few years, but hopefully I predict by 2022-ish there will be a pop/rock/whatever music renaissance as people finally let go of staying within the traditional confines. Hopefully this WILL be the death of the worst affliction to music that was initiated unfortunately in the late 80's. That would be...
Banal extremism and gimmicks as the basic of style.
Meaning, hopefully no longer will the following adjectives be used in conjunction with music:- The fastest.
- The slowest.
- The lowest.
- The highest.
- The most dense.
- The most complex.
- The heaviest.
Additionally, hopefully we'll also see the end of what I tacitly would say is gimmicks. Techniques that require unorthodox approaches. Either tapping that approaches piano skills, physical/rhythmic tapping that approaches trying to be a percussionist AND a guitarist at the same time, anything that is trying to be what normally would take 2 people to do, playing with other body parts than the fingers, playing backwards, upside down, using another musical instrument at the same time, ...... yeah. I think that's about it.
"Hey, can you show me this clown metal song this guy is doing using a waffle iron for a pick, and all of his strings tuned down an octave with piano wire and he's standing on his head underwater while his right hand is playing Chopin on a Korg Microkeyboard silconed inside a zip lock bag, and his feet are hanging out of the pool playing the kick and snare drum parts to a Pantera song?
Can you show me that....?"
How about the old-school "genres: returning? "pop/rock", "country", "classical", "sound track"?
No appending of the nationality, or geographical region, or era.
Just guitar. You know, just the music. Here's hoping.
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