The Divergence of Common Awareness of Ai and Musicians

  It's been obvious that there is a growing divergence between people who know, partially understand ai - neural network based technology, its current state and people who are unaware.  

 Or, worse, think it's capabilities are "science fiction".

 Likewise, I'm seeing this happen in musician circles.  Particularly with people referencing currently available real-neural network based music software, but also with the tertiary uses of LLMs and retrieval based voice replacement technology.

 There isn't even any cognitive dissonance.  There are simply a lot of people who think:

- Neural net based guitar software is "nothing new, it's been done before".  They think it's another variation on either digital eq, or one shot impulse response convolution;

- Voice replacement, "deep fake" software is either doing something with replaying samples, or is again, a technology that requires Impossible Technology that won't exist for many years.

 There may be a limitation on some people, as far as what they know of computer technology itself, that prevents comprehension of the revolution that is going on.  There may also be subconscious pushback happening, against what seems frightening and alienating.

 Regardless, there is a gap forming that is larger than what happened when digital recording took over.  Back when that happened, there were a lot of people that insisted "it will never be as good as a professional tape machine", that it was too complicated and limited to become a mainstream thing.  I am quite sure there are people who have effectively given up on a profession of recording, not because the music industry has fallen off, but because they literally got left behind because of their beliefs.

  As an aside, there is something similar happening in the computer repair/otaku world.  There seems to be many "tech advisors" that are totally unaware of the shift of graphic cards going from gaming to ai.  Some say things in response to hearing/reading press releases from NVidia (and others), that makes no sense - they're literally not accepting that GPU technology is being steered towards ai, and not video games. 

 There will be many disenfranchised musicians. 

 

Acoustic Guitar Purchasing Dilemmas (circa 2022)

 As a general rule, I think for most people the following made sense for the past 20+ years:

 Buy your first "introductory" guitar.   One takes a chance here, because it's probably not going to be very playable or sound nice.  This is usually without advice from me, and usually takes the form of a guitar that comes in a "pack" deal, somewhere in the $100-150 ball park.

  What I'd advise then would be a "compromise" guitar.  Something better than the above, but not a "real" acoustic guitar.  The advice would be to get the nicest possible with a solid spruce top, with consideration for a pickup system.  Epiphone and Seagull/LasSiDo has been a good choice in this category, .

 Then, I would advise to try not to buy another UNTIL one could afford either a Martin D28, or a 600-700 series Taylor.  Because - in between you're either paying for cosmetics, or another compromise, and these 2 are effectively where "professional, standard issue" acoustic guitars start.  But the main reason was - and I've been saying this for decades now - 

 "there will come a time when it will basically be impossible for you to consider buying a Martin D28.  Try to get one now if you can".

 For a long time $1,000 was the Magical Professional Price Point.  The "nice" guitars started there, or from another perspective, that was how much a Les Paul or D28 would cost.  In the late 90s D28s started creeping up in price; by the 2000s it was going up about $100 a year.  

 A D28 now costs $3,000.  While my perspective may be skewed - my income from teaching guitar has lagged inflation, effectively flat for my whole life, I can no longer advise someone to stretch their second-guitar budget to a D28.  Those days are over; trying to stretch $600,700 or even $800 to that Previously Magical $1,000 landmark was a tough ask, but $3,000 is ridiculous.

 Meanwhile, from what I've seen the sub <$500 price point has gotten better.  EXCEPT:

• Manufacturing quality is sort of all over the place;
• Traditional woods are harder to find.

 

 Which is why my advice is somewhat more ambiguous now:

 Try to get a solid SPRUCE top guitar first and foremost.  The Seagull brand is a cut above quality wise IMO; a less traditional choice of cedar for a top, buy probably a better deal if you're looking to get a guitar to actually use in public.  
 
 Secondly, instead of trying to stretch to get a D28 or Taylor/"?" equivalent,

 Try to find a guitar made of the traditional woods: spruce top; mahogany neck; rosewood or ebony fingerboard; mahogany or rosewood back/sides.  Because this is the formula for what you're used to hearing on recordings as a "standard acoustic guitar".  Scarcity is forcing manufacturers to substitute other woods, some working better than others.  

 What that means is that getting around that $1,000 mark means there are a couple of Epiphone, Yamaha models, and Seagulls that meet that bill.  Those manufacturers still exhibit a fair standard of quality; you're effectively purchasing an "off brand Martin".  They don't have the name cachet, but effectively speaking are still fine guitars.  

 Because where my advice once was "there will be a time when you won't be able to buy a Martin D28", I'm now stating "there will be a time when you can't buy an acoustic guitar made of the traditional acoustic guitar woods".

$.10, YMMV.

The Welcome Death of Genres!

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.




 

Secret Music Retail Disaster Looms: Peak Guitar?

 After examining many videos of the literally hundreds of guitar factories in China, and seeing thousands of guitars stacked in each, I wonder "where do they all go...?"

My '82 Japanese made Squier Strat bought used in the 80s.  "Entry level" in 1982, now "vintage-quality". 

 Obviously somewhere, the world is a big place.  There are countless "developing country" export markets.  But I'm going to limit this discussion to "here" in the U.S..

 I've referenced "peak guitar" previously, but not in this context. Solid body guitars have been built routinely en masse since the mid-1930s.  I don't have production numbers, but let's say the "modern era" began with the Stratocaster in 1954. 

 There has never been a "guitar shortage" relative to demand.  So consider that demand was met every year since 1954.  Almost 65 years of consumer demand met. That doesn't mean it was 1:1, and exact number built relative to demand, obviously there would be an overrun every year, but let's ignore that.

 Another way of looking at that is that since the population has drastically shot up, and demand for guitars has been more or less a constant thing,

 Relative to 1954 64X consumer demand has been built (at least).  In other words, there are at least 64x as many guitars floating around today than in 1954.

 Yes, I know: all guitars don't make it to retirement behind a glass case in some Yakuza's mansion in Japan one day like a '58 'burst Les Paul.  But I would argue that the surplus not sold greatly outweighs those given to have been "broken", or "lost" somehow to the aether.  In general, there is a t LEAST 64 times as many guitars in the universe today than demand wanted in 1954.

Population in the U.S. in 1954 was about 150 million.  Today it's estimated to be between 350-400 million.  A bit more than 2-3x as much, let's say 3x.  Then, let's say that half of the guitars sold in the U.S. have evaporated into thin air somehow, leaving a 32 year production run versus 1954.

 In this imaginary context let's equate 400 million people today to then, 3X as many.  3 1954's to one 2018.  You still have over 25 years at least of guitars sold beyond human demand today.  These days a million guitars or so a year are sold in the U.S. alone.  But let's say it's half that, not as many sold in the 60's as now.

 That would yield at least 10 million guitars in a category of  "still exists, was wanted by somebody as "consumer demand" at some point".  That's obviously not all the guitars built or sold in the U.S..  Just a very conservative number of  "how many viable guitars are there in the wild, in the personal possession of someone in the U.S.".  I'd say it's much higher, but let's say it's 10 million.  What does that number mean?  It's not exact, it's not even clear what it entails aside from the claim that at any given time floating about I'd say there are at least than many guitars "in circulation".  At least.  I think it's something of a buffer figure: for the 1.5 million sold every year in the U.S., there was probably something like 10 million to be had, easily, used I'm guessing.

 I don't know how many used guitars are sold on Craig's List, Ebay or Reverb.com.  But I'll step out on a limb and say that there must be at least .... 30-40 million viable guitars around in the U.S., if not more.  I'm going to say 50 million.

 I'd like to think that means around 15% of the population plays guitar.  I think it could be higher than that.  I think for the past 10 years we've seen the guitar replace the piano as "the instrument every child has to learn as part of being a well rounded individual, learning a musical instrument".  Cheaper and more portable than a piano, a certainly more relevant these days and motivating.  But it wouldn't be every single child in the U.S.?  On the other hand, the amount of people aging that do play guitar I would claim is increasing year by year for the same reason.  Gen-X and younger, we were the transition era from piano to guitar as the Instrument our Parents Wanted Us To Be Able To Play.

 What am I getting at with all of this?

 Solid body electric guitars in general, don't vanish.  All of the above aside, there is 50+ years of electric guitars around somewhere.  They *accumulate*.  And while the "nice" ones accumulate value, most don't.

 And with 50 years worth of guitars - millions - my question is, "how many more guitars are there in the U.S. relative to consumer demand?".  I think a whopping amount more.  Go on Craig's List, plenty of nice guitars being sold.  Unfortunately, everybody seems to want almost what they paid for their instrument ....

 ... The gist being this:

 At some point it will be Common Consumer Awareness that "guitars are everywhere!".  In reality one should get around half new value for used gear; this will become self evident at some point, and the used guitar prices will reflect this. What is presently maybe a 10:1 margin will grow. 

 In other words, it will become Common Knowledge that you can get a Perfectly Good Electric Guitar for half price, relatively easily, used. As it stands now, just about everybody knows somebody with an unused guitar in a corner of someone's house, somewhere.  At some juncture it will be just "the thing", Prices for cheap guitars used will be even less than half - at some point worthless as people realize....

 guitars are everywhere.

 What does that mean for guitar retail.....?

 

 China is building guitars faster than I can type this sentence.  At some point "soon" low-end guitar sales will fall flat, because of the above phenomenon.  China is speeding the demise by pushing this inevitability closer, flooding the market with hyper-cheap and quite decent guitars.  At some point in the future (presuming there is one...) - maybe 3-5 years from now, music retail will have to reckon with what will be seen as a "sudden loss of demand for guitars".  It will be dramatically, and ignorantly touted as something along the lines of  "guitar losing popularity?" when in reality it will just mean we've met Peak Guitar and the concurrently present population will just be finding guitars to start on in other places.

 In reality it could be a boon; more people will try guitar because "guitars are just laying around everywhere".  More people may end up being life-long players, and in turn buying better gear as they progress.

 ... but it's going to be hyper-annoying to read/hear people talking about guitar retail tanking, and hard for the remaining brick-and-mortar stores.

How To Waste Your Existence

I recently saw a post on a Popular Internet Forum where a guy is apparently seemingly obsessed with reproducing one of Steve Vai's recorded guitar sounds.

 The guy has gone about things pretty intently.  I have done such things, to an even more fabulously OCD extreme, but with many other Sounds I Think are Significant. 

 One difference to this guy is that he is simultaneously trying to emulate the following:

•  Steve Vai's playing;
•  Steve Vai's sound coming out of his amp;
•  Steve Vai's studio/recorded sound.

  He has some very subtle timing differences with the playing aspect.  Subtle, but huge in the sense that it is what makes Vai "Vai".  Huge also in that it is an order of magnitude greater in rhythmic scale of awareness to accomplish. 

 Also huge is a subtle differentiation on timing onset for vibrato, phrasing and finger pressure tonal effects. 

 Those two things alone are something worth chasing, and then trying to discard once made habitual.  The problem is, he's diluting his effort by also trying to get the technical side of his sound going at the same time.
This is effectively what I'd classify as "Reverse Engineering Speculative Sonic Anthropology".  Something I'll save for another blog post, but suffice to say another worthy pursuit IF one prizes the audio engineering aspect enough. 

 It is impossible to perfectly replicate all of the variables.  I've tried.  I'm insane enough to do null tests if the reader knows what that means.  A complete waste of time.  Very sonically educational; but a waste of time.

 In this case I think it's a classic examining the bark on the tree instead of seeing the forest.  Which I'm a complete expert of, and have suffered greatly because of the OCD tendency towards this.  I wish I could go back in time and make myself read "this", but I can't.  Instead I can say with a Yul Brenner Retro Westworld glean, "don't do what I did".

 It's educational, but not necessarily practical.  Seldom are audio engineers jacks of all trades, they tend to specialize in their thing and that's it.  You like it or you don't.  The Lesson of YouTube isn't to suck down all of the raw data, but to see that There Are Things That Exceed Human Capacity.  Know that and don't waste time on it.  This is a lesson I have only learned in the past few years; trying to work on this principle is a chore now because of it.  When in reality it should be the easiest!

 Easiest because chances are, you automatically have a sense of taste and predilections.  You should ramp those up in the hope of having a unique hybrid, discard the rest, and not worry about it.  Very much easier said than done for me, but probably a lot easier for the reader. 

 I've had times where a student has professed a love for a certain niche in music.  My suggestion is to go OCD on that, and hope it evolves and mutates into something unique.  The value of that is immeasurable; that is what being a human is all about.  

 I've gone to the End of the Road many times and then kept going into the field until I found Another Road.  I should have just hung out there and see if anything else came down the road. That is my advice to this guy.  My advice to the guitar student reading this is to GO DOWN A ROAD.  This is something missing in today's society for various reasons.  Motivation to PURSUE something intriguing.  Not to discard the intrigue.  Maybe the most important thing in playing music!