Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/09/09/guitars-reportedly-cool-again.html
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Gonna be a live-stream-hero (with stars in his eyes).
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I’m playing more regularly and consistently than I ever have. Mostly on my daughter’s 1/4 size classical guitar, which has super light action and sounds like butter. It’s like a drug. every night at 6pm when my kids are having their last hurrah before bedtime I just turn on a “lullabies” playlist (Innocence Mission, James Taylor, etc…) - so that the songs are downtempo, and easier to play along to by ear - and noodle my troubles away.
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I think this requires an Axe thread to complement the Navy thread.
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Alan McGee agrees. (A year and a half ago. I’m sure I read a very recent interview with him about the resurgence of guitar bands but I cannot find it right now.)
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I’ve noticed the cheap used off-brand guitars on craigslist are going for a lot more money than usual (or at least sellers are asking way more than they did a few years ago).
It’s nice to own a Martin/Gibson/Fender, but that extra $1000 you spend isn’t going to make you play better, and a good guitarist can make beautiful music with a cheap guitar. All you need is an instrument that has good intonation, good action, and sounds decent. Yamaha acoustics are a good bargain.
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Everything you said is true, but don’t forget the dedication of several hours of practice a day.
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Wow, looks like the guitar is the new ukulele
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My college-bound nephew has really gotten into guitar over the past year and a half and also uses it to relax.
More likely people are buying them there than at Guitar Center, which was notoriously gutted in a private equity bust-out.
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Or the banjo…?
or worse - the banjo ukulele…
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Wait. Guitars weren’t cool?
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as with people, they were always cool because they didn’t care whether anyone thought they were cool or not.
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I’ve got three banjos, one of which (an antique Stewart) is locked up in the corner of the office I haven’t been to in months. I don’t think the banjo market has picked up in quite the same way. For one thing, a decent banjo isn’t cheap–I mean for the same level of quality, you’re in for two or three times the price of a guitar. And there’s almost no retail. A lot of banjos are made-to-order in small shops. My clawhammer banjo was made for me by a guy in Pennsylvania.
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Maybe this will lead to a resurgence of harder music. In the months before COVID, I was noticing that in gyms, pizza places, and other little shops I was starting to hear a lot of early 90s grunge playing. Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, all apparently thrown on the sound system by young’uns working there. I’m certainly in the mood for some angrier music, and it would be nice to hear something new rather than just playing the classics.
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Never not cool. Fake news.
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Dropped our son off at college in August. He had started noodling around on a guitar this summer. Now he’s in a flat-share with three other people far away.
I left them all an old beater guitar (6 string acoustic) in a cardboard case in the corner by their couch. Son and I worked together to put on the new strings, and I threw in a second set of strings (both sets are light gauge bronze wound housebrand these guys). Tuning available online as long as one as a microphone and web connection. Aye carumba. I used to just tune by ear.
I left a note written on masking tape, on the case at the handle: “this guitar was given freely, please accept it freely… please play it and be free.” Since that guitar is basically expendable, no matter what a bunch of college kids do to it, I don’t mind–I just hope they pick it up and play it. It’s a phenomenal stress buster no matter what one’s level of proficiency.
I eagerly await their feedback. Cool again? We shall see. My sample size is neither random or large enough. Oh well.
Guitars: at least they’re not banjos.*
As long as Jimmy Page is alive I hope this will come to pass one day:
*
I feel that Rhiannon Giddens has done a lot to give guitars a good run for their money.
ok ok maybe not popular music but dang…
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Worth noting, Fender entered a partnership with Gretsch in 2003 and instead of seeing them as a threat and shutting them down, Fender has built up the Gretsch brand with options for just about any budget. They did the same with Charvel starting in 2002. Fender also owns Jackson. They sold off Guild around 2014. If you’re a player and haven’t ventured much into the hollowbody realm, try out some different Gretsch models.
Fender interacts quite a bit with its customer base. I have gotten quick answers to questions about both Gretsch and Fender instruments. They give factory tours (or did pre-covid) and their custom shop is second to none (though beyond my budget).
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Guitars are here to stay, they will never die.
I’ve been going through my rock film on DVD collection. Rockin’ at the Red Dog. Monterey Pop. Woodstock. TCM had some on this past weekend, I finally got to watch The T.A.M.I Show and Festival, and saw again The Kids Are Alright. There were others I didn’t watch.
In 2009 I got the fancy boxed set of Woodstock, I finally watched the extras DVD in August. 35 minutes of the Grateful Dead playing “Turn on Your Love Light”.
I slept till 11am the next day.
I’ve been stuck inside mostly since March of 2019. It feels like I never got out of the hospital last yesr. Every day the same, and little varience with the schedule. But then I put on the Grateful Dead or Big Brother or the Paul Butterfield’s Blues Band (specifically East-West) and it feels a bit more normal, don’t go to bed at the same tine and sleep longer.
Most of these things were most of a decade in the past when I heard them firdt, but that was forty years ago. They are familiar in a way that recent music can never be.
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“Somebody told me that music with guitars was going out of fashion and I had to laugh” https://youtu.be/IU22lKGevhI?t=216
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