And with the lack of the 12 tone scale, starting to drone into a large single mass that sound the same. [Sweetwater CEO, Chuck Surack, has confirmed that for most of 2020, they were shipping out anything from 15,000 to 20,000 orders per day. Our team comprises of music enthusiasts across the globe with extensive teaching, studio and live playing experience. It was bad enough to hear that music sales declined to the point you cant make any real money from it anymore, now i have to hear this. What the world needs is a new Renaissance. Electronic music production is the watershed that electric guitars were when they first came out. Their bestsellers included Rogue, Mitchell, and G&L electric guitars. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Get notified every time we publish a new blog post. well acoustic guitars are so popular with electronic pickups they are more versatile and sound amazing and full, ie. The last couple generations are not as music-focused in general; theyre video-oriented, with music being more background-y.. We are a small team of passionate musicians. Having not seen yall play, I cant vouch for that. Right. Well, there has NEVER been a more exciting genre of music than Rock and Roll and if the new generation prefer something else thats more tame in nature then i think the future would be rather dismal. Check it out if youre interested. More and more, social engineers are finding ways of keeping people at home, and $crewing them from there instead. Editors picks And one of their bestsellers throughout 2020, as well as 2021 thus far, has been their GS Mini acoustic-electric model that has a Koa body and Ebony fingerboard. Beyond the guitar's morphology, tunings and playing techniques must also be considered when tracing its genealogy. There was also the release of their new American Professional II series guitars in October 2020. Headlines havent been kind to electric guitars. In just the past decade, electric guitar sales have dropped by a third, from 1.5 million to a new average of just over 1 million. Pretty sure that the popularity comes and goes. US online retailer, Sweetwater, has shone through as one of the biggest successes of 2020 in terms of guitar sales. Guitar sales probably went down then for a bit too lol. So Why Do We Think They're Dying? Similar Posts. Want great heavier guitar music? Fender and Reverb started having conversations with me. I think the music will circle back around. As if fulfilling prophecy, Gibson, maker of the famed Les Paul model wielded by everyone from Jimmy Page to Slash, announced this month that it is filing for bankruptcy. Look eastward, to Japan (as well as to the holdouts in Scandinavia and Germany). The breakdown of types of guitars sold in the US in 2020, based on total revenue, is as follows: Another interesting statistic is the number of searches done through Google and partners for acoustic guitars. Our goal is to motivate you to strive to become a better musician! Guitar sales increased by 15% from 2019 to 2020, with online retailers amassing the bulk of these sales. When I added a sound generator module, the clerk wanted to know what kind of computer/software I was using. The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time Thats an overall increase of 15% in one year, which, in most markets, would be considered extraordinary. Good to know was thinking about moving down from Chicago. Other popular colorways were the three-color sunburst and black finishes. Take Mark Thayer. This paragraph seems confusing.. Besides, the keyboard happy new wave of the 80s had guitar manufacturers worried then grunge came along! Playing a guitar whether electric or acoustic is your hobby, I like acoustic guitar best.. Gibson's bankruptcy doesn't tell the whole story about the future of the. Of course, the quality is certainly not on par with the originals, and they are sold at a fraction of the price. The most obvious takeaway is that young songwriters are increasingly opting out of creating and performing music through traditional means. The most prominent sellers at Sweetwater in 2020 were Fender, Paul Reed Smith (PRS), and Gibson electric guitars. Heres a known fact, if you like guitar music from the 60s (and Im assuming you do) then Im here to remind you that most of your heroes are self taught because they had the attitude to do something their way, not someone elses way. One thing not discussed in detail is recording. Some gave lessons via video calls, while others started YouTube channels to inspire the next generation of Pete Townsends. Maybe the guitar is over, he mused, responding to reports that electric guitar sales had crashed half a million in a single decade and that industry leaders Gibson and Fender were both in debt. Another instrument which hasnt even been invented yet may takes its place in the future. By jonearuizvargas October 9, 2022 March 8, 2023. Reynas magazine has expanded and partnered with various music brands; projects like the Girls Rock Camp Alliance are helping set up female-specific guitar programs over the world. Brick-and-mortar stores were already losing popularity due to the rise of online-only music retailers like Sweetwater in the US and Thomann in Europe. And, while this is a respectable number, it is 12% down from 2019s 1.25 million sold. (Image credit: Elena Di Vincenzo/Archivio Elena di . Electronic noise abounds devoid of any melodic coherence. Patrick McGuire is a musician, writer, and educator currently residing in the great city of Philadelphia. And as for not being able to afford instruments, nobody can afford instruments to begin with. This began with the complete avoidance of guitar (for the most part) in popular rap/hip hop of the late 1980s. Guitar gear has, understandably, also seen an incredible increase in revenue. Chris Woods of the Chris Woods Groove Orchestra and host of The Music Education Podcast considers how the instrument has changed over the years and advocates for its relevance and accessibility in your classroom. Lee Anderton, head of Andertons Music Co., says that keeping up with demand has been difficult. Sounds like many new guitar owners are increasing the interest. 20% of those who registered on the Fender Play app in 2020 are under 24. So it stands to reason that these are the people buying guitars, not the dads. There were clearly many beginner guitarists buying their first-ever guitar in 2020. Interestingly, 2020s bestselling electric guitar brands differed quite a bit from retailer to retailer. Grunge was the last gasp of highly successful guitar-centered music but after 20+ years of post-grunge sounding music, the masses are getting very bored (quite frankly sick and tired) with the sonic qualities guitar has to offer. You can literally play Gvfs music and over half of it is a Led Zeppelin track with the riff slightly changed, to the degree that it syncs up with the tempo, key, chord structure, tonality and vibe to a startling point, they are even using almost the exact same gear and dressing as much like LZ as they can, so kinda zero chance of GVF not knowing who the hell Led Zeppelin is . Dusted off the old guitars, then promptly bought a few more. The trumpets add energy, while the clarinets add to the mood, while the flutes fill out the soundscape. I think that the electronic market is about saturated. Industry leaders and iconic musicians were concerned about the survival of the instrument until now. so true..the pay is the same or less than forever agothe only gigging musicians in my area are in their 50s or olderand everybody under 35 only wants to see big acts like Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, etc..and new country is basically pop/rock with a cowboy hat. As long as electric guitar can ONLY be an instrument used in these forms of music (which are rather niche these days), it will die. iStock 91884584 Why the Guitar is Considered a Dying Instrument Although this problem is completely artificial, THIS is the problem with electric guitar these days. Thats the school of hard knocks and its the ONLY way to learn. They last a long time (if not trashed on stage! When someone claims that the guitar is dying, what they are trying to say is that the instrument's focus is losing popularity. Then along came disco and new wave and punk and popand you know what? In just the past decade, electric guitar sales have dropped by a third, from 1.5 million to a new average of just over 1 million. We tried to do that with the acquisition of a Phillips subsidiary and it didnt work out very well, Gibsons CEO Henry Juszkiewicz tells Rolling Stone. That music holds up and people are payed well to play those songs. Some people say that the guitar is becoming outdated and that other instruments and new technologies are taking its place. Amazon, of course, led the pack, raking in a net profit of $21.3 billion in 2020. To that end, Fender launched a subscription service last year called Fender Play, which offers online lessons for fretted instruments at a fee of $10 a month. Another famous acoustic guitar manufacturer in the US, Martin Guitars, expressed that sales grew considerably from April 2020 onwards. For as much technology has impacted music in recent years, its still not great at replicating the humanity and immediacy of an instrument like the electric guitar. With expensive lush studios from 60s to 90s where it was $2000/day is not utilised anymore as people are recording for pennies at home due to the rise of protools and plugins and now affordable 500 series EQs, preamps and compressors.. The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, My dream had always been to build a major music lifestyle business, similar to what Nike is to sports, and grow beyond guitars Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz, Its true that six-string electrics have stumbled a bit in popularity but there are bright spots yet. As soc. Robert Miles, an IBISWorld research analyst, says that while guitar manufacturing revenue is on the rise, its the reverse for guitar retailers, which are being squeezed out by big-box stores and online sellers like Amazon. Part of that has to do with$$$$ for decent guitars and lessons. I took a closer look at the best-selling guitars of 2020 for some of the biggest online guitar retailers. I think that is why it is becoming more popular. In less than a year I have been thru about 10 guitars and now own 2 fender pro series strats, a custom fender/squier strat, and 2 Kents, like the one in high school. Then theres no reason to book live bands because the number of people going to pubs and clubs just doesnt justify it and no atmosphere is going to be generated by those that do attend. It could be that the 45+ group are those who always wanted to play guitar but never had the time. Music is like anything else in life. I'll be taking these theories to task. "My new show, 'Shred With Shifty,' was born out of the fact that I spend an aw Gibsons bankruptcy doesnt tell the whole story about the future of the instrument. It may not have affected guitar sales at all, but I could see younger millenials having their first experience with a guitar-like gaming controller souring their interest to learn an actual guitar as those games popularity decreased. On the other hand, Paul Reed Smith (PRS) Guitars shared that they brought in $75.5 million in revenue for 2020. all that said all art and music has to be progressive otherwise its just regurgitating the old but please we want real instruments with real people and real emotion-isnt that what we all want? I think its worth noting too just how collector driven the guitar market became. Maybe i will buy a few more this year or next. But the acoustic guitars popularity is partly because there is little need for additional gear to play the instrument. Over 50% more searches were done for key phrases comprising the words acoustic guitar in 2020 as compared to 2019. Or if you prefer guitar virtuosos, you have bands like Vitality or Animals as leaders. Ha ha. Guitar Industry: Statistics Overview Guitar Sales Predicted Statistics US guitar sales are projected to increase 14% by 2023, reaching $1.8 billion. Personally I was given a second hand bicycle at the age of 10 and I thought I had died and gone to heaven also my first guitar from Santa was almost unplayable extremely painful and impossible to tune yet it still changed my life more than all todays technowlogy has! So what you have here is overproduction fuelled by typical corporate greed coming back on itself. When the front man for gvf was called out for sounding suspiciously like Robert Plant he pretended like he had never heard of Led Zeppelin. Fender even stated that sales of their guitars priced under $500 had increased by 92% during 2020. The Gibson App also experienced a spike in sign-ups during 2020, with 50,000 installations on Android devices alone. And though its completely false, theres almost a popular sense that musicians have taken guitar music as far as it can go while electronic composition provides limitless options.. Guitars, amps, keys, drums; all at the ready. Gaining and Losing Strings. Your email address will not be published. For that matter, with the music so loud and squashed, you cant tell any instruments apart from one another. I think its fair to say a lot of this demand was/is generated by a white collar, so to speak, class of consumers who tinker on the guitar at home, polish it, and put it back in its case where it spends most of its life (Stereotyping here of course).