The slow, secret death of the six string electric..

[Bruce McC]

This is a recent story from the Washington Post.......(some might say it is fake news)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics ... a74447107f

[kiwigeo]

What's of more concern is the huge rise in sales of banjos

[Ormsby Guitars]

We just got interviewed for a response to this article. Going to be interesting to see that article when it comes out.

[Lex]

Or is it due to the small time luthier taking business away from the large manufacturers ?

[old_picker]

Guitar players are suffering like everyone else from information overload. Walk into any music shop and you'll see what I mean, Walls literally covered in guitars from floor to ceiling. Every price point, colour and configuration is covered. Big guitar manufacturers are beginning to find out out that the capitalist myth of unending growth is bullshyt. Just way too many, too cheap and as George Gruhn states "unsustainable".

Sure players these days are looking at one off instruments from small workshops [some not so small] because guess what? a lot of those millions and millions of guitars that get vomited out every year by the multi national industrial complex are not that great. With a custom build there is a guarantee if getting something worthwhile. Also there is the personal contact with the builder and getting exactly what you want. From what I see of upper range big name guitars there is no way I would spend $3-$5k on any of them.

It is not that the electric guitar is dying it is more to do with the fact that everyone is sick to back teeth of them. the world is practically collapsing under the weight. If you give a kid a big bag of lollies every day pretty soon you'll find them lying everywhere after being spat out, thrown at the dog or plain just forgotten about.

The story about the electric guitar is indicative of a modern affluent society wide illness. We demand everything be there for sale 24 hours a day just in case on a whim we may make a spendaneous oops spontaneous purchase. the death of the electric guitar story could be extrapolated out to whole of the multi national industrial complex. Too much wasted so that people with too much money can fill their meaningless lives with more and more "things" One thing is for certain the multi national industrial complex won't have a marketing budget for Myanmar, Bangladesh or Syria. Unless of course your business is in weapons.

Apologies - rant over

[Jonny]

....or is it just that the younger generation are not interested in playing music ???

[DarwinStrings]

With a custom build there is a guarantee if getting something worthwhile.

Not so sure that is always the case nowadays with electrics. There seems to be a burgeoning amount of "builders" around now that advertise as "Custom Guitar makers" that buy pre-made parts from overseas, assemble them, paint them and then sell them as "Australian made". They may be custom painted but these "builders" only seem to offer necks in a standard Fender range, ask them to make one with a 20 inch radius or 8 strings and they are buggered. Also some use those made in China necks that are unlicenced Fender copies, it seems a bit of a stretch to call yourself a guitar builder if you have never made a neck. A bit like changing a tap washer and calling yourself a plumber.