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from the while-my-guitar-gently-weeps dept.
Each holiday season, thousands of teenagers tear gift wrap off shiny, new guitars. They giddily pluck at the detuned strings, thinking how cool they'll be once they're rock stars—even if almost all will give up before they ever get to jam out to "Sweet Child o' Mine."
For them, it's no big deal to relegate the guitar to the back of the closet forever in favor of the Playstation controller. But it is a big deal for Fender Musical Instruments Corp., the 70-year-old maker of rock 'n' roll's most iconic electric guitars. Every quitter hurts.
[...]The $6 billion U.S. retail market for musical instruments has been stagnant for five years, according to data compiled by research firm IBISWorld, and would-be guitar buyers have more to distract them than ever. So how do you convince someone to put down the iPhone, pick up a Stratocaster, and keep playing?
Seems Fender didn't get the memo: the music of the future is hip-hop and autotuners.
(Score: 1) by RS3 on Wednesday November 23 2016, @05:11PM
Guitar hacker (the good kind) here. Most guitar strings are either steel or nylon. Although there are a few electric guitars with piezo contact pickups, most electric guitar pickups are electro-magnetic and rely on the magnetic property of steel to induce electric current in the pickups.
Interesting comment in the article:
And people quit electric guitars more often than acoustic ones, he said, because of the pain factor: Steel strings hurt delicate hands.
I find the comment somewhat contradicts reality. I play my nylon-string guitar once in a while and I find the strings hurt a bit. Nylon strings are significantly larger diameter than their steel counterparts, and being usually on acoustic guitars, are higher above the frets so need to be pressed harder (than would be on an electric guitar).
On steel-stringed acoustic guitars the strings are usually several sizes larger diameter than the corresponding electric guitar string would be, hence also tighter, again generally need to be a bit higher above the frets, so more pressure and they hurt more.
One of the reasons I got into mostly only playing electric guitar is that the strings hurt the least of all other guitar options because you can use the thinnest possible strings. I didn't say thin strings sound better, just hurt less. If finger pain is a market issue then guitar companies should advertise and capitalize on electrics being easier for beginners, and put thin strings on beginner guitars. Beginners care more about ease of learning than string sound quality.
I don't teach, but I recommend people stop for the day if it hurts, maybe press less hard. Finger pain generally subsides after a week or two of regular practice.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Wednesday November 23 2016, @08:01PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @09:03PM
It's pretty easy to pick up an acoustic electric guitar and learn a few chords and sing some old pop songs. That won't sell any tickets but your family (in the next room) will at least be satisfied that you've got your hobby.
With an electric guitar, you need to be able to play some lead guitar licks, and the most basic (the old Chuck Berry ones) requires building up strength and callouses in the ring finger of the left hand. And if you haven't played for awhile, you can't play them any more.