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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @02:19PM
Sadly most "music" is now created by producers in the studio for "pop stars" who are "performers" (aka lipsync artists in concert) rather than by the performance of actual musicians. Also schools cutting or eliminating funding for arts programs reduces the number of future musicians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @03:04PM
But I thought people who took arts/music/lit/etc classes deserved to die in a gutter from starvation because they chose a degree with no career parth.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Wednesday November 23 2016, @03:19PM
Not really, the issue is that we have such a massive gap in wealth that that's a reasonable possibility these days.
Artists should be able to work a job to be able to cover their bills without having to pull a massive amount of overtime as is the status quo for minimum wage jobs. Allowing the workers to be guaranteed some sort of reasonable living wage would allow people to spend their freetime working on their music career. If it pans out, then they do really well, if not, then it's just a hobby that enriches society in general.
This is just another case of wealthy people stealing from people who can't afford to bribe politicians.
Even without reducing the theft, we could still afford to do that, if we stopped releasing people from prison without providing appropriate support, stopped starting stupid wars that we then have to finance. The money we spend on those things alone would go most of the way towards solving these sorts of problems.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Wednesday November 23 2016, @03:59PM
You then turn around and post, four minutes later [soylentnews.org]:
It usually doesn't diminish so much as our time and willingness to change. Take the trolls around here who are basically permanently ignorant and incapable of breaking out of their boxes to learn anything new or do any sort of actual thinking.
You could always start with the Francis filter which somehow turns musicians' need for free time into a litany of the woes of society.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @05:12PM
Artists should be able to work a job to be able to cover their bills without having to pull a massive amount of overtime...
Says fucking who?
What the fuck sense of entitlement is THAT?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday November 23 2016, @06:37PM
Real artists happen to be people. Let's rephrase.
> People should be able to work a job to be able to cover their bills without having to pull a massive amount of overtime...
Is asking for a living wage really feeling entitled?
(Score: 1) by Arik on Wednesday November 23 2016, @08:43PM
Well let's break that down. Why do you think you should get a wage?
Is it because someone finds your work valuable enough to pay this much for your time?
Or is it because you think the world owes you a 'living wage?'
If the latter, then you're entitled. And spoiled.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday November 23 2016, @08:53PM
That would be because someone who needs help should be paying for it. And a country which sees itself as rich and civilized shouldn't be setup in such a way that people can be given wages for their labor which are insufficient to maintain a decent standard of living.
Granted, slavery and exploitation have always existed.
But economists are pretty clear that, when people do not get living wages, all of us pay to support them with our taxes. So not having a minimum wage at a living wage level means that we socialize the salaries of the poorest while their employers pocket the profits.
A "living" minimum wage is anti-socialist !
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @10:03PM
Your analysis, while superficially attractive, is incomplete.
You have three classes of people on the receiving side in this analysis, and two on the giving side (really more, but we can keep this fairly simple).
On the receiving side you have those who have skills or abilities for which people would gladly pay them more than a living wage, you have those who are fundamentally, constitutionally indigent and could not hold down any kind of job, and you have those who could hold down a job - but never produce enough value to merit their employment at what you'd consider a living wage.
On the giving side you have private sector employers (who demand, on some level, value for money) and the noncommercial sector (mostly government, but you could include some charities in here).
The fundamentally unemployable are always going to be there. Whether they are currently hospitalised, basically paralysed, brain dead, or whatever the reason may be, you can't wish them out of existence, so we can agree that they will be the inevitable recipients of largesse from the noncommercial sector, because the commercial sector has no fiscally founded interest in them.
The eminently employable are no big deal; they are desirable employees and can represent themselves usefully to employers in the interest of supporting themselves. Nothing to do there; moving on...
The open question is what happens with people who do not have what it takes to persuade the private sector to employ them at what you'd call a living wage.
If you just ban employment at less than what you think of as a living wage, you render these people unemployable in the private sector. As an act of charity or government generosity you might consider getting them employed but that fact does not magically make them more employable - you're just sponsoring their existence in pretty much the same way as you're doing with someone chained to a bed in a mental hospital.
Conversely, if you go completely hands-off, you doom them to starvation regardless of what wages they might earn, because they can't earn enough. That's their limitation.
So what are you left with? You could scale down their support in a number of ways, essentially subsidising their employment (EIC is an example of this) but you are in no position to magically require the private sector to pay them, net, more than they're worth.
So whenever you claim an imperative for a living wage, make sure that you explain what you want to do with those people whom your proposed living wage renders unemployable, otherwise you're turning your back on them as surely as Daddy warbucks.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday November 23 2016, @11:05PM
What you read is not what I wrote.
Companies who need help should not be allowed to pay people a wage below a certain level, because what that means is that you and me end up picking up the rest of the tab. Either the company needs the help, and they do spend enough money, or they can't afford the minimum wage, and they don't hire. That's already true anywhere there is a minimum wage, but in the US the minimum wage is not high enough to live independently on. The employers do not get to chose to pay anyone below that level, regardless of how menial the task is that they need help with.
With proper enforcement of the law, those you believe shouldn't make a living wage from their qualifications fall into two categories: unemployed or self-sustaining. Wait! You said they can't be valued high enough, what am I smoking? Well, that trash ain't gonna empty itself, and the CFO has better things to do for his per hour.
The problem with your reasoning is that it includes a "what they're worth" value which is what employers won't go over, not a "how much does this need to be done" value.
The government can train the unemployed, and assist the physically/mentally unemployable. But anyone who want to shrink the government and their taxes, has to admit that someone who has a job, along with all the constraints and obligations it implies, needs to be paid enough to sustain themselves without needing extra handouts. The government shouldn't be allowing companies to both dodge taxes and create working poor, because everyone's gonna pay for that, in taxes or in policing.
Whether you call yourself civilized, christian, or just plain "not an exploitative asshole", it's kind of logical.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24 2016, @12:58AM
I didn't directly respond to what you wrote. I offered a more complete analysis. (Far from exhaustive, but a lot better.) But OK, let's try this again.
Right. And if these people aren't employed at all, we pick up the whole tab. Hm. Some of the tab ... the whole tab. Which would I rather pay? I think I'd like to pay part of it, yup.
You're assuming great inelasticity in the labour market - an assumption that does not hold water in unskilled, low paid environments. There are some areas where the inelasticity is big, and those people make bank. For example, working for a sewage plant. Not a lot of people want to, and so the ones who do, make a lot of money (for their level of education). The reality is that big corporations will cheerfully buy robots, review their procedures and generally do any damn thing they can to reduce their hiring, even if it means that they have to hire one highly paid guy instead of five minimum wage people. If they genuinely need the job done, they'll cut that hiring price every damn time, every way they can. It's not even about being able to afford minimum wage - you're misinterpreting how they calculate this. They're interested in justifying, not affording. Can they justify hiring some warm bodies at minimum wage? Then there they go. If not? No deal.
Yes. That is the definition of a minimum wage. You're not supposed to hire people for less. I think most of us got that. We also know that the US federal minimum wage does not reach, at full time, the US poverty level for a single earner supporting a family of four. That is true.
What is not clear at this stage is whether we will be better off by simply declaring that anybody who cannot justify a higher wage, must sit on the unemployment line, and that the higher wage must be, approximately $15/hour (or whatever your magic number is). There is a substantial societal cost to having people sitting around with their thumbs up their butts. And, to take your position above, we have to pay for ALL their needs, not just top off what they are being paid.
So your logic is that we're going to need so damn many (necessarily overpriced) janitors that we'll have janitorially-mandated welfare?
This isn't reality. We already know from looking at urban employment that companies, engineers, accountants, economists are very good at figuring out how to use fewer people. If I were in charge of a janitorial crew, and I could hire one smart, reliable, efficient girl for $40/hr to replace five people at $15/hr, I'd do it in a hot minute, even if I had to buy $50,000 worth of equipment to enable her to be that efficient. It'd pay for itself in under a year.
The proof of this is that the USA has had an ever-increasing efficiency of labour, with an ever-decreasing efficiency of capital application. We're trading off labour with capital, because labour in the USA is so damn expensive as a way of getting things done, and the returns on the investment of capital are crystal clear.
They're two sides of the same coin. The value of the labour is justifiable in terms of how much the work needs doing, and how willing people are to do it. Supply and demand. People really, really, really need sewage treatment, and so sewage workers get high pay for doing a literally shitty job. These days chimney cleaning does not involve sending kids up chimneys, it's both less hazardous and cheaper to use other techniques - so we do.
No, I need to admit no such thing. Some people need lots of support. I'm quite comfortable with the idea that many people need a little support, and plenty of people require effectively no support. Requiring the government to provide total support to anybody who can't meet some arbitrary bar of employability doesn't shrink the government one iota; it does the opposite.
Working poor are a substantially lesser burden on society than idle poor. I'm not in favour of tax evasion, but if a government is hellbent on creating such a heinously complex taxation and regulatory structure that tax avoidance is easy to the tune of trillions? That will in no way be solved by raising the minimum wage to the point that you're just converting the working poor to the idle poor. More so because you're adding more justification to the companies to sink their money into capital expenditures that they can write off over time, to reduce their long term labour costs. You're actually working hard to justify unemployment, in terms of the pressures generated by the government on business.
I can see how you get to your point of view, but alas it's not based on a broad, educated view of the situation.
Please, study some economics. It's actually an interesting field - you can think of it as the study of the law of unintended consequences, as they pertain to government. And this is, alas, one of the key areas where people moralise without realising what future they are wishing for.
I hope my brief outline of some of the key factors helps you make sense of the field.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24 2016, @10:06PM
labour in the USA is so damn expensive
President-elect Donald Trump said of the $7.25 per hour federal minimum wage, "you have to have something that you can live on." But perhaps real Republicans can talk sense into him. How about repealing the 13th Amendment too?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @03:53AM
Until recently, that rugged bastion of cutthroat capitalism and pitiless exploitation of the workers, Germany, didn't even have a minimum wage.
Oh, wait, that's not right. They have a robust social welfare system, with comprehensive benefits. They also have a strong industrial economy in which they produce premium products that the rest of the world lines up to buy. They have quite the reputation for reining in large corporations, and a healthy, expansive small enterprise ecosystem, and they built it all ... without minimum wages.
And why did they introduce minimum wages? To save the hapless orphans shivering on the streets?
No, basically as a political sop to pressure groups.
So take your irrelevant nonsense and break it over reality's knee.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Thursday November 24 2016, @05:32AM
Yes, to a point you're right, given a socialist welfare state, the state winds up in one way or another subsidizing those who aren't earning enough.
But past that fact, you've got it exactly reversed. It's not the state socializing the employer here, it's more like the employer subsidizing the state in fact. Think about it. If this person wasn't earning some income honestly, the state would then wind up paying MORE, not less, to support them.
So what do you do when you raise the minimum wage? You simply prohibit the employment of that person, and as a result the state pays the whole cost, rather than only part of it. Plus that person, instead of going to work every day and feeling relatively good about at least somewhat supporting herself, well now she's sitting home idle all day, thinking about how much she sucks, getting depressed and desperate, more likely to commit crimes or to harm herself.
There's nothing good here, nothing positive, it's a net loss for society.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday November 28 2016, @08:52AM
> It's not the state socializing the employer here, it's more like the employer subsidizing the state in fact. Think about it.
> If this person wasn't earning some income honestly, the state would then wind up paying MORE, not less, to support them.
Holly logical fallacy Batman! Quick, to the Poe-Mobile, before we all thank employers for paying us a whole dollar an hour to prevent the state from having to find that dollar in the taxes we don't pay!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @10:25PM
Holy cow buddy, something happened to your font, you should really look into that.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Thursday November 24 2016, @02:58AM
Life depends on free sunlight. It is not spoiled and entitled for plants to collect sunshine.
Since massive population increase and thousands of years of technological advancement have made hunter-gatherer living impossible to do on a large scale-- there simply isn't enough wilderness for several billion people to go hunting for all their food-- I rather think that, yes, civilization does owe people some basic needs. Real shitty to demean someone for "mooching", when opportunity is lacking because society has expanded into all available territory and niches. There are no longer any wide empty spaces for young men to go West or any other direction to build a life from scratch.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Thursday November 24 2016, @05:26AM
But it would be if they expected someone else to go collect their daily allocation of sunlight and process it for them.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Francis on Thursday November 24 2016, @04:26AM
If they didn't find my time, or any other worker's time valuable, they wouldn't be providing work.
I'm not really sure how that concept is so hard to understand. Jobs aren't created out of the goodness of the employers heart, they're provided because they want to profit off the work. Cases where an employer can't afford to pay a living wage for the work are few and far between. Those are mostly jobs that are marching towards either obsolescence or being off-shored, in neither case does that situation typically last indefinitely.
Pay people the money they've earned and problems like this go away. If people want to spend their free time pursuing the arts, they should be able to do so rather than become homeless because they're only working one job.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday November 24 2016, @04:42AM
C'mon, Francis! Man up!
I'm not really sure . . .
Be sure! Your opponents are Republicans (or, former Republican, maybe returning Republicans) with no real understanding of 1. economics, 2. social justice (obvious, since they mock people who believe in justice with their SJW shibboleth), and 3. art. So don't just say you don't know why they don't get it: they don't get it because they are idiots, morons, selfish libertarian inclined anti-social assholes! Make this clear to them! (Another helpful hint from your nemesis and greatest critic, ari.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24 2016, @04:49AM
LOL, and you expect to be taken seriously.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24 2016, @04:59AM
You think aristarchus wants to be taken seriously? Medic! Medic! Stat! AC with a hook imbedded in his cheek! Repeat: Medics please report! Trolling victim needs assistance!
(Score: 1) by Arik on Thursday November 24 2016, @05:36AM
Exactly.
"Cases where an employer can't afford to pay a living wage for the work are few and far between."
Depending on your definition of 'living wage' (assuming you have one, for many it's more of just a sound that stops thinking) that might be true. So what? Regardless of how many or how few they are, the question is simply whether they are better off being allowed to work and improve themselves, or whether you think it's better to mandate unemployment and welfare for them instead.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @04:20PM
Pay for your own damn kid's education.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @08:47PM
I don't have kids but my taxes are paying for every kid's education.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24 2016, @07:49AM
Here, let me cut your balls/ovaries off you, man/woman! You are a total waste as a human being if you do not procreate! No, not quite right, you pathetic waste of humanity with no fruit of your loins, it is not that you did not procreate, but that you begrudge the children of those who did? Oh, Man, did you not see the movie "Children of the Corn"? No? OK, neither did I. But the point still stands. Are you willing to contribute to the continued existence of humanity, by funding the education of children, even if these children are not genetically related to you, or will you suck yourself into your own self which is probably why you could not have children in the first place, you pathetic fucker. (Many levels to that one there, there is.) So, would you rather pay for the education of the spawn of those who do not share your twisted property-rights view of child-bearing, or have them wandering around like wild savages, eyeing your stash of Soylent, Medical Supplies, and Armaments? Which would you prefer, you sorry excuse for a sterile and bitter homo sapiens. Yes, I just called you "homo", you homo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24 2016, @07:32PM
You are quite amusing. What does it matter if humankind continues or not? We do nothing worthwhile, and generally spend most of our time trying to kill each other over superstition or property, or letting millions die needlessly by denying them food, medicine and clean water because no one considers them to be "contributors". I don't mind my taxes paying for the education of "the masses", any more than I do to paying for infrastructure, but don't try to shine on the "nobility of man" or vent your spleen on people that don't share your foul, mindless ranting. BTW, many of us choose not to breed and instead spend our time and earnings/investments doing the things we want to do, not raising yet another generation of humans to perpetuate a mindless cycle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @10:40AM
BTW, many of us choose not to breed and instead spend our time and earnings/investments doing the things we want to do, not raising yet another generation of humans to perpetuate a mindless cycle.
Solipcistic DINK! You probably have two dogs, don't you? It is not your time, or your earnings. You are nothing. Mindless egoistic scum of the universe. What difference would it make if you never existed? Oh, then you would not have been able to do the things you want to do! How tragic! For the rest of us, NOT! We're coming for your capital gains, Chuck!
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 25 2016, @08:57PM
Ahhh, you have figured out that there is no meaning to life, have you? You're saying you're a nihilist? Yet you season this with a curious dash of moralizing, saying that humanity has done a lot of evil things, as if there's something that does matter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 27 2016, @02:48AM
No, over my almost 70 years, I've figured out that, as a species, we have chosen to work against rather than with each other. I feel compassion for the thousands that die daily due to their perceived worthlessness. I have no idea if life has any meaning or not, and no one else does, either. It is possible to have opinions about it (see anon above), but no, I do not believe that anyone has ever shown any definitive proof that there is a reason for humankind to be here, and humankind has certainly demonstrated it would rather destroy those it does not agree with rather than "live and let live" or practice tolerance/co-operation (again, see anon above). My opinion is that it has no meaning, that we are biological accidents that climbed out of the ooze and survived, but that is just my opinion. I believe that we could do great things if we worked together, but I also believe that will never happen, so I choose to make the best of life with my friends and family. And anyone who comes after my capital gains will be sadly disappointed, as my retirement investments should (statistically) run out about the same time I do. I do like your thinking, though. I imagine you'd be an interesting fellow to split a bottle of wine and some conversation with.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday November 27 2016, @04:59AM
A beer with me? Why, thank you! I do enjoy rabbiting on about this stuff.
"What is the meaning of life?", "why do we exist?", and variations are the age old questions of philosophy. Perhaps the nihilist answer that life has no meaning is correct. But I find that overly simplistic. I also don't buy the line of thought that this is unanswerable, and will forever be a mystery. The SF novel The Left Hand of Darkness explored this question, and came down on the unanswerable side.
The Christian mechanistic system view is that life is a test to sort good souls from evil souls. Judaism and Islam have similar views. The universe is then a system created by God for this purpose of sorting. What one can ask of any system is what is the purpose of it? What is all this sorting for? Setting aside the problem that if God is omniscient, He has no need to boot up a universe to sort souls out, He already knows which ones are good and evil, I gather that the answer for why sort good from evil is so that the evil souls can be permanently and utterly destroyed, and the good souls can then frolic joyfully for all eternity in some sort of Heaven or new superior universe built to replace the existing one after God ends it. This of course only leads to further questions about the purpose of having eternal joy in a Better Place, and what this Plan is for, and so on.
And, why does God exist at all? What is this being trying to do? Play games with Himself? The Christian mystical view, that no one knows or can know the Purpose of God, is a cop out.
Most people are too close to take an objective look. To aliens, it would probably be blindingly obvious that these monotheistic religions are products of human prejudice and the social customs of the times they arose. To wit, what's with the desire to have a Big Man, Father Knows Best sort of God who is in charge of everything and knows everything, willing to be the Perfect Leader that so many humans pine for? King of Heaven and the Universe and all that. Could there be a Heaven and no God at all? Sure! Or maybe the universe is run by a triumvirate, or a council or congress of equals. Why Heaven should basically be a primitive, rigid hierarchy, as if God is the one and only 5-star (or 6 or 7 star?) General who has never lost a battle, marshaling and drilling the troops for the day Armageddon comes, seems rooted in Iron Age conceptions of government and life, rather than any reasoning about how the universe might be organized, if at all.
Life is most curious. We value equality, fair dealing, justice, property rights, and so forth, for each other. Yet we depend utterly upon other life forms for our continued existence, and most of the time think nothing of taking the resources other life forms have carefully harvested from the environment. All the time, animals murder plants and other animals and steal and consume everything they have. Isn't that evil? Selfish? But we cleverly rationalize this away. Animals eating plants has been going on for billions of years, with these two basic strategies for obtaining resources and energy evolving ever more complicated, sophisticated, and fascinating mutual dependencies. If the symbiotic relationship between plants and animals was not superior to a plants only kind of world, seems animals probably would have died out shortly after evolving, every single time. How that lead to current conditions, in which altruism and such notions as justice even exist, is a mystery that may take us ages to work out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @08:57PM
Sadly most "music" is now created by producers in the studio for "pop stars" who are "performers" (aka lipsync artists in concert) rather than by the performance of actual musicians.
You forgot the part where they are charging $18.98 for the CD which has at most one good song, so the studio executives can get their hookers 'n blow
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @02:40PM
> Seems Fender didn't get the memo: the music of the future is hip-hop and autotuners.
Indeed. As music budgets get cut, businesses push hip-hop and rap because then they don't need to hire or manage musicians. All they need is an auto-tuner, a drum machine, and someone willing to speak into the auto-tuner while gesticulating. The machines will even adjust rhythm. Machines don't ask for anything and won't ever unionize, so it's a corporate dream to push hip-hop or rap instead of music. A large percentage of the public will accept whatever sounds are pushed at them long enough during their formative years and won't venture off of the reservation.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday November 23 2016, @09:24PM
the music of the future is hip-hop
I heard that about disco back in the '70s. Better polish that crystal ball a little better.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Snotnose on Wednesday November 23 2016, @02:44PM
Bundle a copy of Rocksmith with every guitar, makes learning fun.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by rcamera on Wednesday November 23 2016, @03:03PM
and to make rocksmith fun(ner), get a splitter (mxr m80 pedal works like a charm for the bass...), and play through your own amp along with the game. that lets you add your own effects MUCH better than the game, and gets rid of the nasty lag if you're hooked up through hdmi.
/* no comment */
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday November 23 2016, @11:47PM
For me, HDMI is fine, but if you're running a digital signal to your audio receiver, stop it and use analog. It's a *huge* difference, on consoles at least.
(Score: 2) by damnbunni on Thursday November 24 2016, @06:08PM
If you're running audio over HDMI, it ain't analog.
Most people don't have a 'receiver'. They just have their console plugged into a TV.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Thursday November 24 2016, @07:56PM
Well that's silly, they pretty much all sound awful. :)
Headphones from the console analog out would probably be the next best bet. It's a far better learning tool without the lag.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by blackhawk on Wednesday November 23 2016, @03:35PM
I love music, but I can't read it for shit. I don't understand all the modes, can't really sing, and don't know theory worth a damn...but...
bless you Rocksmith, you take all that away and let me just groove away on my bass and play songs I love without having to learn some arcane lettering / numbering / music system.
I never wanted anything more from music than being able to play some songs I loved. Music demanded I learn a massive amount of skills that don't come that easy to people who were skipped over initially. My earliest memories of music were being canned for not singing in tune, despite not being told what tune was or how to sing in it.
It's hard to recover from being canned several times for not understanding music well enough, despite never receiving any education in it (I moved a lot as a child).
Rocksmith allows me to bypass all that and just take a swipe at playing songs I love. It's fucking awesome. It's how music should have been from the start. I can learn all the modes now if I want, now I have a love for music.
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Wednesday November 23 2016, @02:45PM
I never cared for musical instruments when I was a child. My parents tried to get me to learn piano but I was too easily distracted and just didn't care. They gave up after a few months of classes.
However, as an adult, I picked up the piano again out of my own desire to learn. Admittedly, my life doesn't allow consistent practice every day which is the biggest roadblock to progress. And I suppose my ability to learn a completely alien skill has somewhat diminished over the years. But I'm genuinely interested in learning for intrinsic reasons and making progress. So it's not too late for those teens and I don't think the guitar is going anywhere. Maybe their shareholders won't be pleased, but Fender as a company will be around for a while.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday November 23 2016, @03:23PM
It usually doesn't diminish so much as our time and willingness to change. Take the trolls around here who are basically permanently ignorant and incapable of breaking out of their boxes to learn anything new or do any sort of actual thinking.
It's both sad and completely avoidable. Just choose to be curious about something every day. It doesn't have to be something big, even just wondering why they refer to being in line in the US and on line in the UK and vice versa pushes you in that direction, even if you never get a satisfactory answer for the difference.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by gidds on Wednesday November 23 2016, @05:53PM
Well said.
[gets on soapbox]
There are several factors in being able to play, and technical ability is only one. (It can be the one that takes the most practice, but it's probably not really the most important.)
I reckon that the most important tools that any musician has are his or her ears. Not fingers, or mouth, or whatever. You need to listen to yourself and the sound you're making, so that you get a feedback loop. (That's how you improve, whatever level you're at.) It's also valuable to listen to other people — absolutely vital if you're playing together, but also a useful source of ideas even if not.
Perhaps the most subtle skill is a feel for the music; and that's probably the hardest to learn if you don't have it. But I think most people do — for the sort of music they enjoy, anyway. If you can hum, sing, or whistle to yourself, then you probably have enough of it to be going on with!
I reckon that performing music is really a three-way compromise between:
Better to play something very simple, if it fits the piece and you play it well, than something more complex without feeling (especially if it sounds like you're having to work at it).
There. That's my theory about music :-)
One of the problems with music teaching IME is that too often it's only about regurgitating pre-written music. While that's a very useful skill, and can be very important, it's NOT what music's really about, and it often doesn't teach you anything about the feel. Improvising is also very important, as is playing by ear, playing with other people, and making stuff up.
So if you've ever wanted to start learning an instrument, or to sing, or whatever, go for it! It really is never too late. You won't become a master immediately, but don't let that put you off. If you can look beyond the notes, and enjoy what you do, then it'll be worth it!
[sig redacted]
(Score: 2) by black6host on Wednesday November 23 2016, @09:06PM
Having a good ear will definitely go a long way towards becoming better. One thing I'd advise students of the musical arts is to play with others. As often as you can. You may be very good playing by yourself but that doesn't teach you to feel the rhythm and stay in time. Even playing to recordings is no substitute. Timing and rhythm can change when playing live and one needs to be able to not be thrown off guard and be able to flow with others. Otherwise you can get lost and that throws others off.
If I'm playing with just a vocalist (I play guitar) I follow the vocalist. I certainly try to keep a steady rhythm going but if the vocalist changes tempo, not on purpose and usually not by much, I follow and stay in sync. Even if it isn't how it was supposed to go.
Anyway, just my two cents but I can't tell you how much my rhythm improved once I started playing with other musicians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @04:30PM
Not exactly sure why, but I can sleep a lot better after practicing my digital piano for an hour.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday November 23 2016, @09:27PM
I don't think the guitar is going anywhere.
They said that about the clarinet in the forties. The only two bands I've heard using that instrument in the last half century is Supertramp and the Beatles.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday November 23 2016, @02:47PM
Every quitter hurts.
They already bought the guitar...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by fadrian on Wednesday November 23 2016, @03:01PM
Which swells the used market which shrinks the market for new guitars.
That is all.
(Score: 2) by rcamera on Wednesday November 23 2016, @03:10PM
which is great for people with a serious case of GAS (guitar acquisition syndrome) that are willing to buy second-hand. unfortunately, most people over-value their entry-level instruments when they sell. i was lucky enough to get an "daisy rock" bass for my kid for about $25, which sounded (and looked) fantastic after a little cleanup.
/* no comment */
(Score: 2) by fadrian on Wednesday November 23 2016, @08:28PM
Yeah, the budget stuff works pretty well, as long as you swap out the tuners and bridge, so it stays in tune, and the pickups so it will sound OK.
That is all.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday November 23 2016, @10:24PM
A cheap guitar with crappy action is, IMO, the best guitar to start on. If you can get good enough you can sound OK on a piece of shit, you'll sound fantastic on a quality instrument.
Prices of guitars have plummeted since I got my first one in 1965, a cheap Japanese electric. At the time, a Strat was two grand, and that was when a candy bar was a nickle and a gallon of gas was 20¢. Now they're more like $200, although some folks tell me the 1960s versions sound and play better (I don't know first hand). I bought a brand new Epiphone bass about ten years ago for $80 (it was on closeout at the record store my daughter worked at).
Those companies ripped you off big time for electronics back then. A fuzzbox in any music store was $200, I made my own out of broken transistor radios and 50¢ worth of parts. I was pretty popular among other guitarists my age!
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:33AM
Yeah, they probably sound like crap *because* they're cheaper. You can still get a good Stratocaster -- and it'll still cost around two grand. But they have many, many models and they're willing to slap that name on lower quality parts these days. So if you want the Stratocaster design manufactured from crap wood in Chinese factories, you can get it for $300. Otherwise they're still around two grand, although with inflation that still makes them a hell of a lot cheaper I guess.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @04:14PM
A guy with a serious guitar hobby, like a golfer or a bicyclist, tends to buy thousands of dollars of equipment of their lifetime.
A quitter will take that $150 guitar and sell it, then turn to video games.
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Wednesday November 23 2016, @04:48PM
Yup. I knew when I was 17 that I was no John Entwhistle or Jack Cassidy, but I still play my old Gibson EB-3 and other basses in impromptu settings. Over the years I added a Fender, a Rick, and god only knows how many amps, mixers, and pedal gadgets.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ilPapa on Wednesday November 23 2016, @02:49PM
The word "stagnant" when used to describe business or economies is bullshit. We've been so used to ceaseless growth that a $6billion industry sees something wrong because it's not a $7billion industry.
It's intellectually lazy.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Ramze on Wednesday November 23 2016, @03:23PM
Bingo! Companies, and by extension, the stock market are used to continuous growth through economies of scale, cheaper fixed costs as property/plant/equipment is paid for, cheaper variable costs as manufacturing uses cheaper materials and/or finds cheaper labor, and also through expansion into new markets.
BUT, sooner or later, demand plateaus and all methods of growth slow. This pisses off stock holders who bought stock to see the value rise over time by 7% or more per year.... which is a ridiculous and unsustainable growth rate.
I imagine the entire NYSE as sort of an economic version of the Roman Empire. Growth through expansion and conquering new territory, then eventual collapse when there's no new areas to financially plunder and growth drops to near zero.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RedGreen on Wednesday November 23 2016, @04:23PM
"I imagine the entire NYSE as sort of an economic version of the Roman Empire."
I see it as Las Vegas east rolling the dice with people's pension money on the line.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DECbot on Wednesday November 23 2016, @02:50PM
The same happened to brass instruments when Big Band fell out of favor and to orchestral instruments when classical gave way to brass band. Now music is evolving to computer produced and there is no merit to a live instrumental performance. We all recall a time when it was shameful to performing to a soundtrack... but not so with the new stuff coming from the big studios. I just wish there were more bands like this [youtube.com] coming to the States.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Wednesday November 23 2016, @06:28PM
I picked up an electric guitar earlier this year and have been making headway with it, though I haven't played in a couple weeks because I'm in the middle of a move. Played some on an accoustic back in college and brass instruments before that.
I'm not great yet, but my biggest problem is finding people I want to play with. Everyone I know that does play plays radically different types of music, and it's very hard to find a drummer. I probably have what it takes to start a one-man ska band, but ska is dead, and it'd be tricky to play the guitar and a trumpet at the same time. On the "made it" scene, fewer and fewer bands tour anymore, and when they do, it's typically just along a single coast, maybe both. European tours appear to also be a pretty common thing, but that doesn't do much for me. Maybe it's just that music is dead, at least, in the US.
At any rate, I play for myself, and that's good enough for now.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by rcamera on Wednesday November 23 2016, @02:59PM
I was very excited when I learned that my office was moving to 48th street in Manhattan (in the old "music district"). I had bought my lovely Fender bass just a year or two earlier at Rudy's on the same block as the new office, and was looking forward to sneaking off once in a while to play with their toys during lunch. I was very interested in the T-Bucket acoustic model, and had played around with one at Rudy's, and even made an offer to purchase for 90% of retail (which they refused). So, the week before my office move, I happen to walk down 48th - only to find that the shop had been replaced with a t-shirt/souvenir shop.
In the past 5 years, the "music district" has lost every single shop (except for an accordion shop). Sam Ash moved to 34th st in 2012, Colony Records closed about 2 years ago (was Build-a-Bear last time I walked by), Rudy's is gone since 2015. There is literally no music district in NYC anymore.
I've done my share of keeping Fender in business in the past 5 years - between guitar and bass amps (Rumble, Bronco, Mustang), a few (Squire) strats, (Squire) P-Bass, American J-Bass, CB series acoustic Bass, etc.
/* no comment */
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @07:13PM
Guitar Center in the 'burbs probably had a hand in driving many mom and pop music stores out of business. Meanwhile, the market for acoustic pianos keeps declining, although maybe well-to-do Chinese immigrants shopping for their kids could prop it up for awhile.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @03:11PM
And who starts out to be small?
No thanks. I'll keep my soul.
And you can sell your guitars to autotune masters.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @04:56PM
*you'll keep having no soul
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday November 23 2016, @03:17PM
I still have my guitar in my room, but I never play it anymore. I've forgotten pretty much everything, which isn't to say I was ever any good anyway. I bought the thing used and on sale pretty cheap, and it's a decent instrument as far as my untrained eyes and tonedeaf ears can tell. It's a Schecter, though, so sorry, Fender. I'm sure the Stratocaster is a pretty good instrument as well. Used to use JACK as my effects box and had fairly decent desktop speakers.
That “playstation” controller (XBox, Playstation, Wii, who cares, they're all “playstation”) was what motivated me to give it a try. I even changed my Rock Band character's instrument to roughly match the color and finish.
Sort of lost access to cannabis and never really found a way to get it again, and the world turned gray as it had been before. Not even sepia-tone! Just gray.
Almost completely forgot that the guitar in my room ever did anything other than collect dust. The things I used to be able to do.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday November 23 2016, @03:24PM
No doubt Leo Fender was a pioneer, but the company that bears his name today is just another big business. They sell a name, they sell advertising, for the most part they buy their instruments cheap from overseas. And guess what? You can easily bypass them and buy from their supplier these days, if that's what you want. And if you're looking for higher quality American made instruments there are lots of smaller companies and independent luthiers to choose from as well.
As to dreams of fame... well if that's your motivation obviously you aren't going to be much of a musician, whether you find it easy to get a guitar or not doesn't matter when you'll never learn to play it.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @03:51PM
EVERY young guitarist is motivated by some small part by the promise of groupies. Either they get a taste or they push onward by a love of music.
This could easily be the story Gibson, or Schecter , or Peavey; but the fact of the matter is once you graduate from your Squire II, musical instruments are over-valued and over-priced- I got a custom guitar built to my specification for far less than any of the premium builds.
And fact of the matter we are moving away from musical literacy. When growing up, every home aspired to a piano. That doesn't happen anymore. Knowing how to construct a chord is as much in the arcane arts as cooking for yourself.
So it goes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @05:21PM
"So it goes."
Tralfamadorian?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @08:56PM
Yes, but not as a 6 billion dollar business.
Same deal with Gibson and Martin, etc. Sort of the same as Budweiser and Miller and company. The mass manufacture instruments are not improving their quality to match their prices anymore. Pretty much every mass-produced guitar you buy today, even the 5000+ dollar 'custom' ones doesn't even come with a free setup (fret level, action adjustment, etc required to ensure a guitar plays in tune.) Hell, many of them don't even have the fret edged smoothed off so they won't cut up your fingers. Yet still hundreds of thousands to millions of people are buying them on brand identity. Nowadays however there is a huge diversity of local instrument builders and relic-ers (some of the relics are crap and cost in the same range as custom shop instruments, with the same or in some cases worse setup issues) producing instruments, either from scratch (aside from tuners and other complicated mechanical parts. Pickups can be bought or built) or from kits (notably Allparts, who sells licensed finished and unfinished reproduction fender bodies for people who don't want to design and/or carve their own.
Much like microbreweries took business away from the national brewers as legal restrictions were lifted from their post-Prohibition levels, so too has guitarmaking become a small business opportunity of bespoke manufacture due in large part to the reduction in tool costs and the improved precision of available tools and design blueprints (for those using or modifying a stock design.)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @03:44PM
When I was a child, I really wanted to learn how to play an instrument. My mother gave lessons on piano and violin early on life but I never liked playing them much so she eventually gave up. In the third grade, they were accepting signups for music lessons at school so I came home and asked her if I could sign up. She was delighted and said, "Of course!." She was absolutely happy that I was interested in playing an instrument again and I was happy my mother was not going to be my teacher. "Just pick any instrument," she said.
"Drums."
"Except the drums."
"Trumpet."
"Hmm that could be nice. You know, why don't you try the French Horn"
"What's that? No, I think the trumpet."
"How about you try the French Horn for a month? If you don't like it, you can play the trumpet."
"Ok, fine" I said. By 8 years old, I knew it was pointless to argue with her,
A month goes by...
"Mom, I hate this. It's a stupid instrument. Can I play the trumpet now?"
"No, sorry we already bought the French Horn."
After 6 years of taking music lessons I hated, playing in orchestras she signed me up for, and hours of arguments over daily practice times, she finally gave up and let me quit. By that time, any desire to play music had been ground into dust by being forced to play an instrument I never chose and that also happens to be the second lamest instrument ever made (well, at least I wasn't the poor bastard with the Tuba). Years later she asked me why I hated the French Horn. I simply replied, "Seriously mom, what 8-year old says, "Oh WOW! I really want to the play the French Horn".
My younger brother got to play the drums and my parents loved that fact that he loved music. After I came home from college, my brother was still in high school and was getting quite good. Whenever they would introduce us to people they knew, they would always know my brother, "the drummer." They would ask me what instrument I played. My parents would start to speak and I would interrupt them, "Oh I don't play anything. I was never very interested in music." It was therapeutic I think. My mother got the message after a while.
My wife asked me why I do not just say, "I played French Horn when I was younger." I told her it was just something I prefer not to think about. The older I get, the more I realize that we never forget but we need to learn to forgive. I forgave my parents but it does not mean I am willing to revisit it.
This post has nothing to do with the article but it felt good to articulate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @04:15PM
When I was much younger, Yamaha had come out with thin shelled mahogany drums, and the sound was enough to make me jizz.
"Mom, I wanna play drums."
"Oh, I don't think so."
"Mooommmm, I wanna play drums."
We visited a music store, and the demonstration guy stood in the middle of the bass drum without any stress to the shell, and I was even further in love with the kit.
"Mooooommmmm!"
We compromised on a second hand acoustic guitar, which I did make an earnest effort, but after a few years lost interest.
But if I had those drums when I was younger, I'd be revising the legacy of Billy Cobham by now.
*no one makes shells like that anymore*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 24 2016, @08:31AM
This post has nothing to do with the article but it felt good to articulate.
Imagine how much worse it would have been, if your mother let you take up the trumpet. She saved you, bro! You would have voted "Trump"!~ \\\
(Score: 3, Insightful) by iamjacksusername on Wednesday November 23 2016, @03:57PM
There are a lot more options these days for how to spend your free time. 50 years ago, if you wanted a hobby, you were limited by what the local shops stocked, by the awareness of hobbies out there and, if you were inclined to participate with other people, how many people in your local community might be interested.. Now, a person who is interested in steampunk poetry can find a large community of others who are also interested; 50 years ago, that person might have picked up the guitar because that is what you did if you wanted to find a community of people who might be interested in your poems ("song lyrics").
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @04:32PM
Full disclosure: I'm a composer/performer.
I play gigs for money. I sell albums. And as it happens, I am a pretty well-trained guitarist. I don't actually perform using the guitar; I've moved over to synthesis (I also had training on piano) but I live on both sides of this discussion.
Here follows my analysis:
Who the hell cares? Seriously? The guitar is a means to an end. The end is music. The guitar is an instrument. It is only one of a huge host of instruments, but it is not the be-all, end-all of anything. As for the tone it produces, I've done synthesis that made actual, money-gigging, international-moving guitarists think that I'd played guitar on those tracks.
The guitar is not unique, it is not magical, it's just another damn instrument.
And as for the people showing up for the gigs, what do they care? They're not there to perform a technique analysis (except for the beret-wearing snob everybody tries to pretend not to hate); they're there to rock out. Or chill out. Or whatever. They're there to experience the flow of music washing over them. If it comes from a guitar, or a synth, or a computer is substantially irrelevant compared to the music and the show.
Come to one of my gigs? I'll put on a show.
Fender: suck it up. Make good guitars and good amps and good pedals. Set up free music schools, sponsor great guitarists, and sponsor shows. Make live guitar something that is both admirable and accessible. Get as much market as you can.
But let's not pretend this is a calamity, or I'll have to break out my other instrument: a tiny, tiny violin.
(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.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rich on Wednesday November 23 2016, @06:20PM
I think there are two factors significant to Fender's issues:
1.) Reduced attention span in young people gets in the way of practicing
With all the sensory overload, a lot of youth simply don't have the mental endurance anymore to practice any given song. Combined with the ubiquity of EDM, they just go for looping snippets in their DAW of choice, even when they want to make music. Quicker gratification, more in line with mainstream tastes. That said, I know quite a few guys in local acts capable of top grade shredding. There were close to none of those when I was younger, and I don't doubt every single one could've made it big in the early 80s. In general, there's a lot, lot more guitar based music, at a much, much higher quality, than 25 years ago. It's as difficult to get a rehearsal room today as it ever was.
2.) Fender might not have a value proposition for the young players.
If a young person really was after a genuine Fender in the last years, it probably was because of the Telecaster in Nirvana. The Strat with its single coils is mostly relegated to "blues rocking" purposes in the public opinion. These days, the youth (at least those I know) goes for ESP, Jackson, or BC Rich, if they're heavier minded, or Ibanez for the more musically inclined. The entry level is well covered by sub-100$/EUR house-brand guitars of the big retailers, which have reached an amazing value/price ratio - their quality now is less limiting to expression than the player's abilities.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 23 2016, @10:45PM
Youtube is probably a big part of the acceleration of the learning curve. Back in the day guys would gather in basements and listen to hard rock vinyl records over and over to try to figure out just what the licks were. Then they had to figure out how to play them. Of course, the guitar players didn't make it easy by turning their backs to the audience when they were playing the hot part of their solos.
Now a lot of the stuff is right up there on youtube, in convenient bite size clips. Not just from touring band members, but from teachers and hobbyists who figured things out.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday November 23 2016, @10:58PM
Reduced attention span in young people
You think my generation's attention spans were any better when we were young?
which have reached an amazing value/price ratio
Indeed, my no-name Korean guitar I bought two decades ago sounds great and has really good action. OTOH the Japanese one I had when I was 13 was really crappy. Things have changed.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Rich on Thursday November 24 2016, @12:01AM
You think my generation's attention spans were any better when we were young?
Absolutely, due to the influence of ever condensed media. More aggressively cut video and film, shorter and more superficial radio reports and last, but not least as (unintended) consequence of putting a very character limited means of communication into the signaling of GSM. Which then begat twitter and its ilk.
OTOH the Japanese one I had when I was 13 was really crappy. Things have changed.
My first electric was Japanese, too, but a good instrument which I still own. An Ibanez Blazer, which my parents then bought for me at around 600 Deutschmarks, used, from a friend. That was totally the limit of what could be afforded (for a young guy's guitar). Corrected by inflation, this probably would be around 1200 USD/EUR today. A Fender back then must've been at least twice that. Last year, for the sole reason of curiosity about Chinese quality improvements, I bought a retail house brand ("J&D") guitar. Explorer/Star style, double humbuckers, sort-of-metallic paint, for the measly price of 77 EUR, new. It does have a few slightly rough edges, but overall it's totally good enough.
So if they write "The $6 billion U.S. retail market for musical instruments has been stagnant", it's no surprise. Nothing in there says they sold less guitars. They might even have sold more - just much cheaper ones. Same for keyboards, btw. The DX-7, when new, cost 4000 Marks. Now you just run Hexter as one of many plugins on your laptop, which might have cost a tenth of that - including some master keyboard.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday November 24 2016, @02:54AM
I can play a few chords but it takes quite a long time to move from one chord to a different one. I'm a long ways from playing any songs that require chords.
I can play the melodies of a few simple songs - kinda sorta - that don't use chords.
I knew very well when I bought the guitar that it is a very difficult instrument. I intend to take it up again but I had to take a break from it as I grew very frustrated.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday November 24 2016, @03:44PM
Clearly, Fender doesn't djent.
Sorry :D
compiling...