> “John Mayer?” he asks. “You don’t see a bunch of kids emulating John Mayer and listening to him and wanting to pick up a guitar because of him.”
Sorry, but my 17 year old son was so inspired by Mayer about 5 years ago that he invested a LOT of time learning how to play guitar and sing like him, and other artists with similar styles. [0]
He is now building quite a steady music career even while finishing high school (he was booked for 3 gigs just this weekend).
He is also interested in past guitar heroes such as Eddie Van Halen, Mark Knopfler, Angus Young, Andy Summers etc. and spends a lot of time going through 'older' stuff to learn more.
While he has a lot of natural ability, there is no arguing that it takes a LOT of hard work. He practices for a minimum of 2 hours a day - sometimes even up to 4 or 5 hours, not counting gigging time. We often have to call him away from his guitar to do school work or eat.
I envy the time he lives in though - I started playing when I was 15, back in the early 80's and it was really difficult to find decent gear, and the only way to learn anything new was to try and figure it out by ear or find someone else who knew to teach you. Nowadays, the proliferation of Youtube and other online learning resources, the huge selection of reasonably priced gear, and things like software and hardware modelling amps mean players can dial in ANY sound they want under any situation. Unheard of in my time.
It just needs kids who are interested enough to turn it into their passion.
“You don’t see a bunch of kids emulating John Mayer and listening to him and wanting to pick up a guitar because of him.”
Emphasis on a bunch of kids. As someone who likes guitar it pains me to say that this seems true.
My son is 11, in a (very) music-heavy school. When I was his age I think almost every boy (and some girls) in my class learnt guitar - it was the instrument.
In my son's class I think there are 2 learning it.
The guitar will never die, but the popularity isn't what it was.
Genuine question: Has your son seen Mayer play? Either on TV or in a live situation? I remember my son being entranced when I brought home the "Where The Light Is" DVD and put it on to watch it myself. He happened to be in the room, and was hooked from the opening song to the last.
Not saying that will be the case in every instance, but I do remember the actual video that got BOTH my sons into music was an "AC/DC Live In Germany" video that I put on TV when they were both toddlers. They were duck walking all over the house and begging me to put the DVD on over and over again until I (who am a huge Angus Young fan) was thoroughly sick of it. Many years later, I took them to an AC/DC live concert in Sydney, during their "Black Ice" tour.
Exposing kids to such raw energy and musicianship on a semi regular basis is critical IMO. What they don't see, they cannot be inspired by. I also know that they won't always be inspired by what I like, and that is fine. Both my sons went through a 'thrash metal' phase, which wasn't my favourite, but it still formed a large part of their musical journey.
There will always be people to get hooked on old artists, but the point remains that we're not in a world where there are guitar heroes like in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and the numbers of people who become inspired enough to work at the instrument for long enough to achieve proficiency has consequently declined.
I learned in the mid 90s, probably inspired by Oasis, and related Britpop artists. Of course very quickly I was listening to older musicians like Page, Hendrix, and Clapton. Even then though my friends who played music and I were well aware that the age of guitar hero was over and that it was quirkier to want to play guitar music than it had been ten years before. There were no more Slashes on the horizon.
Music scenes seem likely to never be so one dimensional as they were in previous decades, because there's something for everyone online, and I can't see a time when Top of the Pops has three big rock bands playing on the same night ever again.
I also saw AC/DC during the Black Ice tour. I've been to many concerts, but never seen anyone else live who could play the guitar like Angus Young. He truly is an amazing guitarist.
>Sorry, but my 17 year old son was so inspired by Mayer about 5 years ago that he invested a LOT of time learning how to play guitar and sing like him, and other artists with similar styles.
I'm sure we can find kids into Foxtrot too, but I don't think we'll see a Foxtrot revival.
Emulating Clapton, or Hendrix, or Page, etc was a mass phenomenon, which is what the "bunch" alludes to.
The last to inspire anything of that kind in a mass way would be someone like Jack White, and even that is was more subdued and fragmented that what it used to be.
As fragmented as the music world is now, there is still capacity for a groundswell movement I believe.
In keeping with the 'guitar sales are dying' theme - back in the 80's Fender Jazzmasters, Jaguars and Mustangs were pariah guitars. They were nothing more than the oddly shaped relics from the 'surf music' craze of the 50's and 60's.
Then Kurt Cobain played one on stage in the 90's. And not played like a guitar god either, but all of a sudden, the Jaguar and Mustang offset shaped guitars exploded into popularity again, across more than just grunge bands. My son I mentioned above actually plays a J Mascis Jazzmaster as his main stage electric guitar.
On another note, I really wish I could find the thread on a popular guitar forum that I participated in about 7 or 8 years ago. Back then I predicted that the vinyl market would have a small, if temporary blip again. This was before the whole Hipster fad became mainstream too. I was literally laughed out of that thread by other members claiming, similarly as you did in your reply, that vinyl was about as relevant as be-bop or spandex clad lead singers in music.
Well, we are sitting in the middle of a vinyl resurgence right now. It will never reach the numbers of the heady days, but there definitely is a renewed interest out there. I couldn't believe it last month when I went to my local electronics and whitegoods store and there were as many turntables in the HiFi section as boom boxes and bluetooth speaker systems.
Been playing guitar for 20 years, and this is spot on! The John Mayer comment is ridiculous, he's a great guitarist. Even many of John Mayer's biggest pop radio hits have great chord voicings and writing built-in (No Such Thing, Why Georgia, Neon, Daughters). The YouTube factor you mention is also amazing.
This article was probably right, but it's so focused on the good ole days that it's sad. Times change. Art changes. Diplo and TSwift are as legit as SRV and Dylan. Rock on.
LOL, you've just named the top 4 Mayer covers in my son's regular gigging set. I must say when I first saw Mayer play "Neon" with just the acoustic guitar on "Where the Light Is", I was floored and thought that he must have to have two brains to be able to achieve that. [0]
When my son said he wanted to learn to play that song solo, I told him it would be nearly impossible. But he learned it and plays it just like John does. I have been playing for > 30 years and there is no way I could do that! :)
Singing / playing requires a split brain. If you think the chord + bass on Neon requires a split brain, check out Charlie Hunter. I just picked one of the first videos that I found on youtube, but he always plays guitar & bass at the same time:
>Diplo and TSwift are as legit as SRV and Dylan. Rock on.
First, if they are, then that's part of the focus of the article. That guitar and guitar rock is waning -- and surely Diplo and TSwift are not bringing it back.
Second, no Diplo and TSwift are not as legit as SRV and Dylan. Not because they are different genres, but because they are inferior artistically (regardless of genre).
They might be equally entertaining or whatever, in a "it's a free country and I can listen to whatever I like", but artistically they're not even close (and SRV is not in the same league for cultural impact as Dylan anyway).
It's not about the past. There are contemporary electronic, edm, r&b, hip hop etc artists that are on par with SRV and Dylan on creative merits, but TSwift and Diplo are not them -- like the Monkeys weren't as good as The Beatles, and Frankie Avalon was no Elvis.
how does it feel up on that high horse? there are no absolutes in music (as an art form) so you really can't say that Diplo is less important than Dylan until long after both are dead. even then, Diplo is influencing a ton of kids and will have impact that way for decades to come so where do you draw the line?
Dylan himself probably never thought he'd be as important a musician as his heroes - Elvis, Little Richard, etc. but now they are all in the same conversation.
It feels great. It's called culture, and being aware of it, not a blind consumer of what tastes good (McDonalds tastes good too).
>there are no absolutes in music (as an art form)
No, but human culture has, and always had, a way to prfioritize what's important and what's not besides mere consumption or influence (crap has also influenced a lot of imitators).
>Dylan himself probably never thought he'd be as important a musician as his heroes - Elvis, Little Richard, etc. but now they are all in the same conversation.
That's irrelevant though, because it's not the artist that determines their own worth but their work, its quality, and its cultural impact.
>music is fun. the expected almost never happens.
Except with TSwift, Diplo and co songs. Where it almost always happens.
>It feels great. It's called culture, and being aware of it, not a blind consumer of what tastes good (McDonalds tastes good too).
oh please, elitism isn't culture it's a perspective. you have a perspective about the things you like which is no more or less valid than anyone else's. no matter how enlightened you think you are when it comes to music I promise there is an entire subculture that finds your tastes closer to "blind consumption" than "true music fan". 100% relative.
>No, but human culture has, and always had, a way to prfioritize what's important and what's not besides mere consumption or influence (crap has also influenced a lot of imitators).
please, please describe for me this mechanism by which "human culture" has prioritized important art. I would love to hear what unassailable framework you think draws a line between "important" and "crap".
If you want to argue that Taylor Swift is technically inferior then that's fine, but tens of millions of young women disagree with assertions of her "artistic inferiority", and I'd be curious to know why your opinion matters more than theirs.
>and I'd be curious to know why your opinion matters more than theirs
Because populism doesn't say much. One can find tens of millions supporting any kind of trash in all areas of public life (wanna talk about politics for example?).
Informed opinions matter more than uninformed ones, and we're beyond the point that the merit of Taylor Swift vs Dylan (or sugary constructed commercial pop for quick consumption and singing songwriting that defined a generation and then some and made it to the Nobel) is seriously argued.
You envy him for the available content and equipment, but he should envy kids in the 80s of the ease with which you could build a well-paying career if you played well. Nowadays you better produce songs on your laptop because the money earned with streaming might not suffice for 5 people. The trajectory of what is possible is just way flatter.
Sorry, but my 17 year old son was so inspired by Mayer about 5 years ago that he invested a LOT of time learning how to play guitar and sing like him, and other artists with similar styles. [0]
He is now building quite a steady music career even while finishing high school (he was booked for 3 gigs just this weekend).
He is also interested in past guitar heroes such as Eddie Van Halen, Mark Knopfler, Angus Young, Andy Summers etc. and spends a lot of time going through 'older' stuff to learn more.
While he has a lot of natural ability, there is no arguing that it takes a LOT of hard work. He practices for a minimum of 2 hours a day - sometimes even up to 4 or 5 hours, not counting gigging time. We often have to call him away from his guitar to do school work or eat.
I envy the time he lives in though - I started playing when I was 15, back in the early 80's and it was really difficult to find decent gear, and the only way to learn anything new was to try and figure it out by ear or find someone else who knew to teach you. Nowadays, the proliferation of Youtube and other online learning resources, the huge selection of reasonably priced gear, and things like software and hardware modelling amps mean players can dial in ANY sound they want under any situation. Unheard of in my time.
It just needs kids who are interested enough to turn it into their passion.
[0] - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJK-R3HGG09uGBRDs7fhpZw