Jim Cohen wrote:But Tony, don't you think there have always been 98% hack guitarists for every 2% who were serious about becoming excellent musicians? Lord knows how many times, coming up, I had to play with, or listen to, guitarists who couldn't even tune their guitars reasonably. Guys like that are still in the majority, but there's always been and, I suspect, always will be, a serious minority of dedicated music students.Tony Prior wrote:...the newest wave of guitar players are not really focused on become excellent musicians, to me , learning to play is just one more thing they are doing..in-between Facebook and tweeting.. I believe the bar is lowered....
Jimbeaux, agreed,( mostly ) now add the new social connections...when we were kids, we used to go home after school, eat our Table Talk pie , then go in our room and practice our guitar, in tune or not....it was what we did...today... after school, the upcoming generations spend a majority of their time uploading photo's to FB , tweeting that they just got home from school...go to Micky D's for a 1/4 pounder and watch reality TV...sure there are few that have a desire to become a musician, thats a given. I recently went to a local artists jam...most of the artists were certainly under 25..many in the 18 range..they were strumming guitars, a few James Taylor licks here and there but mostly singing songs about breaking up with the girl next door...they were not focused on the musicianship....of course some are...I have gone out to the clubs and seen many bands play, most of the players can play a little but you can see they are not schooled musicians...they are not playing any "Keith" or "Chuck" licks....there is only so much time in a day and our newer generations are filling it up with stuff that we could never have even dreamed of when we were at the same age. As kids..growing up..we were connected to the music, that was our social connection...we played and studied records with guitar solo's, that was our thing..we hung around with kids who did the same thing, then we started a band, we fantasized about playing in front of people..girls...today , they look at pictures of Justin Bieber while they listen to his MP3's! The desire is down on the scale, they have too many options for occupying time...the social media options far outweigh the practice guitar or piano option . I'll go on a limb here, half the kids today probably can't even play baseball let alone know what SPUD is !