Not so long ago, things didn’t look so great for the guitar, that global symbol of youthful freedom and rebellion for 70 years running.
With hip-hop and Beyoncé-style spectacle pop supposedly owning the hearts and wallets of millennials and Generation Z — and so many 20th-century guitar deities either dead (Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain) or soloing into their 70s (Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page) — electric guitar sales had skidded by about one-third in the decade since 2007, according to Music Trades, a research organization that tracks industry data.
Gibson guitars, whose celebrated Les Paul line had helped put the Led in Zeppelin, was sliding toward bankruptcy.
All of this was enough for The Washington Post to declare the “slow, secret death of the six-string electric” in 2017. That same year, even Mr. Clapton himself, known simply as “God” to devotees more than half a century ago, sounded ready to spread the ashes. “Maybe,” he mused at a 2017 news conference for the documentary “Eric Clapton: A Life in 12 Bars,” “the guitar is over.”
Hold the obituaries.
A half-year into a pandemic that has threatened to sink entire industries, people are turning to the guitar as a quarantine companion and psychological salve, spurring a surge in sales for some of the most storied companies (Fender, Gibson, Martin, Taylor) that has shocked even industry veterans.
“I would never have predicted that we would be looking at having a record year,” said Andy Mooney, the chief executive of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, the Los Angeles-based guitar giant that has equipped Rock & Roll Hall of Famers since Buddy Holly strapped on a 1954 sunburst Fender Stratocaster back in the tail-fin 1950s.
“We’ve broken so many records,” Mr. Mooney said. “It will be the biggest year of sales volume in Fender history, record days of double-digit growth, e-commerce sales and beginner gear sales. I never would have thought we would be where we are today if you asked me back in March.”
It’s not just graying baby boomer men looking to live out one last Peter Frampton fantasy. Young adults and teenagers, many of them female, are helping to power this guitar revival, manufacturers and retailers said, putting their own generational stamp on the instrument that rocked their parents’ generation while also discovering the powers of six-string therapy.
Playing Away the Blues
It all started with a collective breaking point, according to Jensen Trani, a guitar instructor in Los Angeles whose thousands of instructional videos on YouTube, he estimated, have attracted some 75 million views over the past 14 years.
“There was this point with my students where I could tell that numbing out on Netflix and Instagram and Facebook was just not working anymore,” Mr. Trani, 38, said. “People could no longer go to their usual coping mechanisms. They were saying, ‘How do I want to spend my day?’”
For many, apparently, the answer was “strumming.” (...)
Nearly 20 percent of the newcomers were under 24, and 70 percent were under 45, the company reported. Female users accounted for 45 percent of the new wave, compared with 30 percent before the pandemic.
In a narrow sense, the surge made sense. Prospective players who had never quite found the time to take up an instrument suddenly had little excuse not to. As James Curleigh, the chief executive of Gibson Brands, put it: “In a world of digital acceleration, time is always your enemy. All of a sudden time became your friend.”
But there was more to it, Mr. Trani said. Many newcomers to the instrument seemed to be looking for an oasis of calm in a turbulent world. “There is,” he said, “this sense of learning how to sit with yourself.” (...)
Guitars are hardly the only consumer item to experience a quarantine bounce, of course. Sales have spiked for many items since lockdowns began — bicycles, baking yeast, board games, yoga mats, beans and even Everclear, the 190-proof spirit.
But a guitar is not a bag of lentils. A new guitar usually requires an investment of several hundred dollars, if not several thousand, and new players and virtuosos alike often live with their trusty ax for years, bonding with it as a statement of personal taste and style.
It’s what economists would call a “discretionary” purchase, the sort of nonessential consumer item that is usually the last thing one might buy when the economy is plunging and unemployment is skyrocketing. Throw in monthslong factory closures for manufacturers and a virtual disappearance of brick-and-mortar retailers, and the situation seemed nearly apocalyptic.
“I figured that this is one of those business-falls-off a-cliff situations,” said Chris Martin, the chief executive of C.F. Martin & Co., the 187-year-old manufacturer of acoustic guitars that has supplied contemporary stars like John Mayer and Ed Sheeran, as well as legends like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and some guy named Elvis, over decades. “We’ll pick up the pieces and put the company back together whenever.”
But after a “terrible” March, with revenues 40 percent below normal, business roared back.
“It’s crazy,” said Mr. Martin, the sixth-generation Martin to run the company. “It’s unbelievable the demand there is right now for acoustic guitars. I’ve been through guitar booms before, but this one caught me completely by surprise.”
With hip-hop and Beyoncé-style spectacle pop supposedly owning the hearts and wallets of millennials and Generation Z — and so many 20th-century guitar deities either dead (Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain) or soloing into their 70s (Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page) — electric guitar sales had skidded by about one-third in the decade since 2007, according to Music Trades, a research organization that tracks industry data.
Gibson guitars, whose celebrated Les Paul line had helped put the Led in Zeppelin, was sliding toward bankruptcy.
All of this was enough for The Washington Post to declare the “slow, secret death of the six-string electric” in 2017. That same year, even Mr. Clapton himself, known simply as “God” to devotees more than half a century ago, sounded ready to spread the ashes. “Maybe,” he mused at a 2017 news conference for the documentary “Eric Clapton: A Life in 12 Bars,” “the guitar is over.”
Hold the obituaries.
A half-year into a pandemic that has threatened to sink entire industries, people are turning to the guitar as a quarantine companion and psychological salve, spurring a surge in sales for some of the most storied companies (Fender, Gibson, Martin, Taylor) that has shocked even industry veterans.
“I would never have predicted that we would be looking at having a record year,” said Andy Mooney, the chief executive of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, the Los Angeles-based guitar giant that has equipped Rock & Roll Hall of Famers since Buddy Holly strapped on a 1954 sunburst Fender Stratocaster back in the tail-fin 1950s.“We’ve broken so many records,” Mr. Mooney said. “It will be the biggest year of sales volume in Fender history, record days of double-digit growth, e-commerce sales and beginner gear sales. I never would have thought we would be where we are today if you asked me back in March.”
It’s not just graying baby boomer men looking to live out one last Peter Frampton fantasy. Young adults and teenagers, many of them female, are helping to power this guitar revival, manufacturers and retailers said, putting their own generational stamp on the instrument that rocked their parents’ generation while also discovering the powers of six-string therapy.
Playing Away the Blues
It all started with a collective breaking point, according to Jensen Trani, a guitar instructor in Los Angeles whose thousands of instructional videos on YouTube, he estimated, have attracted some 75 million views over the past 14 years.
“There was this point with my students where I could tell that numbing out on Netflix and Instagram and Facebook was just not working anymore,” Mr. Trani, 38, said. “People could no longer go to their usual coping mechanisms. They were saying, ‘How do I want to spend my day?’”
For many, apparently, the answer was “strumming.” (...)
Nearly 20 percent of the newcomers were under 24, and 70 percent were under 45, the company reported. Female users accounted for 45 percent of the new wave, compared with 30 percent before the pandemic.
In a narrow sense, the surge made sense. Prospective players who had never quite found the time to take up an instrument suddenly had little excuse not to. As James Curleigh, the chief executive of Gibson Brands, put it: “In a world of digital acceleration, time is always your enemy. All of a sudden time became your friend.”
But there was more to it, Mr. Trani said. Many newcomers to the instrument seemed to be looking for an oasis of calm in a turbulent world. “There is,” he said, “this sense of learning how to sit with yourself.” (...)
Guitars are hardly the only consumer item to experience a quarantine bounce, of course. Sales have spiked for many items since lockdowns began — bicycles, baking yeast, board games, yoga mats, beans and even Everclear, the 190-proof spirit.
But a guitar is not a bag of lentils. A new guitar usually requires an investment of several hundred dollars, if not several thousand, and new players and virtuosos alike often live with their trusty ax for years, bonding with it as a statement of personal taste and style.
It’s what economists would call a “discretionary” purchase, the sort of nonessential consumer item that is usually the last thing one might buy when the economy is plunging and unemployment is skyrocketing. Throw in monthslong factory closures for manufacturers and a virtual disappearance of brick-and-mortar retailers, and the situation seemed nearly apocalyptic.
“I figured that this is one of those business-falls-off a-cliff situations,” said Chris Martin, the chief executive of C.F. Martin & Co., the 187-year-old manufacturer of acoustic guitars that has supplied contemporary stars like John Mayer and Ed Sheeran, as well as legends like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and some guy named Elvis, over decades. “We’ll pick up the pieces and put the company back together whenever.”
But after a “terrible” March, with revenues 40 percent below normal, business roared back.
“It’s crazy,” said Mr. Martin, the sixth-generation Martin to run the company. “It’s unbelievable the demand there is right now for acoustic guitars. I’ve been through guitar booms before, but this one caught me completely by surprise.”
by Alex Williams, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Fender
