Guitars
 

This is from 2015...

• Aggregate shipments of electric and acoustic guitars dip 0.7% to 2.47 million units.
•Retail value increased 7.0% to $1.07 billion, compared with $1.00 billion in the previous year. This is a reflection of an increase in guitar sales of over $1,000.
•Unit shipments of acoustic guitars and acoustic guitars with pick-up assemblies advanced 2.7% to 1.36 million units.
•Retail dollar value advanced 13.3% to $603.2 million.
•Shipments of electric guitars declined 4.6% to 1.10 million units, but the retail value of electric guitars declined only 0.3% to $467.1 million.
•Acoustic guitars saw an increase in sales for the 5th consecutive year, topping 1.2 million units sold for the highest levels of incoming revenue since 2004.
•The strength of acoustics has pushed its share of the market to 34.7%, a full 10 percentage points above electric guitars.
•Ukuleles account for 4% of the total guitar sales that occur every year.
•Acoustic guitars appear in the Billboard 200 2x more often today than electric guitars.
•Over the last 10 years, the average price of a guitar has risen by 48%. Unit sales are down 15% over that period of time, but retail sales are up 24.6% overall.
•The USA accounts for 40% of the global music trade.
•Germany and the United States makes up the biggest share of global sales.
•About 2.3 million guitars are sold in the United States every year.
•According to the US treasury, college-related debt has risen 275% since 2003, cutting into money that would be spent on guitars.
•In the UK, more than 750,000 guitars are sold every year, bringing in the equivalent of about $225 million on the currency conversion from pounds to dollars.
•Sales volumes in the UK are off by nearly 10% in a year over year basis.
•Fretted products dominate the industry, bringing in double the amount of the next music industry category, which is sound reinforcements.
•The total music industry value for instruments and associated products: $6.81 billion. That means about $1 out of every $6 is spent on guitars.

Who's breaking all these guitars?

The unexpected story of how Gary Clark Jr learned to play.

Just more kids finding out they can get money for nothin' and chicks for free.

10 steps to play jazz guitar.

Nice, I hadn't heard that in years.

When your fingers get tired, or the neighbors are threatening to call the cops, pull out your jackknife and whittle a mite.

Mutant Bodies & Experimental Electronics: Navigating the Unmapped Territory of Soviet Guitars

Wallpaper design, must be inspired by a po boy's gitfiddle...

Nocaster?

From Sweetwater Sound

Would I lie to you... my oldest and dearest friend... if it didn't involve money or sex.

4-string Barn-O-Caster:



I want that amp.

I like it.

I can see a shitload of art and craft went into this Fender Aztec but I don't like it.
I think it's too busy, yucky colors, but I'm sure there are people who would be crazy about it.

Hard to believe that came outta the Fender custom shop.

Hideous.

Lovely knob camouflage, though.

Yeah, I wondered about that too.

electric guitar...

http://cellar.org/2017/guitar.gif

youch!

That guy has a lot of hilarious videos.

Mark Knopfler on guitar

If you have a spare 14 minutes, this old gentleman will take you right through...

A) how he developed his unique fingerstyle technique
B) how the major different guitars sound
C) how the Stratocaster sound changed "Sultans of Swing"
D) how the National guitar caused him to write "Romeo and Juliet".

He was a guitar teacher before getting famous... you can tell

meanwhile his remarkable talent is on display

I was hoping that would go somewhere. Interesting, though.

thanks that was enjoyable

That right there is an articulate human who has refined something to perfection. Imagine MK as your guitar teacher.

..and now we're bingeing Mark Knopfler. All praise be unto Spotify.

Mark knopfler + James Taylor Sailing to Philadelphia

Highly recommend.

I am agog. 99% by hand. he breaks out the dremel twice for inlay work. But Jeesus.

That made me wonder if Roy Underhill (DC native! I think he went to my elementary school) was still around. He is! And still making new episodes!

Oh, I see, cut away everything that doesn't look like what to want to end up with. :thumb:

I've never seen that guy before.

36 seasons. I just watched the Sloyd episode.
He's a character. The Bob Ross of woodworking.
Thanks in advance.. I'll be binging that show.

I need a bench hook. I've seen wide ones. Like 10". I can see needing a variety of sizes. And with holes to peg to the bench.

He sure did everything the hard way (except inlaying the pentapus ;)), I wonder how may hours he actually had in it.
Also, he must have spent a lot of time setting up and editing video, lot's of artsy angles and lighting. Excellent job on both.

I liked when he shook his hand when he was cutting the ebony... And then when it's finally cut, he slumps against it. I lolled. I guess he saved that bowl of ebony dust for packing in the inlay. I should have maybe done that with my dots. I'll remember to save my dust in future.

The edit where he strokes once with the hand saw, and then zip, it's through-- was cool too. They did that a few times.

Cool.

I miss him being on the local channel. My local PBS station has gone full in on the British TV, completely turning its back on American greats like Underhill.

That was very clever, show the start and end, there's no reason to show him stroking away all through the cut....

or he has a minion do most of the cut. :haha:
His chisels are sharp, and he knows how to use them, no faking that.

If you watch the Crimson guitar build videos, and you should they're pretty great once you get used to adult Stewie, he harps on that, shows you how to sharpen and polish them. Seems to have a mildly perverse affection for sharpening things.

That's a chore to most, like sanding is. I find that I enjoy sanding a hell of a lot more when I'm doing something fun like building a gittar. When you're sanding a door or a window frame or a boring... thing.... it's pretty much torture.

I think in one of the early episodes of the 90 hour Complication build, he sharpens gouges. Makes me want expensive hand tools that I'll probably never use. What with the dremel and Router and all...

His videos are half wood work, half luthiery. He loves crafting and he keeps noticing that he loves his job. I like that.

When you're sanding a project like the guitar body you're shaping, creating, thinking about what to do next, and how close you are to being able to play it and show it off.

When you're sanding a door or window frame you're thinking about how you don't want to be.

The first Fender prototype.

Who built the first electric rock & roll guitar?

Thanks for that. Good read.

Play like a pro with Emenee...

Wowwww. Those were Not the good old days.

I think I briefly had one of those organs I got at a garage sale or out of the trash when I was a kid.

Emenee was a slightly better than average toy company, after all you can't make any money on air guitars. :lol:
I had an Emenee trumpet, I could give a poor rendition of taps on and the was my entire repertoire.

I remember that commercial.

I heard kick ass drum for Big Bash...

I heard bass, as in the fish.

I saw these pictures of Jersey Girl Homemade Guitars...

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Some of them look pretty nice and there were many many more.

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So now I'm intrigued and start digging.
Turns out it's a company in Japan. :(

If you have an old hollow body that doesn't cut it any more, make it a lamp.

Black Strat...

Not really a guitar, kind of a teenager, but I like the inlays.

Another bass...

That's hideous

I thought it was unique, but wouldn't want anyone to see me holding it.

this

There's always wood...

not hideous.


I like it. looks old

The top binding is, well, hideous is the word that comes to mind...

I bet that one sounds on the tinny, brittle side.

Gilmour's Black Strat...

A bargain

It's not exactly like having a painting that has changed art; this is not the art itself, this is the paintbrush. But it's a cultural artifact that will remain important well beyond our lives, possibly for hundreds of years. I'ma say, worth it.

I wonder if it will ever be played again, if the strings will ever be tight again?

Why wouldn't you play it? It's built to be played, after all. Like the cars in Jay Leno's garage, priceless, but rolling stock not just inanimate lumps.