Is This THE END of Guitar Music? 

It's just beginning. The complexity can only get so extreme before we crash back to the basics that speak to the soul. :)

Few things make me feel older than when a young person refers to that time period as "the late 1900's"

Something I miss is the electric guitar as a pop instrument. I feel like this virtuosic online guitar culture is a result of the instrument becoming more niche. My favorite guitar parts are more “hooks” than “licks,” y’know?

Guitar is supposed to compliment the song. These short clips are typically a-melodic note vomit that are immediately forgotten. I can remember an Alex Lifeson solo, because it augments the song and is an integral part of it.

Spot on. All you have to do is look at the history of shred and see the backlash that happened in the early 90’s: no guitar solos and an emphasis on notes which do matter, have melody, and express emotion.

The thing i really enjoy about music at the moment is that outside of the main trends there are pockets of people enjoying and making music from every genre there ever was. There's enough people with enough passion for each sort of music that it'll always be around and be enjoyed by new generations who in turn will add to it and carry it on. So while trends change I'm more confident now that sounds I like won't be gone forever they will just be grooving in the back room for a bit.

I don’t often see dudes writing hit or memorable songs. In the past the virtuosos were typically part of a band. Then in the 80s we started to see a lot of guys like Vai, Satriani, Yngwie where the shredding was the focus. But they still made albums with complete songs and guys like Satriani had a lot of mainstream success even among non guitar player audiences. When I watch Internet guitar players, it seems kind of weird to me that some of them have signature models and things from major companies when their contribution to music is 30 second technique and VST demos. No one outside of guitar land has ever, or will ever know about them because they aren’t really making music. It’s more like they’re making ads and “look at me” videos aimed at other guitar players for attracting sponsors so they can make more gear ads. They basically exist to compete with each other for manufacturer attention so they can get paid to sell people gear.

It's circa 1984 and Frank Zappa (himself one) introduces his new "Stunt Guitarist", a kid named Steve Vai. It's 1955 and it was Chuck Berry. It's circa 1948 and it was Les Paul. 1967 Jimi Hendrix. FFW 2021 and it's Polyphia. We all need heros. Long live the guitar! Stunt away! I'm 69 and i love the new Gen of guitarists. And the women playing now, no longer a guy thing only. Way cool! Great video!

Good take ! I say it's time for bass guitar centric music ;) -a bassist

Instagram guitar playing and creation of music for artistic endeavours are totally different in my opinion. Hopping on a trend after someone else has already done it better than you will mean you will most likely sit in their shadow indefinitely. It’s just been done enough at this point, we need someone to make something new. There’s a lot of innovation inside of these genres for sure but the instrumental guitar stays in these genres…. Someone’s going to stumble upon something new soon

I feel like we have a “I bet you can’t play this” plus a “look how good I am” attitude nowadays, no one just plays to play anymore, people are just trying to show how good they are in 1 minutes

Doing my part. Investigate the music series I started releasing this year. Surprised you mentioned composition as a pro for current guitarists. That’s one of the biggest aspects they are missing IMO. Composition is storytelling and overall arrangement. Not just a bunch of complex measures stitched together. I admire the technical side of guitar that is being explored but indeed as you mention, it’s stagnating both soul and storytelling. Great presentation on the subject! All we need to do is play the sounds of our souls instead of copying and comparing. We’ll get to greener pastures.

Being a good guitarist is all about telling a story in what you play. How the guitarist is able to translate the emotion of the piece to music is the most important criteria to being an artist.

I can't fault any of your points. Great work!

Meh.. who needs the likes George Benson, Jimmy Page, Steve Lukather, Jimmy Hendrix, or George Carlton when you have Taylor Swift...

I feel like anything in general acts like a metronome, a constant back and forth in time we will always push ourselves until we can’t anymore and go back to the basics either to start fresh or make a new discovery

This is why I don't have time for people who don't understand the appeal of AC/DC

Non guitarist don’t care how complex something is to play. The average persons needs to be moved in any manner, romantically, aggressively, wildly these new guitarist don’t move people no one wants to dance to their music, crack open a beer and go wild, Bob their head, roll down their car window and blast the radio. Pretentious busy music and is technically complex is all it is.

My theory is it's harder to be original because so many acts have come and gone - so many riffs have been used, especially "easy" riffs, leading to people having to be much more virtuoso than previously. It's not that they WANT to be complex, you HAVE to be complex. And fast. At a point, everybody used the standard E tuning, now people are going Drop D, Drop C, etc. This could be to be more "edgy" but I think it more has to do with the fact that many E tuning songs have already been done, so you HAVE to switch to something different, otherwise you're just another Iron Maiden or Eric Clapton clone, or even a Kurt Cobain clone - nobody wants to be a clone. That and the collapse of the traditional record companies that tailor to rock music. Alan Kruger (RIP), former economic advisor to Bill Clinton, also made a good point in his book Rockonomics about how much of it boils down to basic economics. He may be a beaurocrat and not a musician, but his book is all about the business side, so I do recommend reading it. Prior to the great depression, you had big band music and many people - even non-musicians - had a piano room. Then you drop to the 5 piece band, the 4 piece band, then to rap (typically no live band) and now it's usually some kid in his basement with a computer. Kruger said it himself, the future of rock music is some kid in his bedroom with a computer, the future is computer programmers with real and/or digital instruments (I'm one of those "kids", albeit I'm 40. Yes, I fit the description Kruger is talking about, and I'm not even trying to be a famous musician - just a hobbyist.) It's kind of screwed up, really. I don't think anybody WANTS it this way. Todays greats are RU-vid folks, or on BandCamp, SoundCloud, etc. Most people are not even in a band (unless it's a "cover band"), not touring, not working with a record company. Record companies are for country music and rap now. I could go on and on.

Music has always been a hard career. It's just a different kind of hard now. There are so many great musicians from the 70s and 80s who did everything right and went nowhere and ended up working day jobs. For most folks: The past sucked. The present sucks. The future will suck.

Doing my best to keep things simpler and more about the vibe rather than complexity

yeah, it pains me to say this, but these guys are taking away the musical aspect of music

Guitar has been evolving and its getting better. Separates those who actually take the time to practice vs those who pop out copy cat cooky cutter licks.

Our current technology from the field of AI is not "AI", it's just decades old machine learning algorithms with enough processing power. All the sounds you hear in machine learning music are just lifted from other sources of music and then an extremely convoluted data filter is placed on it to turn it into "blues" or whatever you wrote in your prompt.

Awesome job with your video and editing!! Love the views you mentioned and the points made when speaking on this topic!!!💜💜💜

I mos def do not fit in the niche of super fast complex shreddy guitarist. I totally agree with your points.

its a bubble that is going to burst and the next wave of music will come out of live shows. Theres a young and active scene coming out of Austin

I was born at the beginning of rock music -1955. Having watched and listened to the whole story, while I pursued my own musical interests- as I still do - I gotta say your assessment sounds a lot like my own thoughts. I’ve become a lock-in guitar obsessive in recent years, lol. I began experimenting with synths and microprocessors in the seventies. I play various instruments.including sitar, bass, eight string and keys, plus a starship of synths 😊 According to Spotify I listened to 187 genres last year ! I can’t believe there are that many genres. I think we are having a guitar renaissance. There’s more out there than just the flashy, attention getting stuff. Same as any decade in that regard. Regarding AI, the problem with the current direction is training data. It becomes an aesthetic feedback loop. It is also so damn close to plagiarism, using all that material to train the AI in the first place. It gets worse when they have to resort to synthetic training data, or when most material online is already AI-generated - as was once oft quoted ‘Pop will eat itself’. Don’t fret about it. There are untold thousands of fine musicians working in obscurity to contribute to the next collective thought form. ‘Same as it ever was’. I subscribed. ✌ 👽 🎸

Great work!🎉 Spot on. It’s very pleasant listening through your talking, in a chilling tone and pace. I feel lots of other RU-vidrs are in the game of ‘Words Density’, same way as ‘Notes Density’ for guitarists. Additionally, I appreciate that you chose to leave the ‘Consider subscribing, or not’ to the end. Yes, I just subscribed. Keep the good work on!

I play like an 80s guitarist. The modern stuff annoys me. I can play fast but I have a classic style yes I can play modern stuff

It seems that you are talking about music that prominently features guitar and not pop songs that contain complimentary guitar.. I dont think it's dead, its just innovative song writers aren't playing guitar as much. The age of math rock, prog rock really guitar focused work was pretty brief in pop music history anyway.. Acoustic and electric guitars are still represented in popular music, just maybe not prominently.. It will just take a person who is good at writing pop songs to make it popular again. All these fretboard diddlers will always be niche, most people dont understand or value that kind of music outside of how impressive it is to see fingers moving fast..

I am only half way in the video but I think one of the major catalyst in the transformation of the playing style itself has been the overall decline of the band, and even more so the live instrument band. With the current state of pop music, the high quality sounds of simulated instruments, the financial collapse of the music industry, and the "creator" industry, there is no longer a focus or need for the "band" format. Most live gigs for guitarist are now hotel bar or busking style performances that are primarily solo performances. The creator culture provides the ability to connect to the audience 24/7 along with bedroom studio capabilities heavily favor the individual. With this the guitar IS the entire musical experience and must fill the entire musical space. Without a rhythm or percussion section, there is no need for a lead guitar. So the percussive style, the finger picking complexity, and the method innovation has adapted in a way that one person with one guitar can carry the entire performance. This is a new world of guitar as even in the acoustic solo performances of the past there was often backing accompaniment. So the death of the band has contributed to the ideological and tonal shift in guitar play as much or more than anything else.

Art is communication. I wonder what a musician who creates incredibly fast compositions with millions of notes and all the technical nuances they know wants to communicate: maybe that they're skilled? Like, look at how good and cool I am? It’s like a writer who, in every piece they write, crams in all the difficult words they know regardless of the theme. To me, it seems like a narcissistic exercise born from an inferiority complex, probably worsened by the permanent showcase of social media. No more substance and content, just a designer outfit shown off at every opportunity. In my opinion, this completely undermines the very concept of art and communication and becomes something else: look at how good and beautiful I am! And that's all I have to say.

I have a feeling it will come back to earth eventually, melody rules, I'm 67, long time Mahavishnu fan, GIT guy in 78, Jeff's sense of melody depletes all the shredding nonsense, John made it work, it's what made his music, what I hear today is technical with no point! Yes was technical, but it made a point, a sound, a feel!! Thanks for posting this!!

That Slash live tone is so sick btw

After 27 years of mainly shred guitar I switched to bass. The overwhelming amount of guitar related content and the tendencies described in the video contributed greatly to my decission.

I saw a recent edm set on DEF TV where the dj brought his guitar buddy to play along to some songs. I think interest is growing again lately

Just bumped into your channel. I'm here to stay.

Spot on. A lot of new stuff is amazing to watch. But when you take away the visual element, it doesn’t hit the same.

write memorable melodies.. thats the only tip i will give you no one needs to shred cuz no one remembers shreds except for guitarists.. think like a non guitarist for a min or 2 dude i compose music for a living. take this tip bro

My main quarrel with this current day approach is its lack of spontaneous freedom, and its no mistake mentality, gotta hone your improvisation skills, cant do that when you aren't searching as John Mclaughlin called it! feels like they are speed-running a game, doing all the neat tricks in the books that they have picked up and they let that guide how they write instead of enhancing how they write with the chops and skill that they possess, when they should approach the guitar board as an open canvas, there is a strange commercialism attached to this hyper technical guitar music, its polish polish and more polish, and gotta get in line behind this and that player and do and learn this and that technique you know, instead of finding your own way on the fret-board, like Tim Henderson actually did, which is commendable, so be more like him, learn some of the musical concepts and techniques but don't try to sound like him or upstage him, find your own voice! Keep on making dense and fun and bonkers music but don't sell into the spectacle, that is all that i can say, you know!

I'd disagree to an extent; however, I do think that the virtuoso playing style is a well-known historical trend if you've studied a lot of music history. Much of western music's development, and even globally, the ability to have a high level of skill on the instrument is why there are many legendary composers that still live on, hundreds of years later. I'm not even touching other countries' music, which often, can be just as, if not more complex, than much of western music. Even when we go to some of the earliest western bands, which have origin in jazz, the music that was composed was extremely complex, to the point where we have entire educational institutions just to study that music. I do agree that music is likely to swing like a pendulum in the opposite manner, as music functions a bit as a call and response culturally. Sort of like grunge was a change from very technical styles of rock, I have no doubt that instagram guitar styles will eventually switch toward a preference in chord texture over flashy playing styles, kinda like a post-rock development in the digital era. I do think that as we start to consider what truly is virtuoso proficiency, we'll start to see a shift toward that other side of the pendulum you mentioned. I've noticed it with my own music, a significant uptick in views amongst some of my virtuoso pieces that alternatively consider, "what is virtuoso playing truly".

Very interesting. While I've seen most of the artists you've flashed in this video, I wasn't aware they are a part of some new wave of guitar playing that happened in the last years. It's not something I would care to watch or listen repeatedly and to me it's just kind of another iteration of what Malmsteen or Batio were/are doing. Cool and impressive, but it's not engaging enough.

i like math rock but sometimes some older style stuff is nice

You can play a thousand notes but if you don’t feel any of them, it’s useless (it’s not technical speed, it’s feeling and passion)

The late 1900s hurt.

I totally get where you're going with this video, and all your points make sense, but this brand of modern rock-jazz-classical-metal fusion isn't the only instrumental guitar music. There's plenty of tasteful instrumental guitar music out right now that has an audience. People still find music other ways than from short form video content algorithms being projected at you. Word of mouth, or at least recommendations from online blogs and peers on social media bolster many sustainable careers. Outside of the metal/fusion oriented world there are a ton of instrumental or 50/50 vocals/instrumental acts like Billy Strings, Julian Lage, Molly Miller, Adam Levy, Molly Tuttle, Cory Wong. This stuff might be boring, or quiet, or corny to people into the more technical metal stuff, but it is instrumental guitar music being performed and consumed in 2024. Good topic, man. AI won't replace us quite yet, we need to focus on what makes our music human and interesting.

I see why these type of players get succesful on social media, but I don't understand how their songs become succesful. They're super skilled and I respect them a lot, but as music they don't make me move. It's kind of like a circus, it's super impressive and I enjoy a circus every once in a while, but I wouldn't go to a circus everyday.

I’d like to think it will keep going but I think we’ve maxed out on what it can do and instrumental music has been dying for decades. I think your comparison to piano was spot on and that’s the direction guitar will probably go. An instrument for music nerds that is only played in music halls but never on an average venue stage for casual listeners. Nobody is lining up to hear a professional pianist or saxophone player at bonaroo and the same is becoming true for guitar. It’s starting to be seen as a band geek instrument and those instruments never become cool again once they’ve been banished to that realm.

For those who want to hear something really fresh but not from this time, I really recomend the songs "Bom retiro" and "Abandolao" from Flavio Rodrigues, wich is a brazilian flamenco guitar player. It doesnt sound so flamenco, the harmony is really catchy and there are so many good choices for melodies. He is great, please listen

yeap i agree with all ur points here

Literally everything I've wanted to try for the first time or pick back up has had a "Is X dying" video made about it this year lol.

From the top of my head i can think of the evolution of internet guitar like this: 2005-2010: paul gilbert, ygwie malsteem, steve vai, john petrucci (clips of instructional videos and live performances such as g3). 2010-2015: tosin abasi ( the "djent/proggresive metal" wave); tom quayle, rick graham, guthrie govan (the "fusion" wave) 2015-2020: plini, polyphia, ichika... and this is where ive lost track now that im 30yo and just playing straight ahead jazz lol I now mateo mancuso is getting big right now on the fusion/jazz side

I have mixed feelings about the nature of music being shared on the internet. It's great that content can easily reach wide international audiences, but the presentation of music as "15 second clickbait entertainment" is really quite sad, and completely missing the actual point of music IMO. All I can do is make music in a way that is meaningful to me, and appreciate whatever community of others do the same, even if it's not very popular. Thanks for the video, lots of interesting food for thought! All the best to all the guitarists out there!

you could just listen to good new guitar music instead

As someone coming from "the 1900's" I can tell you that the trend to play fast has is nothing new. Even back in the 80's, playing fast was always synonymous with being "good". Also, I could argue that guitar music ended in the late 90's early 00's. Popular music features very little focus on guitar. The instrument itself has been around a long time and will likely continue. Think about the saxophone. There was a brief time back in the 80's (again), where every other song on the radio had a sax solo. Now, you'd be lucky to hear one in a pop song, and if you do, it maybe be a synth or MIDI plugin. But I'm sure there are plenty of bands out there that have horn sections. It's just become a niche. Guitar will also probably be a niche. The guitar really took on major popularity because of artists like The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Who...etc. And those artists influenced artists like Eddie Van Halen, and he influenced artists like John Mayer. But with each generation it seems the guitar becomes less and less interesting to people perusing music, because popular music is highly digital, and A.I. will only exacerbate that. But when you consider "classic" rock guitar, that genre (more like an era than a genre really) is now a niche. Maybe a group of young people will rediscover it some day and it will become popular again. Maybe as music does become more A.I. generated, actually playing a physical instrument will once again become something impressive, because so few people will do it, or even know how to. Maybe people will yearn to sit in a room with an acoustic band that is playing music instead of listening to some computer generate music. In that case, we could see a resurgence in the popularity of guitar (and bass, and drums, etc.). I know for my generation, there are still plenty of folks that want to play and hear guitar focused rock music. The fancy pants instrumental guitar music is good, don't get me wrong, those guys are talented for sure, but a lot of times it's like watching a robot performing. Maybe music will go back to when it was imperfect. When there was no click track and the tempo ebbed and flowed with the drummer and musicians just synced with one another based on the groove or feeling. The pendulum might swing back the other way.

BAND-MAID is the future of rock.

Kool channel. You may find this offensive, but I find it very refreshing to hear an accomplished black musician who’s so articulate. I can’t even understand the majority I’ve heard before. I recognize there’s no right / wrong way to talk and languages continuously evolve. But I’m not going to apologize for my preferences.

Thoughtful and original analysis and commentary. Excellent video.

it's like after the 80s shred era the 90s went to the power chords era

Great observations. I hope your predictions come true.

Fast guitar playing is boring to me. I don’t like shredders. For me there is no substance, just pure technique.

Some interesting points there... I think what killed guitar music, is the same thing that killed live music generally. Which is music software and the internet.

Don’t worry Mon, I’ll bring back power chords to the front with powerful vocals.

Here's a great tip - trust your ears, heart and decide from that .. we're all different - The only really important thing to say is respect your fellow humans, even if you hate it - They are people too :-)

Screw what anybody else does, do you…creators CREATE!!!!✊🏾

as someone whose trying to learn and become good in guitar this stuff just scares me

Having a new wave of guitar music where complexity and experimentation is the rule sounds like the guitar player wet dream, specially considering they were like two decades complaining about how simplified, basic and trivial guitar became since 90's (their words, not mine). Having new guitar music like Polyphia is great, but it requires to develope a taste for it, not only guitar players should work hard but your ears too to appreciate it, and I love it. The movement moved on from teenager mentality to something more mature like Jazz, not accessible at first but extremely rewarding once you learn the codes and language of compex guitar to decode the music and get the feel of it. And what I wrote is only half true because a lot of the most popular guitar music right now is extremely simple to follow and quite accessible, just listen to acts like Sleep token or Bring me the horizon. If you don't vibe the complex guitar music you still have a lot of mainstream rock with very simple guitars, so everyone have the possibility to listen the guitar music they want.

There’s a lot of good points here but I disagree abt the value of speed and over-complexity, it’s more so just freshness. If you start with just a unique unheard of chord it could ring out with nothing going on and still get viewers locked in, vs boring pentatonic

I think you are looking after the wrong artists. Chek out Plini, Intervals or Periphery. Polyphia is for more virtuoso centric music. Modern Music is far more tasteful, soulful and has more composition sophistication imo

Commenting for the algorithm, really interesting stuff!

Well said! It’s true. We have a 7 second attention span with to much content.

Overall, composition is the most important aspect of making music. You can fiddle around making noises or you can compose music in a coherent way that's at least entertaining and listenable for someone who's interested. If it sounds good it is good. I don't think any of these other metrics are viable for judging art. Art is free we can only innovate when we work outside the box. You've pointed out that music seems to progress and innovate while sort of stagnating at the same time. Key elements like overall genre and note density seem to be very fluid. A lot of this has to do with how fast the views young people have on music in general change. The most innovation and fastest progress comes from the newer generations while the older guys are more involved in defining existing genres and being a part of established musical culture. We need to stay focused on the main fundamental elements of music which are rhythm, harmony, and melody and get away from genre and note density and things that really don't define music but are a technical aspect of how music is made. I've spent my whole life playing guitar and one of the main struggles I have is getting away from the technical and popular aspect of playing and focus more on the spiritual and artistic aspect of being a musician.

Stop being a guitar player and start making songs with your guitar. Don’t just make riffs. Finish songs.

I always wonder how you online guys play live with other people?

The difference separating what the truly popular guitar hero ala Tim Henson and Polyphia boys from the rest of the gang like ichika and the other shred lords is catchy melody alongside actual songs people want to hear, while you hear tons of super talented technical gods not everyone listens to their playing outside RU-vid vids . I think the norm will return back to melodic playing mixed with the virtuoso stuff. When you see some random kid shred lording and thumb thumping some ridiculous piece you get dudes commenting “want to be Tim so bad” for a reason. But it’s only up from here with what the new kids are going to be practicing

The 10 seconds of John Mayer and BB king easily had the most feel out of every clip played here.

Play the way you play. What is going right now with guitar playing will change. It always does and that's a fact. I've been playing for 45 years so I speak from observational experience.

I feel like ai is gonna enhance artists rather than kill them. Just like it does for language learners. Plus you no longer need to wait for years of basic exercises or foundational stuff to start being able to having fun and creating cool stuff, which is also very important because it makes easier to commit to something if youre having a good time with the process of learning it. Lots of very bad art are coming our way, but hey when digital illustration became a thing that happened; when free game engines became a thing that happened; when affordable music production software became a thing that happened... and so on. Thats just another instance of the same thing happening, only now you can actually talk to the computer. Such impressive tech lol.

I have seen covers from these madly skilled young guitarists that make my head hurt. Speed and technique doesn’t equal music. While all is perfectly executed the soul of the song is destroyed.

I think you nailed it. Real talent will be more sought after, and more valuable then ever. AI will end up being a useful tool and not a replacement for authentic and soulful talent.

While I think guitar skill such as speed and shred ability is amazing and I respect the hell out of it. I don't really enjoy it I like music like Radiohead, The Smiths, Joy Division even though it's simple it's melodic and very different. Point two. When I play guitar I want to feel an intense emotion and slowly kinda like a pink floyd song. Am I saying a f*ck ton has no feeling? No, but non musicians care about feeling something, while speed and technique are great for hooks on marketing. I feel like skits and other stuff are better for marketing (See Opal In The Sky) My Point? Non musicians most of the time don't care about speed and technique they just want to feel something in the end, it's easy to do that with 50+ notes hard to do with 4 notes

Excellent points made! I really would like to believe that the current trends will develop further, with players unlocking even more incredible methods and stylistic choices; and I hope that the sphere doesn't completely stagnate into homogeny. Eventually, the repetition of algorithm-chasing, note-dense 'candy riffs', as you put it, as well as the development of music-focused AI will push artists to think and feel further. I'm very excited to see what incredible things artists will create within the next few years! and onwards. Creatives will always keep on prodding the boundaries. Keep up with the great videos and analysis - love the channel!

I think your analogy to the handwritten note is spot on. Authentic humanity, meditative pieces and live performance will really stand out in an overstimulated world of click bait and AI music. I’m waiting to see if your generation begins to rebel against having your attention constantly manipulated for profit.

Algorithms, marketing power of social media, etc, but also sound recording technology. the history of centralized labels owning the studios, manufacturing, distribution, payola, etc. gave them the power to deprive the guitar community. Shrapnel records vs. early 2000s mtv. MTV was so biased it left a vacuum, and when daws and interfaces got cheap, and people all got hi speed internet with algorithmically driven marketing, it got easier to fill that vacuum. So I agree. Also, you can get a Roland Rubix for like 100 bucks. It may slow down and speed up as the demand normalizes, but personally I’m just excited. Being an obsessive old weirdo guitarist is not as cool when everything is synth pop.

It's just basically 80s all over again. When shredders started getting too over the top.

I love the funny saying: If your guitar does not have a headstock on it then I am not listening to your band 😂

Music is done. Normal life is done

Good video. Think I'll go the opposite direction with my guitar. Instead of going in this pretty, sweet, and atmospheric complex guitar playing, go for something a bit more uncomfortable atmospherically but still powerful and organic. Something that would be difficult for AI to faithfully replicate. I'm thinking a combination of Jimi Hendrix, Acid Bath, Helmet, and Dethklok

That "1970's" clip was actually from the 90's. I AM getting old...

So playing a million notes fast in randomly different genres is whats valued today…. Thats awful.

This is bunk. This thesis is a mess. It's just hand-wringing over AI and instagram/tiktok guitar disguised as an informed view of trends. I like your channel. You're a smart guy and I enjoy this thought process but the end result is bunk. Tiktok guitar is entertainment and distraction. The average person, even the average person who likes guitar, does not gravitate towards spectacle. You go to a live show and you see what really moves people. The Internet is a factor but don't mistake it for the real world.

one of my favorite guitarists i've recently discovered is Mk.gee -- sounds like nothing else being released today

i cant tell one musician from another anymore

Was that AI music during the credits lolol, bout to get down in an elevator loool

Oh can it we’ll be fine

riffs > acrobatics. people remember ramones, rolling sones, david bowie songs even after hearing it only the once. you know what they'll never remember? some kid hitting every note on the fretboard in a 15 second tiktok vid

I prefer Congolese, High life music, and other Afro variants guitar wise personally.. I don’t care for fast guitar at all, or this new heavy jazz fusion prog-metal but I’m glad it exist now

Rock music is moving into its jazz phase: Dudes showing how many rare chords they know. Music for snobs and rich people.

I haven't even watched the video yet, but just based on the title, I completely disagree. I am in a party cover band that has 2 guitarists, keyboard, bass, drums, and 3 vocalists, and we make anywhere from $4000-$6000 a booking, with at least 2-3 gigs a month. If people are willing to pay that much to see a COVER band, there is no way that 'guitar music' is going anywhere, even if its not new guitar music per say