It doesn’t seem like kids today are very interested in learning music instruments,

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Is this because passion, art and the organic process with human hands have become obsolete

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I blame rap for making generic electronic music acceptable over large audiences. It normalized a focus on the vocals, which are now even processed and false.

In the 80s and 90s it was cool to get a guitar or a set of drums. Now people have traded in their instruments for SoundCloud accounts. People don't hang out anymore, they all sit at home alone on computers.

Not saying that can't be productive, look at early nine inch nails, wumpscut, skinny puppy, leatherstrip, etc..but again, it requires talent.

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Part of it is every American Idol show focuses on vocalists and not musicians.

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Well that became the format, young solo artists who took the contract making 1/10 of what they probably should make, they found out were easier to manipulate than a whole band where each member has their own lawyer.

That goes back to the 50s too. But pop music can also be blamed for how it's become. The 80s really transformed the music business with television, and looks really began to matter. By the late 90s and 2nd wave of teen pop that format was set into stone.

People used to be actors or musicians or models or fashion designers etc

Now people are all those, plus the title of "influencer". We now live in a world where colors matter so much to a society that has lost all the ones that made it unique.

I only appreciate the hate it makes me feel, which makes me still do what I love to do even more. As long as there is a reason to say "frick it all", there is a reason to create organic chaos.

Effort is a word not in many people's vocabulary

My daughter always wants to run and grab her guitar when I play. I hope she'll decide to really learn to play, because I didn't pick it up until my 20s and feel like I lost prime years to learn and evolve.

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Well that became the format, young solo artists who took the contract making 1/10 of what they probably should make, they found out were easier to manipulate than a whole band where each member has their own lawyer.

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I think that's a BIG part of it. The music widget industry prefers to focus on a single "artist" they can promote and more easily understand/market, and possibly control, than a mix of different personalities.

We've also had decades now of hostility toward arts and music education, from politicians and others who don't understand or appreciate the contributions they make. It's not as easily quantifiable in our test score obsessed world. So there's a populace who are educated mainly through the previously mentioned widget industry.

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We've also had decades now of hostility toward arts and music education, from politicians and others who don't understand or appreciate the contributions they make. It's not as easily quantifiable in our test score obsessed world. So there's a populace who are educated mainly through the previously mentioned widget industry.

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wut? Just play your guitar. You don't need government help to do that.

Didn’t I just read on this site where music stores reported record sales on musical instruments?

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Didn’t I just read on this site where music stores reported record sales on musical instruments?

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Everybody who has one guitar has 8 guitars


Most guitars are $200 and made in China

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In the 80s and 90s it was cool to get a guitar or a set of drums.

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In the 90's, anyone who could play at all could get on a stage in some grungy club and play in front of other teens or twentysomethings. I don't see many venues like that anymore. There's probably more than one reason, from urban gentrification driving up real estate costs, to parents being able to keep tab on their kids with smart phones. But there's probably a lot less incentive to start a rock band these days.

Kids are still interested in music; just about every public school near me has some sort of music magnet program. But the local live music scene, especially for new rock, has changed pretty drastically.

When we were kids we wanted to be not musicians, but rock stars, because rock stars were the acme of "cool" in the pop culture of the time. But the age of the rock star has died. Kids nowadays want to be social media influencers, because social media influencers are the acme of "cool" in the pop culture of today.