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Looper's Delight
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David Kirkdorffer writes: > If rock music is the dominant or most visible/listened to/played form of > music around today, then it's true the Guitar is the dominant or most > visible/listened to/played instrument in the rock genre. > > Thus, it represents the largest market for "aftermarket" products - like > effects etc. A fair statement--guitar is highly visible, it's popular, it's sexy, it's expressive, it's versatile, it symbolizes, uh... freedom, and it's relatively easy to play popular music on. I think there might be something synergistic behind this. Lotta guitar players means a lotta bands means a lotta music means a lotta kids who want to be guitar players. Why guitar, though? Apart from the fact that most kids dig rock music (and aren't exposed to much else), I think it's because the guitar is CHEAP (youse with the $20,000 rack and $8000 custom-shop guitar, stop snickering) compared to drums, 'cello, piano, or for that matter most orchestral instruments--or even a decent rack o' synths. Yo-Yo Ma (and other prominent classical soloists who commonly lease their million-dollar-plus heirloom instruments from musea or private collections) wouldn't wince at the sticker price of the latest Eventide and a McInturff Zodiac. Hell, the cat playing ninth-chair butt-trumpet in the Teaneck Philharmonia has more than that rolled into his scruffy-looking horn. And we live in the days of the $189 Stratocaster and $50 digital effects. And the $750 Echoplex Digital Pro. (Plus, you can give your kid a guitar and a headphone amp and not have to hear her sawing through etudes or plonking through major scales or pounding out endless measures of "Wipeout" on a cheap floor tom.) Scott Bullerwell tanelorn@dimensional.com Boulder, Colorado, USA