Hanging on by a String

Four years ago the YouTube channel The Key of Awesome released a parody video called, “The Guest Rapper Killed the Guitar Solo.”

It was hilarious, and depressing.

The truth is, guitar-based rock was dying a slow death.

It started dying somewhere around Britney Spears’ debut and by 2016 was hanging on by, well, by a string. Guitar sales had been declining for a decade, down 28% from 2008 to 2018. The Grammys featured fewer and fewer guitar-focused bands in favor of electronic and synth-driven music. Acoustic guitars are still used on many recordings, but almost exclusively as background or filler instruments.

Gibson guitars, one of the two pillars of the guitar industry for half a century, declared bankruptcy.

In 2017 Eric Clapton said, “Maybe the guitar is over.”

And honestly, that was okay.

Guitar enjoyed an 80ish year run as the primary instrument of popular music. It had its day. We’ll always have The Who, Van Halen, and Nirvana. We’ll always have Bob Dylan, Harry Chapin, and Livingston Taylor. Guitar has and will always have a special place in my heart.

In March 2020 the world entered a global pandemic. Guitar Center closed 293 of its 296 stores for two months. Revenues dropped 40%. Without showrooms and with 40 million Americans out of work, the industry was finally going to collapse forever.

Long live the guitar.

And then, something incredible happened. Guitar sales skyrocketed.

The unexpected comeback of guitar sales is documented in a brilliant NY Times article by Alex Williams you should definitely read. Taylor Guitar is reporting their biggest month since opening in 1974. A senior salesperson at Sweetwater.com, the Amazon of music, said, “It feels like every day is Black Friday.”

What’s going on here? Isn’t everybody watching Netflix and eating ice cream? Who is buying all these guitars, and why?

When Time is All You’ve Got

Netflix is great after a long day of work. It’s a way to unwind, turn the brain off, and recover from the day’s interactions. But in a world where we spend 8 hours each day staring at a screen? It’s less appealing. Our eyes are tired. Our brains are overloaded. The screen reminds us how different our lives are and how much we miss connection, not just to others, but with ourselves.

Enter the guitar, a physical, visceral avenue for self-discovery. A way to discover ourselves, express our frustrations, and connect with our musical heroes of past and present.

Learning guitar, like other musical instruments, is a forward-thinking process full of optimism, writes Dr. Levitan, a neuroscientist and author of This is Your Brain on Music.

Unsurprisingly many of these record-shattering sales are coming from first-time guitar buyers. Taking advantage of the upside of a terrible situation, they finally have time to learn the instrument that built the soundtrack of their lives.

Reports from online guitar instruction sites report 40% of new students are women. In an industry traditionally dominated by men, this is wonderful news. The guitar knows no gender, race, identity, or religion. It’s a vessel for self-discovery, creation, and connection.

The world desperately needs more art these days, not less. And the thought of so many people discovering the guitar for the first time, finding their way around the three chords needed for 90% of popular music (G, C, D), and plucking out their favorite tunes to make the endless pandemic a little bit more tolerable, is literally bringing me to tears as I type.

Silver Linings

Alex Williams’ NY Times article made me think about a lot more than guitar sales. He got me reflecting on all the ways my life is better now than it was before March 2020.

My wife and I knew she was pregnant with our first back in January. This was the year we’d dreamed of and imagined for a long time. We waited for the perfect year to start a family. And, well, you know what they say about telling God your plans.

We lost that imagined year. We lost walking through baby stores, telling our friends and family, hugging our parents, hosting a baby shower. We lost the Disney “babymoon” we meticulously planned for the second trimester. We’re still going to lose introducing our baby boy to extended relatives at Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas.

But, and this is a big but, we gained as much if not more than we lost.

I was going to be on tour this year as much if not more than usual. I’d have missed most of the pregnancy, leaving my wife to fend for herself through the difficult first trimester, and the aching, exhausted third trimester.

Worst of all, we weren’t even sure if I would be at the birth, on account of the due date being the same week as two major national speaking engagements that had been booked 15 months in advance, with no way out of those contracts. I was a wreck over the prospect of missing the birth of my first child.

Looking on the Bright Side

2020 forced me to build a completely virtual business from the ashes of my previous career. Having no choice and with a baby on the way, I’m now operating at full-tilt. My calendar is busy as ever, but with one key difference: I never leave the house.

I spent every second with my wife during the pregnancy. I was there for the first ultrasound. I was there the first time she felt him kick. I was there to comfort her when she didn’t feel well. I was there for late night talks about parenting strategies. I was there to build all the baby products with sitcom-like infuriating instructions. I had every weekend available to personally renovate a spare bedroom into a nursery instead of hiring contractors, so every paint stroke, nail, decal, and decoration is mine, a gift to my son.

Life is unpredictable, and change is inevitable. Bad things happen and often without rhyme or reason. Still, we have the ability to view those events with whatever perspective we choose.

This year took away my former career, a career I worked very hard for 16 years to cultivate, and was just finally reaping the benefits of (getting flown first class, beautiful resorts, exotic locations, etc).

Simultaneously this year gave me time with my family, memories I’ll cherish for life, and the motivation to build a sustainable virtual business, which means in a few years I won’t have to see my son’s first day of school, tee ball games, or band concerts from a webcam in a hotel room. I’ll be there.

And that’s everything.

YOUR TURN: What unexpected gifts did this year give you? Leave a comment or send me an email. I’d love to compile a list of silver linings for a follow-up blog.