The slow death of the electric guitar
&gt; “John Mayer?” he asks. “You don’t see a bunch of kids emulating John Mayer and listening to him and wanting to pick up a guitar because of him.”<p>Sorry, but my 17 year old son was so inspired by Mayer about 5 years ago that he invested a LOT of time learning how to play guitar and sing like him, and other artists with similar styles. [0]<p>He is now building quite a steady music career even while finishing high school (he was booked for 3 gigs just this weekend).<p>He is also interested in past guitar heroes such as Eddie Van Halen, Mark Knopfler, Angus Young, Andy Summers etc. and spends a lot of time going through &#x27;older&#x27; stuff to learn more.<p>While he has a lot of natural ability, there is no arguing that it takes a LOT of hard work.  He practices for a minimum of 2 hours a day - sometimes even up to 4 or 5 hours, not counting gigging time.  We often have to call him away from his guitar to do school work or eat.<p>I envy the time he lives in though - I started playing when I was 15, back in the early 80&#x27;s and it was really difficult to find decent gear, and the only way to learn anything new was to try and figure it out by ear or find someone else who knew to teach you.  Nowadays, the proliferation of Youtube and other online learning resources, the huge selection of reasonably priced gear, and things like software and hardware modelling amps mean players can dial in ANY sound they want under any situation.  Unheard of in my time.<p>It just needs kids who are interested enough to turn it into their passion.<p>[0] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;channel&#x2F;UCJK-R3HGG09uGBRDs7fhpZw" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;channel&#x2F;UCJK-R3HGG09uGBRDs7fhpZw</a>