Don't Give Up on the Guitar, Fender Is Begging You
<i>&gt;Almost everyone who picks up a guitar, about 90 percent, abandons it within the first year, according to Mooney.</i><p>I&#x27;d guess that a similar 90+% of beginners quit the clarinet, violin, piano, drums, etc.<p>If the macro trend of hobbyist guitar playing has declined, I think it&#x27;s correlated with its lack of prominence in current music.<p>For curiosity&#x27;s sake, I just clicked through the top songs on Billboard Hot 100 chart[1].  As of today November 22, 2016, the top 20 songs do not have any obvious guitars.  It&#x27;s all synths, electronic beats, and other artificial sound effects.  The first song with obvious guitars is the country song &quot;May We All&quot; by Florida Georgia Line sitting at position 30.<p>In previous decades with higher guitar sales, you had the popularity of 50s Elvis, 60s Beatles, 70s Led Zeppelin, 80s hair metal bands, 90s Nirvana, etc.  It&#x27;s easier for guitar novices to stay motivated <i>when everything on the radio had lots of guitars in it</i>.   At the moment, the zeitgeist is electronic music until guitars make a comeback in mainstream pop. However, it&#x27;s possible guitars will never become fashionable again and will recede further into isolated genres like country and folk music.<p>[1]<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.billboard.com&#x2F;charts&#x2F;hot-100" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.billboard.com&#x2F;charts&#x2F;hot-100</a>