bloomberg article about fender

Thanks for the link. Interesting story.

Seems to jive with the fact that when I am looking at the 'used' instruments section of several different web sites, and sort by price low-to-high, nearly the first 50 or so items are either Squier (Fender's budget line) or Fender, so despite being a popular brand, it seems to me that getting rid of these guitars is also popular, as evident by the surplus in the used market. Maybe this is putting a dent in the sales of their NEW instruments?
 
Thanks so much for the post!
 
I agree you have to wonder what impact the internet has on the used market. While it's easier to find used instruments it seems like there aren't really good deals out there since anyone can research how much they should sell them for.
 
Interesting article but I don't think they really understand why so many people take it up then drop it.

I play guitar and mostly play my acoustic though I do have a fender strat. Its not the steel strings, as acoustic has steel strings and often a heavier gauge, the light steels on the strat are no more painful than a uke. I play the acoustic because I don't want to be tied to an amp.

I think what they are really seeing now is newer generations have more access to guitars of their fathers etc. so no need to buy one to find out if they like it or not. Guitars last a long long time. Maybe we have reached guitar saturation.
 
As a music educator, I disagree. What we're seeing in education right now is a majority (it used to be a minority) of students that lack GRIT, which is that stick-to-it mentality. For the current "crop" of K-12 students, things have to be immediately attainable or they abandon ship. This is particularly true if parents allow it. And many do! While I am sure that abandonment of guitar has always been large, 90% certainly reflects our current era.

And of course, there ARE exceptional kids today. Plenty of them. But the majority of the generation lack that skill of GRIT, and that is going to become apparent in the workplace over the next 10-15 years. Many businesses will tell you that they already see it!

The guitar is an interesting instrument. As it has been the primary instrument in pop music for 60 years, most people want to play it. I would even wager that a large number of people have tried. But it isn't a "super accessible" instrument where even this simplest progressions require three fingers on different chords on six strings (Key of G).

And guitar saturation isn't the issue...otherwise we wouldn't have Guitar Center and every other music store filled to the brim with guitars.

I applaud Fender, and Zivix (JamStik) and companies like UberChord and Yousician for trying to make the guitar more accessible.
 
I'd heard that Servco had bought Fender but this is the first article I'd seen that mentioned it.

In the early 60 's if you didn't have much money, there were some truly horrible guitars and basses in music stores. A lot of them were almost unplayable! A little later, Vox came out with some cool guitars like the Phantom. Fender and Gibson were the ultimate.

Like some reviewers have said, there are virtually no really BAD guitars anymore. So it's interesting that newcomers still quit playing at such high rates.
 
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