Guitar Queer-o

[Barking Spiders]

In one of the less classic episodes of South Park, Stan and Kyle are wowing their mates on Guitar Hero with 'Carry on wayward son' when Stan's dad walks in and shows them how he can play it on his guitar for real. They aren't impressed, with Cartman saying guitars are for old people. In my 11 year old's year 6 leavers book many of her classmates profiles show they want to be games designers, actors, You Tubers/vloggers and slebs. Not one wants to be a musician let alone a bass player. When I was that age I knew of at least a handful who wanted to be pro drummers or guitarists. D'ya reckon kids these days don't give a monkey's left tit how well someone can cut it on a guitar, drum kit etc?

[Geek99]

When my ex-teenager was an eleven year old, he and his chum confidently asserted that beat matching as a dj was "harder than playing a guitar well"
They talk utter rubbish (most of the time) I wouldn't worry too much. Some will find the righteous path of bass

Edited August 30, 2016 by Geek99

[yorks5stringer]

"Year 6 leavers Book"!

In my day when you left you were lucky if you escaped being flour-bombed by the older kids!

Anyway back on topic, in a previous, previous life I was a catering lecturer for many years. When I started teaching at the College in the early 80's Cookery Shows on TV were a rarity (Johnny and Fanny Cradock and very early Deliah) and we had an intake of at least 120 full time 16 year olds wanting to become Chefs each year and about double that Part Time based in establishments around Leeds. Fast Forward to when I left in 2000, you couldn't move for Cookery Shows on TV and yet hardly anyone wanted to study to be a Chef full time at 16.

[Barking Spiders]

I've just plugged in the terms 'learn bass' and 'learn guitar' into Google Trends. From 100% in 2004, there's a year on year decline to 22% in 2016.

[SpondonBassed]

[quote name='Barking Spiders' timestamp='1472563824' post='3122131']
D'ya reckon kids these days don't give a monkey's left tit how well someone can cut it on a guitar, drum kit etc?
[/quote]

Yup. Superficiality is king these days. Doesn't bode well for the care homes in my old age so I'll probably do the humane thing for myself instead.

[christofloffer]

when i was in year six i had no intention of playing music at all. i said i wanted to be a fighter pilot or paleontologist (i know, a strange combination), it wasnt until i was leaving secondary school that i began to actually listen to the music and got interested in doing it for myself. before that all i was interested in was pop and what everyone else thought was good so i didnt develop any real taste of my own until later, i think that is true of most kids at that point. given that the kind of pop aimed at kids is largely about the singer and not who writes or plays the music its hardly surprising that it declined. on the whole i think its simply been put on the back burner since digital tools have taken over. back in the day you had to find a physical copy of a tune you liked and personally go to a gig to see a band, now it can be done from youtube in seconds so kids have much less invested in it and as such, less interest. doesnt mean that they will stay disinterested though, maybe they wont want to be famous for it but a lot of folks pick up an instrument later on.

[Sibob]

Maybe your kids are just into games, programming and visual arts etc.....whilst others are into music?!
Things like Young Musicians Of The Year award along with Youtube kinda proves that music and virtuoso playing is alive and well.

Si

[RockfordStone]

when i was in year 6 i didn't want to be a musician, in 6th form i didn't want to be one. i only became a muso when i was at university when i met other people who were.

sometimes it takes longer, but they will find the true path

[Trueno]

Although I've played instruments since about the age of 14, I didn't start gigging until I was about 40. I was invited to a party and asked to bring my sax along as they were getting a scratch band together. I rather enjoyed it all and the rest is history. On the other hand, I was lucky I could already play the instrument.

[Dad3353]

In the Twenties, all of the 'in' people were heavily into rowing clubs, in flannels and boaters; the girls with long ostrich-feather boas . Roller-skating was all the rage, with rinks in every High Street. Kids aspired to become boxers, or wing-walkers for the less timid. The jitterbug was about to break. Times change, sometimes faster than one would like, but change they do.

[icastle]

I have no idea what year six even is...

[ahpook]

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1472573510' post='3122259']
I have no idea what year six even is...
[/quote]

Me neither. Glorious, isn't it ?

[GarethFlatlands]

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1472573510' post='3122259']
I have no idea what year six even is...
[/quote]

Distant memory says it's the last year of primary school in which case they'd be about 10-11. I knew I wanted to play guitar back then but having to learn to read music just to play 'Little Brown Jug' put me off until I was 15 where I learned tab was a thing and you could get books for albums I actually liked.

[RhysP]

When I started playing back in the late 70's there were only a very small number of people in my school that played guitar, bass or drums. The vast majority of the people I was in school with had no interest in it at all, it was viewed as something that only the weird, unpopular kids did.

[skankdelvar]

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1472568788' post='3122195']
In the Twenties, all of the 'in' people were heavily into rowing clubs, in flannels and boaters; the girls with long ostrich-feather boas . Roller-skating was all the rage, with rinks in every High Street. Kids aspired to become boxers, or wing-walkers for the less timid. The jitterbug was about to break. Times change, sometimes faster than one would like, but change they do.
[/quote]

Some of us may have spent our time scraping acquaintance with upper-class 'bright young things' but my memories of the 1920's are entirely at variance. It was the golden age of the British dance band. In my world pulsating jazz music filled ram-packed dance-halls such as the Hammersmith Palais de Dance, the Streatham Locarno and the Astoria Ballroom on Charing Cross Road.

Compared to today, musical technology was white-hot. Entire swathes of the population were busily engaged in building their own radio set in order to listen to BBC broadcasts of the Henry Hall Orchestra and in a strange foreshadowing of modern rock & roll many musicians were experimenting with electric amplifiers.

In fact it was I myself who brought together the aforementioned elements of terpsichore, radiodiffusion and electromagnetic sound conduction during a performance in May 1925 at the Kit Cat Club in the Haymarket when I appeared as a featured soloist with Mr Vincent Lopez and his Orchestra. On that occasion I wired a rudimentary pickup up to a cat's whisker crystal set and mounted said combination on my guitar .

This early example of a 'wireless rig' permitted me to go walkabout in the club to the delight of the audience and the jealous chagrin of my band-mate the trumpet player Mr Lew 'Rubber Lips' Muscati. Poor Lew never really forgave me for stealing his thunder; shortly thereafter he quit the business, returning home to Naples to join Mussolini's Blackshirts and eventually dying of wounds sustained during the siege of Tobruk in 1941.

Bitter-sweet memories, indeed.


[size=3][b]Vincent Lopez Orchestra in 1925[/b]: Lew Muscati front 3rd from left, Lopez (standing, centre) with author to right[/size]
[color=#ffffe0][size=3].[/size][/color]

Edited August 30, 2016 by skankdelvar

[SpondonBassed]

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1472568788' post='3122195']
In the Twenties, all of the 'in' people were heavily into rowing clubs, in flannels and boaters; the girls with long ostrich-feather boas . Roller-skating was all the rage, with rinks in every High Street. Kids aspired to become boxers, or wing-walkers for the less timid. The jitterbug was about to break. Times change, sometimes faster than one would like, but change they do.
[/quote]

Crikey Dad, you need to change your screen name to great great grand Dad if you're recalling that from experience!

[Dad3353]

[quote name='SpondonBassed' timestamp='1472576977' post='3122306']
Crikey Dad, you need to change your screen name to great great grand Dad if you're recalling that from experience!
[/quote]

Second-hand info, I'm afraid, gleaned from some very happy years in the neighbourhood of my first father-in-law, old 'Pop' Bird. He and Molly, his good lady, had tales to tell of their own courting days, where, for a rowing club raffle, he offered as a prize his Scott motocycle, with its upgraded intake system. Such was the growing popularity of cars, the winner of the raffle declined the 'bike; Pop kept it for many years, and it became a museum piece in its own right, with the brasswork being worthe substantial amount as scrap metal.
By coincidence, and to echo the Skank's apt observations above ^, he was, indeed, a very keen electronics enthusiast, and made it his livelihood, renting out TV's (they were too expensive to buy in those says, until hire purchase came about...). He had, in a spare room of a tiny cottage, a still working mechanical television receiver, rendered obsolete by the cessation of 30-lines transmissions. It was in better condition than that in the Science Museum....



Being of a certain age himself, I'd sometimes help him lifting stuff about. He had an ageing park of monochrome sets, still rented out for peanuts to old biddies, and would repair them using knitting needles. In approaching the needles to the THT, by the length and quality of the spark drawn out, he could tell exactly which capacitor was failing in the old set. He drove about, very slowly, in a battered old Ford 100E 5cwt van, almost decrepit as himself. Goodness knows how (if..?) it passed the MOT



. Strange days...

Edited August 30, 2016 by Dad3353

[Lozz196]

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1472575703' post='3122286']
When I started playing back in the late 70's there were only a very small number of people in my school that played guitar, bass or drums. The vast majority of the people I was in school with had no interest in it at all, it was viewed as something that only the weird, unpopular kids did.
[/quote]

Pretty much how it was at my school, though loads of people were interested in bands/music, none felt the need to play.

[seashell]

Happy memories, Mr Skank. I used to rouge my knees and cut a rug to the gramophone. If only one could still get the needles!

[skankdelvar]

[quote name='seashell' timestamp='1472584794' post='3122404']
Happy memories, Mr Skank. I used to rouge my knees and cut a rug to the gramophone. If only one could still get the needles!
[/quote]

Have you tried a needle exchange?

[icastle]

[quote name='GarethFlatlands' timestamp='1472574334' post='3122271']
Distant memory says it's the last year of primary school...
[/quote]

Not distant enough.

It was infants, junior and high school in my day.

The clever kids went to sixth form college.
I went to art college as I was 'different' in a way that I like to consider both special and unique.

[RhysP]

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1472586228' post='3122424']

It was infants, junior and high school in my day.

[/quote]

Same here, not all this stupid year/grade stuff.
Same as all this high school prom & year book bollocks - if you want that then f*** off to the States.

[seashell]

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1472585639' post='3122420']


Have you tried a needle exchange?
[/quote]

Yes, but they told me to go away when I asked for extra loud ones.

[Rich]

[quote name='SpondonBassed' timestamp='1472576977' post='3122306']
Crikey Dad, you need to change your screen name to great great grand Dad if you're recalling that from experience!
[/quote]
What do you mean "if"?

[Dad3353]

[quote name='Rich' timestamp='1472588961' post='3122450']
What do you mean "if"?
[/quote]



(... [i]Sounds of drumming of fingers, followed by whetting of blades... Sudden 'Whelp..!' as Parkinson's belies rigor mortis, metal rings out from the stone floor, followed by low grumbling[/i]...)

Edited August 30, 2016 by Dad3353