A totally subjective and unscientific observation has given me some hope for music and the latest generation of guitar players that come through the doors of Moore Music. Because of my work, I’ve had years and years of experience hearing what people play when they pick up a guitar for a test drive. It seems it wasn’t that long ago I was concerned over a lack of tasty licks, or clear expressions of inspiration from examples of high-level musicianship by young guitar players. When I was a kid I remember my friends and I talking about “shop licks” because we were young and self-conscious enough to care about what other people thought about our level of skill on the guitar. Also, we were prepared for the opportunity to play on a guitar, amp, or pedal that we pined for, not wanting to waste the opportunity when the nerve was worked up to try something out. Recently, there just seems to be a lot of good, young players and I’m really stoked about it!
There was a period where there were few guitar solos of note in popular rock, and I had a daily routine that consisted of going around and restoring the tuning of guitars from drop-D to standard tuning. That was when I first remembered the silly notion of “shop licks,” but I realized it was based on respect for the instrument and the skill of the more accomplished players that I aspired to emulate. When I first heard Avenged Sevenfold on the radio and the first neo-classical guitar solo in many moons, I noticed a bit more shredding by young players on the shop floor. Just in these past few months, I’ve noticed something about the new cohort of teens that come into Moore Music. The pendulum swings back and forth with tastes in music, but after what seems like quite a while, I’m seeing more teens picking up an oldie but a goodie: the Fender Stratocaster.
I have my theories on why a seemingly renewed interest in Stratocasters is taking place in my neck of the woods. No doubt there are regional differences in trends and tastes that reflect a particular interest in a style of music and the guitars used while playing it. John Mayer has a new album out, is on tour, and performed not too far from here this summer, but it takes a while to develop the vocabulary of licks and voicing that make a Strat sound good in positions 2 and 4 through the clean channel of an amp. Frankly, I’m thrilled to hear it, wherever the inspiration is coming from, because it reminds me of my own experience and path as a guitar player. The Fender Stratocaster, in the hands of a guitar player, creates a tactile and sonic link to a musical heritage that musicians and music lovers of all stripes have been nurtured by, whether they realize it or not.
Plenty has been written about this iconic instrument and its use by legendary and unknown guitar players alike. I’m writing about it is because of these kids! They’re not all wanting just anything with humbuckers, plugging into a high-gain amp, taking out the mids, and dime-ing the rest of the knobs. There’s something else going on – an appreciation for tone and the dynamic sensitivity that tells me someone’s listening to good music with good guitar playing…and it’s really, really cool. I remember going into the Record Explosion on 5th Avenue between 34th and 35th and the guys behind the counter curiously asking, “What are you doing buying this record?” It was A Farewell to Kings by Rush, which was well off the beaten path of albums being bought by my peers at the time, I guess. Well, now I’m that guy wondering how this teen is playing Axis: Bold As Love on the Strat that I just put in his hands. Sometimes the music finds us, rather than the other way around. I shouldn’t be surprised that the reason my teenage son’s friends recognize the Maiden, Priest and Metallica riffs I noodle on in my kitchen is because it’s their dads’ music. They grew up hearing it in the car! Many of us are influenced by our parents’ tastes in music. And with the closing of the generation gap since the Boomer Era, kids don’t have to be lucky enough to have an older sibling to turn them on to great music like Cameron Crow’s character in his film “Almost Famous.”
It’s common for music to be totally divorced from the scene or context in which it was created when we first hear it. I hope these young guitar players who are playing this particular guitar with its special place in music history will see that the onion-like layers of discovery are only just beginning. The gravitation to the Fender Stratocaster by teens tells me that there is timelessness to that sound, this guitar and the music played and created with it. Hearing classic riffs and tasty shop-licks by teens is a positive sign in the oft lamented decline of the electric guitar. Each generation takes from the previous one and this appreciation and approach to guitar with Stratocasters in hand is a welcomed thing indeed.