AT
Back on topic - money is cheap.  

 
Can you buy me some then? 
 

AT
I made a living for a few years teaching remedial English at college ......
 
As long as their is any residual value in Gibson....

WTF?

"...These forums really are some sort of insular delusional bubble, where people seem to believe all the tripe spewed forth by Cakewalk and their many sock puppets..."
 
"sock puppets" is an interesting choice of words, OaB. Usually, that phrase would be reserved for trolls who don't actually use the product under discussion but rather enroll in its forum for the sole purpose of advertising a competitor's product.

Ah, Craig, I don't need to buy you any - it is cheap enough to borrow.  That is, if you already have it, or assets like Gibson.  
 
And a good I, their, Bapu.  '-)
 
 

For any one who wishes to abandon their Gibson's, please send them to me. I will make sure they have a stable home environment in which to live.

I thought this topic was about Debbie Gibson.  My bad.  Carry on. 

Debbie Downgrade?

dmbaer
I was talking to a guy who worked for a major guitar/drum manufacturer (not Gibson) a few months ago.  We were sharing the same SuperShuttle en route to our NAMM accommodations.  He was telling me that the whole industry has been vastly constricted.  A generation ago, he said, at least one guy in ten wanted to be a guitarist or drummer.  These days, interest among the pre-teen/teenage generation has dramatically declined over the last couple of decades. 
 
I blame Obama! 

I blame Cakewalk.
 
The kind of loop-based "composition" that is making contemporary music the hobby of choice for professional video gamers has rendered hours of working through the mastery of any musical instrument sound just plain silly/boring to young people. When a herd of rappers with a drum machine backup becomes a super-band, why would you want to practice a difficult to acquire skill in your spare time. Heck, why even learn to mutter in the background while walking around a stage, when you can become a DJ and not have to create anything from scratch except the occasional scratch that is. 

michaelhanson
For any one who wishes to abandon their Gibson's, please send them to me. I will make sure they have a stable home environment in which to live.

I'll take one ... I promise to learn one chord at least!

slartabartfast
 
 
The kind of loop-based "composition" that is making contemporary music the hobby of choice for professional video gamers has rendered hours of working through the mastery of any musical instrument sound just plain silly/boring to young people. When a herd of rappers with a drum machine backup becomes a super-band, why would you want to practice a difficult to acquire skill in your spare time.
...

 
My point exactly and the most important part of it, is teachers that do not know how to make teaching that instrument fun for the kid, and that would mean learning to do something with the instrument that fits what the kid likes, instead of chucking and forcing Chuck Berry down the kid's throat, or heaven forbid ... when the idiots march in.
 
Practice, I don't think, is an issue, and I had no issues with it in all my tutoring and teaching days, when I felt I spent more time teaching the kids how to study, rather than dealing with the actual subject itself ... and this would help music in general ... but all most teachers I have met could talk about is ... how much you have to know this and that ... and not pay attention to one's natural inclination for doing something else, and hope to blend that into the process to find a good link and not lose the kid's interest altogether. This is the biggest secret in teaching the arts and killing it ... too many teachers are making it look like you have to do Am better than anyone else out there in the world ... and that's crap!
 

slartabartfast
...
Heck, why even learn to mutter in the background while walking around a stage, when you can become a DJ and not have to create anything from scratch except the occasional scratch that is. 
...

I think that teaching things without the "star" quota in it is the issue ... but this is hard to do, and when the kids, for example, go to UCSB to study "acting", it's all (supposedly) a programme to teach you how to become a star ... and has nothing to do with who you are as a person, and actor, and your abilities at all ... and of course, at the end of the course, they even lie to you, telling the kids they get a "try out", and the folks in there are busy looking at People magazine, and Penthouse magazine, instead of seeing what you are doing ... the same as everyone else!
 
The same is with music ... the instructor I met from the local music store, even asked me right away, who would I like to be if I had a choice of bass players ... to which I told him ... none of them ... not a single one of them ... and it blew him up ... why? ... because I am me, and I have to find me in the instrument, not them! And you are not good enough to know the difference for an instructor!
 
Let's do this song, then.
 
No class next week with that moron!