GrapeSoda

It seems like the argument is that new members are extra sensitive to initial remarks and because of that, extra compassion should be given by existing members. Is that essentially it?

VEGANGELICA

I've been thinking about your thread and particularly about whether the electric guitar is the dead-end culmination of popular instrument evolution.

When I look at the evolution (change or development) of popular instruments used in music throughout history, such as the recorder (block flute), harmonica, piano, accordion, lute, acoustic guitar, and electric guitar, I conclude that improving on the electric guitar as a popular instrument may indeed be very difficult, unless human society or humans change drastically.

This means I wouldn't expect many additional, more popular instruments to be developed, because the electric guitar matches the Ideal Qualities of a Popular Instrument (an instrument intended for mass use in creating popular music) so well and much better than any other instrument people have invented:

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Qualities of the Ideal Popular Music Instrument:

1. Uses only the hands to play, freeing the mouth for singing (the recorder and harmonica fail in this regard, but the guitar excels).
2. Easy to learn to play (contrast this with the violin, harp, and piano, which I think are much harder to learn to play well compared to the guitar because they require complex motions from both hands).
3. Cheap to construct (constrast a guitar with the piano).
4. Portable (an accordion was an attempt to make the piano a portable instrument, but it is limited in the sounds it can make; a guitar is lightweight and not too big).
5. Allows great versatility of sound (an electric guitar creates a far greater range of sound than any of the other vibrating instruments).

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^ Unless these criteria change, I think creating a more popular instrument than the electric guitar will be difficult and unlikely, because the electric guitar fulfills them so well!

The evolution of the electric guitar parallels biological evolution in which natural selection sometimes results in a species that fits its unchanging environmental conditions well enough that the species can survive for millions of years with few genetic changes being propagated throughout the population over time. When the environment doesn't change, then there is no selection pressure to encourage the propagation of mutants that happen to exist in the population.

Similarly, guitars have existed for over 3,000 years relatively unchanged, a testament to their success in fulfilling criteria for good popular instruments. Unless humans or culture changes drastically, there is no impetus for the evolution of a new popular music instrument. New instruments *are* being developed, but unless the criteria for a popular instrument change, these new-fangled instruments won't become popular.

Conclusion: the evolution of popular musical instruments leading to the massively popular electric guitar *has* become stagnant and is likely to remain so, because creating an instrument that better matches the criteria for the ideal popular instrument is difficult.

When we humans have run out of fossil fuels in 1,000 years, we may see large changes in human society and energy consumption. Then I would expect such environmental changes to impact the evolution of instruments, because there will be different selection pressures.

For example, if people no longer could use electricity, there would be no electric guitar. Alternatively, if nuclear radioactive waste buildup over the next million years leads to a higher frequency of genetic mutations in people, individuals with altered sensory and perception systems might be more successful at procreating, causing the human population to include many people with different preferences in music such that instruments and music could change quite a bit. We're talking hundreds of thousands of years here, though!

My guess about the future of music is that popular music will continue the trend of being heavily guitar-based while blending sounds from different countries' music traditions, especially as developing nations become wealthier and Western nations lose more economic and cultural power.

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Thanks, Neapolitan, for sharing the evolutionary pathway of the sounds I heard in my favorite "Fine Objects" song by Eskamon. I had not known about their origins. I appreciate your sharing!

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Yes, I agree with you that the argument raised in this thread is essentially that existing members should be especially polite to new members, who are more likely than established members to feel sensitive to possible heckling and rebuffed by comments that seem or are rude.

The bigger issue, I feel, is how MusicBanter members and mods want to uphold The First Rule of our community, especially when someone breaks it:

• While debating and discussion is fine, we will not tolerate rudeness, insulting posts, personal attacks, trolling, purposeless inflammatory posts or members deliberately provoking another member into committing any of these acts.

I feel that the best way to reply to rudeness is by being polite, since rude replies by members and mods violate the very rule that is supposed to be protected, encourage more rudeness, and discourage open sharing of opinions about music.

I think most of us here want MB to consistently encourage and facilitate the open sharing of opinions about music, but we may disagree on how best to achieve that goal.

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Urban Hat€monger ?

I already responded to this earlier in the thread but here it is again for your benefit.

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