Changes

Both really. I think in the next few years you'll probably tend to get a lot more electronic things, but also there will be a lot more straight-ahead players who don't use anything at all. Because most of the young guys I speak to now, at the various clinic and things, they start playing straight away with a big amp and sustain and all that. They just don't know about the other things that happened before that, in the early days of electric guitar. So I think you'll get these people starting to want to know about what happened before, and you'll also get people who are interested in electronic development. There's still a lot that can be done just using the amplifier as an extension of the guitar - I don't mean like the old jazz players, who just played acoustic guitar with the amp as an afterthought to make it louder - I mean using the amplification as part of the instrument, but without any pedals or anything. Electric guitar is becoming more and more a separate instrument from acoustic guitar. Lots of people now are starting to play guitar on an electric, and not going through the acoustics first. They are beginning to find an electric guitarist's approach. I've found that people who have played a lot of acoustic usually don't play electric very well. I don't know why: it seems to run away with them, they pick too hard or the strings are too loose... Then again, people think that you can't approach acoustic guitar with an electric guitarist's approach, but I think you can in some areas. A lot of flamenco guitarists use lots of things that electric guitarists do, slurs and hammers and that. They sound incredible on acoustic guitar. Even so, things are bound to divide into two: most people will go for one or the other - straight-ahead playing acoustic or simply amplified, or heavily electronic things. Obviously you'll get some guys who will be able to extend into both areas, but apart from them, I think there will be two different breeds of guitarist.