The evolution of guitar

Stringed instruments have been around for hundreds of years. The guitar has been in the forefront for quite sometime now but where is it going? The evolution of the guitar over the past couple of hundred years was slow. But in the 20th century it seemed to make leaps and bounds. Adolph Rickenbacker, Leo Fender, and Les Paul turned the guitar into a modern stringed instrument….then it stopped.

I’m not saying advances in guitar technology stopped altogether. Sure there were great improvements, new hardware, new shapes, but overall, the evolution of guitar seems to have reach it’s pinnacle. The guitars designed by Fender and Gibson back in the late forties and early fifties are still being produced today. The number of knockoffs and copies are countless. Companies like Jackson and Ibanez did take things to a new level to some extent in the eighties but those designs have too become antiquated. Or have they?

Is it possible that the guitar is what it is. I’m sure there will be small changes here or there but will there be anymore quantum steps forward in guitar technology?  More to the point, do we want any more from a guitar? Did Leo,Adolph,and Les get it right? They certainly did something right because we are all still buying their designs like there’s no tomorrow.

 I know we live in the digital age. I know there are modeling amps, guitar synthesizers, and modeling guitars like the Variax and the VG strat. The kicker is, these modern digital instruments are modeling and emulating the tried and true traditional stuff. I don’t know where the guitar will go in the next 20 years but if the past 20 years are any indication, I will probably still be playing my Les Paul when I’m 60.