Where do you all see guitar playing going?

Everybody likes to talk about "the good old days," though they're different for all of us. If you don't atleast think back to the "good old days," you will in a couple of years when the music scene changes.
But I'm wondering, what do you all see yourselfs doing or wanting to hear in the future? I mean, music should progress, right? Not to marr the greats of the past because they will always be great, but playing the same ideas forever doesn't do them justice either. So what are we all inspired to hear?

Well how I see guitar playing going more digital. Most guitar playing would sound more like synths than a guitar. Everyone will use ebows, and guitar sythns etc. Well think of Orgys guitas sound. There guitars have more of a sythny sound than guitar. I see more Orgy type bands.

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Is it just me or does life suck? Maybe I suck and it just life? We shall never know...

I think we're going to see the return of technical excellence but an abandonment of the neo-classical thing whereby the same ol' scales and arps are played over and over faster and faster. I think, or maybe I hope, we'll see the return of the frenzied, from the gut, type of guitar playing that was forged by John Mclaughlin and carried on by guys such as Vernon Reid, Reeves Gabrels, and currently by Buckethead. Lots of fusing of styles and blurring of boundaries: rock + jazz + hip hop + everything mixed up.
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I also see alot of people trying to expand what the guitar can do, beyond technique and scales, but entirely new sounds. This of course goes back beyond Jimi, but it's becoming more of what's happening in music today. Hell, that's what I try to do on bass. I think we'll be seeing more people in total control of their instrument, right down to knowing how to get your strap locks to squeak in a certain way. And definately, styles are melding, but when are we going to see a new style that owes less to everything that's come before?

I think that in the future more and more attention will be put on how "heavy" the guitar sounds... i think that right now there is guitar reinesanse (i dunno how to spell this word - sorry ) i mean almost anyone i know plays the guitar... every place i go i hear people playing... but guitar playing became less profesional... most of the people i know that play the guitar dont know even the basics of theory but they know "how to turn on the distortion" if you know what i mean.... so i think we will have a very heavy era in guitar... and this dont make me happy for sure

Zeppelin, I agree that things are definatly heavy right NOW (look at all these rap/metal bands like korn, bizkit etc.) and may continue on in the same fashion for a few more years, but like bofatron I think that true guitar excellence is going to come back; however with more emphasis placed on making wierd sounds (Tom Morrelo is the pioneer of this new style). It all comes down to "breaking the mainstream"... right now, korn is on it's way out. In my highschool, nobody listens to korn anymore. In grade 7 the coolest kids would listen to it, but now all the most popular kids are trying to make their identidy by shying away from mainstream (most go to hip/hop, which is sad, but some go to Hendrix, Black Sabbath, even the Beatles). So long as enough people start liking guitar again, all the music channels will give attention to it. Then it will be at the top for a few years before it becomes mainstream, then something will replace it. The cycle continues.

there seems to be a boom/bust cycle with the quality of guitar playing. in the 60's to early 80's, most bands had a strong lead guitarist who could play a decent solo, and some had absolute guitar geniuses. but since the 80's and synthesizers came around, everyone seems to have forgotten how to play guitar well, except for maybe a few chords. i think soon there'll be a rebirth of quality guitarists, and we won't have to listen to all this garbage, like matchbox twenty, or backstreet boys.

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ok, i'm not really the eggman

Yo james! in my school this about the same.. people which laughed at my oldies taste now listening to the bands i like, everybody leaving all this bands like korn and bizquit.. i guess you right about tom morello.. he is a flash of light in the dark, and also the RCHP which are one of the best bands probably now...
the problem is that even people that like old 70's rock like me cant compose it... it easire somehow to write metal stuff... and even i , a man who quite hate it, can't stop myself from playing it

Yeah I know what you mean, I sit down and try and write something in the image of Zeppelin, but it doesn't come out that way. But then I started playing fairly recently, and still have a lot more to learn and experience.