Their is a great thread on the Guitarists.net forum on finding people in your town to play with who have similar tastes.
“I’ve recently noticed that around my area where I live, there are almost no guitarists, or even musicians for that matter, that share my taste in music. Its really weird. I like to play classic rock thrown in with jazz, blues, and some funk I guess, along with pop style music. I will even throw a little metal in there every once in a while. But around where I live, there are like no musicians that I know that share my tastes. They are either hardcore metal (and only metal) or hardcore country (and only country, which I play but only for church, I don’t like playing it outside of church). And everyone who isn’t a musician likes rap and R&B. Does anyone else have this problem? Its not like I have anything against any of these genres, I consider myself to be pretty well rounded in what I like, but I don’t PLAY all of these styles, the ones I listed are the only ones I like to play. I was just wondering if anyone else out there has these problems. “
Which is a problem that I’m sure a lot of people struggle with. But the thread takes an interesting turn. Judging by most people playing in music stores and looking for musicians on Craigslist, the music world has gone metal.
“Sometimes it sure seems like metal players outnumber other guitar players like 10 to 1 or more, at least based on some forums (including this one, sometimes). I find it a little odd that, for instance, the vast majority of new people who come on here want to play metal, and the vast majority of bands on the local craigslist are metal or some near cousin, but metal is invisible in the real world. I mean, if every single kid in Guitar Center is playing metal, how is it that metal bands are not selling out football stadiums? “
and a possible explanation on why it hasn’t gotten bigger
“I noticed too that there is a huge underground culture for metal but it’s just not covered by mainstream media, I question if they want to be discovered like that anyways, a lot of them seem to like the underground scene, and yeah it does feel like they outnumber everyone else because if you go to my guitar center or Sam Ash if they are under the age of thirty they play metal, and after five years of playing I have yet to see otherwise “
And the rise of music blogs and forums over the past 10 years has allowed fans of metal to interact despite geographic distance. In general I think it’s always been true that niche factions of anything can survive as long as it’s fans and followers have a certain level of tenacity. I recently heard Chuck Klosterman talking about a battle among the writers of Lost about whether to go with a more drama soap opera style of writing or science fiction style. And the ultimate decision was to go with sci-fi because the fans are more loyal despite being a smaller sect of the population. He compared their passion to that of heavy metal fans. So even though metal fans may make up a small portion of the music listening public, what if they are just that more inclined to play instruments as well because of their immersion in metal culture.
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