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Why the Skill-Circus is Killing the Guitar Community

  • Writer: Tatum Marshall
    Tatum Marshall
  • Mar 10
  • 3 min read

The guitar community has been cursed. For decades, we have been conditioned by the marvel of watching the Malmsteens and the Vais - shredding with a skill we desire so badly. We grew to think that 'good guitar' was 'hard guitar'.


As a professional guitarist, a single sentence has haunted my work and shaped the direction of my music: 'Look how good I am at guitar'. It is a sentence, front of mind, when composing and creating music, and also, a sentence resisting the growth of the guitar community, forcing it into more spectacular and ridiculous means.


Neoclassical artist and fingerstyle guitarist Tatum Marshall standing against a wall with graffiti in black and white

I looked and saw that the music was lost, and that I had become more of a circus-act than a musician.

It is even more true today. As social media becomes the entry point, guitarists learn that the algorithm rewards shock, entertainment and novelty. Looking at my social metrics, there is a clear disparity in views and engagement between my 'entertaining' videos, and my more artistic and patient videos.


Don't get me wrong, there is a beauty to competence. It shows discipline and extraordinary practice. For a guitarist to do what they do, requires a lifetime of focus. The problem is when competence is used, not as an enhancement of the music, but to emphatically spread the message 'look how good I am at guitar'.


As guitarists, we are terrified of playing simply, and need to constantly remind people how good we are at guitar.

It has become so extreme, that my peers and I have resorted to using triple necked guitars (because 2 is no longer novel) - playing guitar blindfolded, playing with overt amounts of tapping and percussion that detract from the sound, and beginning every song with a 3-second hook. As guitarists, we are terrified that people may not know how good we are at guitar, and that if we play simply, listeners may think we are not as good as we are. This shapes our composition to include moments of technicality that far outweigh what the song requires.


And so this sentence has forged the output of guitarists. Every guitar reel on Instagram shouts "Look how good I am at guitar." Every song by guitar-centric musicians shouts "Look how good I am at guitar'. It was a path I followed, until I became so exhausted in this pattern, I looked and saw that the music was lost, and that I had become more of a circus-act than a musician.


Music does not always require you to go 100%. Some songs ask for gentle and calm melodies and for the guitarist to step back and the music to come forward. And here is a guarantee: you may see your guitar heroes play acoustically, or even ballads, but they can never not let you know 'how good they are at guitar' - and will even in the quiet songs throw in a dazzling moment of speed and proficiency to remind you.


Neoclassical artist and fingerstyle guitarist Tatum Marshall walking in Shoreditch in black and white

It is a difficult path to amend. My new album 'Bringing Quiet Back' is the first time I am proudly a composer first, and guitarist second. However, a guitar audience, geared for dopamine and wow factor, suddenly retracts into the very quiet the title suggests.


If guitar does not heal from the sentence 'Look how good I am at guitar' - I fear it will become a mere stunt, and lose commercial appeal to those who still listen to music, not how hard the music is to perform.


Tatum Marshall is an award-winning fingerstyle guitarist and neoclassical composer. His new 2026 album 'Bringing Quiet Back' is 100% human-made, with zero AI or loops, and is available on streaming platforms worldwide.



 
 
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