In a recent survey undertaken by the UK's Music Industries Association, 50 percent of those men who considered themselves to be 'musicians', said they played guitar, making it the most popular musical instrument among the country's UK music makers - the stats monkeys behind the survey reckon that means as many as 4 million Brits play guitar, though I suspect 3.9 million play it pretty badly.
The research, somehow based around interviews with 1000 households, found that 21% of over 5s in the UK play a musical instrument, that the majority (57%) of music makers are under 35 and from a middle class background, and that 44% of households own at least one musical instrument (though the survey didn't digress how many of those instruments were a recorder). Perhaps unsurprisingly, there's a bit of a split between the sexes - only 17% of girls chose the guitar, while more than twice as many female musicians (47%) play the piano than men (21%).
But after all that giddying good news about the nation's collective music skills, the survey also reckoned some 18 million people once played a musical instrument but then stopped, often before they were 16. Of those people some 48% said they would like to start playing again, while 70% of those who had never learned to play music said they wished they had.
Commenting on the survey, MIA boss Paul McManus told CMU: “It's clear that there's an appetite for playing music in the UK. But a lot of people still want to play and don't and that's why we're developing ways to make it easier for them to go back to playing an instrument or to learn to play. Too many players are giving up early in life and regretting it afterwards. We need to find new ways to help and encourage all age groups to experience the joys and benefits of playing a musical instrument."
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