Jack Campin says: "According to the Wikipedia page, world harmonica production was 50 million in 1920. I doubt it's dropped that much since, and I doubt if whistles and recorders are far behind. No way is the guitar more than the world's fourth most popular instrument."

Jack, you're not someone who shies away from pointing out flaws in other people's contributions or research. So how on earth do you feel justified in basing a rebuttal of the assertion about the standing of the guitar's popularity on the basis of a statistic of harmonica production that's over 90 years old? And *then* you go on to say that you *doubt* if it's dropped any since then? That's not even an informed guess.

Another thing I'd point out is that most harmonica players of my acquaintance possess more than one, sometimes as many as 10 or 20. So the number of harmonicas produced could comfortably outstrip the number of players by a sizeable margin. And yes, that IS an informed guess.

And a similar trend applies to whistle players. OH, and just because there are lots of whistle players in trad/folk circles in the UK and Ireland, it does not have the same worldwide popularity as the guitar. It's not an instrument that transcends genres in anything like the same way as the guitar.

Cheers


SD