U2’s The Edge helps Fender market app

U2 guitarist The Edge is helping Fender Musical Instruments Corp., where he’s a board member, market an online learning application. Fender Play, costing $19.99 a month, went on sale Thursday in the U.S., U.K. and Canada.

“There’s still a lot of interest in guitar music, but it doesn’t appear at the forefront of contemporary culture,” Evans said in an interview. “It’s in the back there somewhere. This will help.”

In the 71 years since Leo Fender starting making guitars in a radio repair shop, the company has sold Stratocasters to Eric Clapton, John Mayer and Jimi Hendrix, gone through several ownership changes and weathered a few recessions. Today, it’s controlled by a unit of TPG Capital and Servo Pacific Inc. But the number of guitars sold in the U.S. is stagnant.

With industry sales slack, the world’s biggest guitarmaker sees Fender Play as one way to increase revenue. By charging for instruction, the company can keep making money after wannabe players leave the store. If more people stick with their guitars, they’ll ultimately buy nicer ones and additional equipment.

The course work — five levels with 10 to 12 courses each — is designed to let new students play something they recognize in half an hour, whether it’s rock, pop, blues, country or folk. With most new players giving up in the first year, instant gratification is key. But it should also appeal to former players looking to hone their skills or even an expert, according to Ethan Kaplan, Fender Digital’s general manager.

“There are a lot of people who have guitars under their beds,” Kaplan said in an interview. “If we could give them a quick path to feeling accomplished, we could reactivate this existing base of players. For every guitar we sell, there are a bunch we’ve sold that are just a piece of wood.”

— Bloomberg News