An
electric guitar is a
guitar that uses
pickups to convert the vibration
of its steel-cored strings (sometimes nickel) into an electrical
current, which is made louder with an
instrument amplifier and a speaker. The
signal that comes from the guitar is sometimes electronically
altered with
guitar effects such as
reverb or
distortion. While most electric guitars have six
strings, seven-string instruments are used by some
jazz guitarists and metal guitarists
(especially in
nu metal), and 12-string
electric guitars (with six pairs of strings, four of which are
tuned in octaves) are used in genres such as
jangle pop and rock.
The electric guitar was first used by Vaughan Reed, a jazz
guitarist, who used amplified hollow-bodied instruments to get a
louder sound in
Swing-era
big bands. The earliest electric guitars were
hollow bodied acoustic instruments with
tungsten steel pickups made by the
Rickenbacker company in 1931. While one
of the first solid-body guitars was invented by
Les Paul, the first commercially successful
solid-body electric guitar was the
Fender
Esquire (1950). The electric guitar was a key instrument in the
development of many musical styles that emerged since the late
1940s, such as
Chicago blues, early
rock and roll and
rockabilly, and 1960s
blues
rock. It is also used in a range of other genres, including
country music,
Ambient (or
New
Age), and in some
contemporary classical
music.
History
The need for an amplified guitar became apparent during the
big band era, as jazz orchestras of the
1930s and 1940s increased in size, with larger brass sections.
Initially,
electric guitars used in jazz
consisted primarily of hollow
archtop
acoustic guitar bodies to which electromagnetic transducers had
been attached.
Early years
Electric guitars were originally designed by an assortment of
luthiers, guitar makers, electronics enthusiasts, and instrument
manufacturers. Guitar innovator
Les Paul
experimented with microphones attached to guitars. Some of the
earliest electric guitars adapted
hollow bodied acoustic instruments and used
tungsten pickups. This type of
guitar was manufactured beginning in 1932 by Electro String
Instrument Corporation in
Los Santos
under the direction of Adolph Rickenbacher and
George Beauchamp. Their first design was
built by Harry Watson, a craftsman who worked for the Electro
String Company. This new guitar which the company called "
Rickenbacker" would be the first of its
kind.
The earliest documented performance with an electrically amplified
guitar was in 1932, by guitarist and bandleader
Gage Brewer. The Wichita, Kansas-based musician
had obtained two guitars, an Electric Hawaiian A-25 (Fry-pan,
lap-steel) and a standard Electric Spanish from his friend
George Beauchamp of Los Angeles,
California. Brewer publicized his new instruments in an article in
the Wichita Beacon, October 2, 1932 and through performances that
month.
The first recordings using the electric guitar were made by
Hawaiian Style players such as Andy Iona as early as 1933. Bob Dunn
of Milton Brown's Musical Brownies introduced the electric
Hawaiian guitar to
Western Swing with his January 1935 Decca
recordings, departing almost entirely from Hawaiian musical
influence and heading towards Jazz and Blues. Alvino Rey was an
artist who took this instrument to a wide audience in a large
orchestral setting and later developed the
pedal steel guitar for Gibson. An early
proponent of the electric Spanish guitar was jazz guitarist
George Barnes who used the
instrument in two songs recorded in Chicago on March 1, 1938,
Sweetheart Land and
It's a Low-Down Dirty Shame.
Some historians incorrectly attribute the first recording to Eddie
Durham, but his recording with the
Kansas City Five was not until 15 days
later. Durham introduced the instrument to a young
Charlie Christian, who made the instrument
famous in his brief life and would be a major influence on jazz
guitarists for decades thereafter.
The first recording of an electric Spanish guitar, west of the
Mississippi was in Dallas, in September 1935, during a session with
Roy Newman and His Boys, an early
Western
swing dance band. Their guitarist, Jim Boyd, used his
electrically amplified guitar during the recording of three songs,
"Hot Dog Stomp" (DAL 178-Vo 03371),
"Shine On, Harvest Moon" (DAL
180-Vo 03272), and
"Corrine,
Corrina" (DAL 181-Vo/OK 03117). An even earlier Chicago
recording of an electrically amplified guitar—albeit an amplified
lap steel guitar—was during a series of session by
Milton Brown and His Brownies (another early
Western swing band) that took place January 27-28, 1935, wherein
Bob Dunn played his amplified
Hawaiian guitar.
Early proponents of the electric guitar on record include: Jack
Miller (Orville Knapp Orch.), Alvino Rey (Phil Spitalney Orch.),
Les Paul (Fred Warring Orch.), Danny Stewart (Andy Iona Orchestra),
George Barnes (under many alias), Floyd Smith, Bill Broonzy, T-Bone
Walker, George Van Eps, Charlie Christian (Benny Goodman Orch.)
Tampa Red, Memphis Minnie, and Arthur Cruddup.
Early electric guitar manufacturers include:
Rickenbacker (first called Ro-Pat-In) in 1932,
Dobro in 1933, National,
AudioVox and
Volu-tone in 1934,Vega, Epiphone (Electrophone and Electar), and
Gibson in 1935 and many others by 1936.
The version of the instrument that is best known today is the
solid body electric guitar, a guitar made
of solid wood, without resonating air spaces within it.
Rickenbacher, later spelled
Rickenbacker, did, however, offer a cast
aluminum electric steel guitar, nicknamed
The Frying Pan or
The Pancake Guitar, developed in 1931 with
production beginning in the summer of 1932. This guitar sounds
quite modern and aggressive as tested by vintage guitar researcher
John Teagle. The company
Audiovox built and
may have offered an electric solid-body as early as the
mid-1930s.
Another early solid body electric guitar was designed and built by
musician and inventor
Les Paul in the early
1940s, working after hours in the
Epiphone
Guitar factory. His
log guitar (so called
because it consisted of a simple 4x4 wood post with a neck attached
to it and homemade pickups and hardware, with two detachable
Swedish hollow body halves attached to the sides for appearance
only) was patented and is often considered to be the first of its
kind, although it shares nothing in design or hardware with the
solid body "Les Paul" model sold by Gibson. In 1945, Richard D.
Bourgerie made an electric guitar pickup and amplifier for
professional guitar player George Barnes. Bourgerie worked through
World War II at Howard Radio Company making electronic equipment
for the American military. Mr. Barnes showed the result to Les
Paul, who then arranged for Mr. Bourgerie to have one made for
him.
Fender

Sketch of Fender lap steel guitar from
1944 patent application.
In 1946, radio repairman and instrument amplifier maker
Clarence Leonidas Fender—better
known as Leo Fender—through his eponymous company, designed the
first commercially successful solid-body electric guitar with a
single magnetic pickup, which was initially named the "
Esquire". This was a departure from the
typically hollow-bodied Jazz-oriented instruments of the time and
immediately found favor with Country-Western artists in California.
The two-pickup version of the Esquire was called the "Broadcaster".
However,
Gretsch had a drumset marketed with
a similar name (Broadkaster), so Fender changed the name to
"
Telecaster".
Features of the Telecaster included: an ash body; a maple 25½"
scale, 21-fret or 22-fret neck attached to the body with four-bolts
reinforced by a steel neckplate; two single-coil, 6-pole pickups
(bridge and neck positions) with tone and volume knobs, pickup
selector switch; and an output jack mounted on the side of the
body. A black bakelite pickguard concealed body routings for
pickups and wiring. The bolt-on neck was consistent with Leo
Fender's belief that the instrument design should be modular to
allow cost-effective and consistent manufacture and assembly, as
well as simple repair or replacement. Due to the earlier mentioned
trademark issue, some of the first production Telecasters were
delivered with headstock decals with the Fender logo but no model
identification. These are today very much sought after, and
commonly referred to by collectors as "Nocasters".

A 2004 maple necked Fender
Stratocaster next to a Vox amplifier.
In 1954, Fender introduced the
Fender Stratocaster, or "Strat." The
Stratocaster was seen as a deluxe model and offered various product
improvements and innovations over the Telecaster. These innovations
included a well dried ash or alder double-cutaway body design for
bridge assembly with an integrated spring
vibrato mechanism (called a
synchronized
tremolo by Fender, thus beginning a confusion of the terms
that still continues), three single-coil pickups, and body comfort
contours. Leo Fender is also credited with developing the first
commercially successful electric
bass
guitar called the
Fender
Precision Bass, introduced in 1951.
Vox
In 1962
Vox introduced the
pentagonal Phantom guitar, originally made in England but soon
after made by Alter EKO of Italy. It was followed a year later by
the teardrop-shaped Mark VI, the prototype of which was used by
Brian Jones of
The Rolling Stones, and later
Johnny Thunders of the
New York Dolls. Vox guitars also experimented
with onboard effects and electronics. In the mid 1960s, as the
sound of electric 12-string guitars became popular, Vox introduced
the Phantom XII and Mark XII electric 12-string guitars as well as
the Tempest XII which employed a more conventional Fender style
body and thus is often overlooked as a Vox classic from the
Sixties. The few that were manufactured also came from Italy. Vox
also produced other traditional styles of 6- and 12-string electric
guitars in both England and Italy, The 12-string electric guitars
had a much larger neck and body and averaged at the weight of 26.4
pounds(11.9 kg), they were also played on tables such as a
piano or other sit down instrument.
Construction
[[image:Electric Guitar (Superstrat based on ESP KH - vertical) -
with hint lines and numbers.png|thumb|Legend:1.
Headstock: 1.1
machine
heads; 1.2
truss rod cover; 1.3 string
guide; 1.4
nut.
2.
Neck: 2.1
fretboard; 2.2 inlay fret markers; 2.3
frets; 2.4 neck joint.
3. Body; 3.1 "neck"
pickup; 3.2 "bridge" pickup; 3.3
saddles; 3.4
bridge; 3.5 fine
tuners; 3.6 tremolo arm; 3.7 pickup selector switch; 3.8 volume and
tone control knobs; 3.9 output connector; 3.10 strap buttons.
4.
Strings: 4.1 bass strings 4.2
treble strings.]]While guitar construction has many variations, in
terms of the materials used for the body, the shape of the body,
and the configuration of the neck, bridge, and pickups, there are
features which are found in almost every guitar. The photo below
shows the different parts of an electric guitar. The
headstock (1) contains the metal machine heads,
which are used for tuning ; the
nut (1.4), a thin fret-like strip of
metal or plastic which the strings pass over as they first go onto
the fingerboard; the
machine heads
(1.1), which are
worm gears which the
player turns to change the string tension and thus adjust the
tuning; the
frets (2.3), which are thin metal
strips which stop the string at the correct pitch when a string is
pressed down against the fingerboard; the
truss rod (1.2), a metal cylinder used for
adjusting the tension on the neck (not found on all instruments);
decorative inlay (2.2), a feature not found on lower-cost
instruments.
The
neck and the
fretboard (2.1) extend from the body; at the neck
joint (2.4), the neck is either glued or bolted to the body; the
body (3) of this instrument is made of wood which is painted and
lacquered, but some guitar bodies are also made of polycarbonate or
other materials;
pickups
(3.1, 3.2), which are usually magnetic pickups, but which may also
be
piezoelectric transducer pickups;
the control knobs (3.8) for the volume and tone
potentiometers; a fixed
bridge (3.4) -on some guitars, a
spring-loaded hinged bridge called a "
tremolo system" is used instead, which allows
players to "bend" notes or chords down in pitch or perform a
vibrato embellishment; and a plastic
pickguard, a feature not found on all guitars,
which is used to protect the body from scratches.
The wood that the body (3) is made of is a very disputed subject
considered by some to largely determine the sonic qualities of the
guitar, while others believe that the sonic difference in a solid
body guitar is very subtle between woods. In acoustic and archtop
guitars there is a more pronounced sonic definition caused by the
type of wood used. Typical woods include alder (brighter, but well
rounded), swamp ash (similar to alder, but with more pronounced
highs and lows), mahogany (dark, bassy, warm), poplar (similar to
alder) and basswood (very neutral). Maple, a very bright tonewood,
is also a popular body wood, but is very heavy. For this reason it
is often placed as a 'cap' on a guitar made of primarily of another
wood. Cheaper guitars are often made of cheaper woods, such as
plywood, pine or agathis, not true hardwoods, which can affect the
durability and tone of the guitar.
Pickups
Compared with an acoustic guitar, which has a hollow body, electric
guitars make comparatively little audible sound simply by having
their strings plucked, and so electric guitars are normally plugged
into a guitar amplifier, which makes the sound louder. When an
electric guitar is strummed, the movement of the strings generates
(i.e., "induces") a very small electrical current in the magnetic
pickups, which are
magnets wrapped with coils
of very fine wire.That current is then sent through a cable to a
guitar amplifier. The current induced is proportional to such
factors as the density of the string or the amount of movement over
these pickups. That vibration is, in turn, affected by several
factors, such as the composition and shape of the body.
Some "hybrid" electric-acoustic guitars are equipped with
additional
microphones or
piezoelectric pickups (
transducers) that sense mechanical vibration from
the body. Because in some cases it is desirable to isolate the
pickups from the vibrations of the strings, a guitar's magnetic
pickups will sometimes be embedded or "potted" in epoxy or wax to
prevent the pickup from having a microphonic effect.
Because of their natural inductive qualities, all magnetic pickups
tend to pick up ambient and usually unwanted electromagnetic
noises. The resulting noise, the so-called "
hum", is particularly strong with single-coil pickups,
and aggravated by the fact that very few guitars are correctly
shielded against electromagnetic interference. The most frequent
cause is the strong 50 or 60
Hz component that
is inherent in the generation of electricity in the local
power transmission system. As
nearly all amplifiers and audio equipment associated with
electrical guitars rely on this power, there is in theory little
chance of completely eliminating the introduction of unwanted
hum.
Double-coil or "
humbucker" pickups were
invented as a way to reduce or counter the unwanted ambient hum
sounds (known as 60 cycle hum). Humbuckers have two coils of
opposite magnetic and electric polarity. This means that
electromagnetic noise hitting both coils should cancel itself out.
The two coils are wired in phase, so the signal picked up by each
coil is added together. This creates the richer, "fatter" tone
associated with humbucking pickups.
Optical pickups are a
type of pickup which sense string and body vibrations using
infrared
LED light.
Tremolo arms
Some electric guitars have a vibrato arm (sometimes called a
"whammy bar" or incorrectly "tremolo bar" and occasionally
abbreviated as
trem), a lever attached to the bridge which
can slacken or tighten the strings temporarily, changing the pitch,
thereby creating a
vibrato or a
portamento effect. Early vibrato systems, such as
the
Bigsby vibrato
tailpiece, tended to be unreliable and cause the guitar to go
out of tune quite easily, and also had a limited range. Later
Fender
designs were better, but Fender held the patent on these, so other
companies used Bigsby-style vibrato for many years.

Detail of a Squier-made Fender
Stratocaster.
Note the vibrato arm, the 3 single-coil pickups, the volume
and tone knobs.
With the expiration of the Fender patent on the
Stratocaster-stylevibrato, various improvements
on this type of internal, multi-spring vibrato system are now
available.
Floyd Rose introduced one of
the first improvements on the vibrato system in many years when in
the late 1970s he began to experiment with "locking" nuts and
bridges which work to prevent the guitar from losing tuning even
under the most heavy whammy bar acrobatics.
Guitar necks
Electric guitar necks can vary according to composition as well as
shape. The primary metric used to describe a guitar neck is the
scale, which is the overall length of the strings from the
nut to the bridge. A typical Fender guitar uses a 25.5 inch
scale, while Gibson uses a 24.75 inch scale in their
Les Paul. While Gibson's
scale has often claimed to be 24.75", it has varied through the
years by as much as a half inch. The frets are placed
proportionally according to the scale length; thus, the smaller the
scale, the tighter the spacing of the frets.
Necks are described as
bolt-on,
set-in, or
neck-through depending on how they are
attached to the body. Set-in necks are glued to the body in the
factory, and are said to have a warmer tone and greater sustain;
this is the most traditional type of joint. Bolt-on necks were
pioneered by
Leo Fender to facilitate
easy adjustment and replacement of the guitar neck. Neck-through
instruments extend the neck itself to form the center of the guitar
body, and are known for long sustain and for being particularly
sturdy. While a set neck can be carefully unglued by a skilled
luthier, and a bolt-on neck can simply be
unscrewed, a neck-through design is difficult or even impossible to
repair, depending on the damage. Historically, the bolt-on style
has been more popular for ease of installation and adjustment;
since bolt-on necks can be easily removed, there is an after-market
in replacement bolt-on necks from companies such as Warmoth and
Mighty Mite. Some instruments, notably most Gibson models, have
continued to use set/glued necks. Neck-through bodies are somewhat
more common in
bass guitars.
The materials used in the manufacture of the neck have great
influence over the tone of the instrument. Hardwoods are very much
preferred, with
maple,
ash, and
mahogany topping
the list. The neck and fingerboard can be made from different
materials, such as a maple neck with a
rosewood fingerboard. In the 1980s, exotic man-made
materials such as graphite began to be used, but are pricey and
never have replaced wood in production instruments. Such necks can
be retrofitted to existing bolt-on instruments.
There are several different neck shapes used on guitars, including
shapes known as C necks, U necks, and V necks. These refer to the
cross-sectional shape of the neck (especially near the nut). There
are also several sizes of fret wire available, with traditional
players often preferring thin frets, and metal shredders liking
thick frets. Thin frets are considered better for playing chords,
while thick frets allow lead guitarists to bend notes with less
effort. An electric guitar with a neck which folds back called the
"Foldaxe" was designed and built for Chet Atkins by Roger Field
(featured in Atkins' book "Me and My Guitars.").
Steinberger guitars developed a line of exotic
instruments without headstocks, with tuning done on the bridge
instead.
Sound and effects
While an
acoustic
guitar's sound is largely dependent on the vibration of the
guitar's body and the air within it, the sound of an electric
guitar is largely dependent on a magnetically induced
electrical signal, generated by the
vibration of metal strings near sensitive pickups. The signal is
then "
shaped" on its path to the
amplifier by using a range of effect devices or
circuits that modify the tone and characteristics of the signal.
The most basic sound-shaping circuitry are the volume control
(potentiometer), tone control (which "rolls off" the treble
frequencies), and the pick-up selectors which are found on most
electric guitars, and the gain and tone (usually consisting of at
least bass and treble) controls on the guitar amplifier.
In the 1960s, some guitarists began exploring a wider range of
tonal effects by
distorting the
sound of the instrument. To do this, they increased the
gain, or
volume, of the
preamplifier, which produced a "fuzzy" sound.
This effect is called "clipping" by sound engineers, because when
viewed with an oscilloscope, the wave forms of a distorted signal
appear to have had their peaks "clipped" off. This was not actually
a new development in the instrument, but rather a shift of
aesthetics. This sound was not generally recognized previously as
desirable. In the 1960s, the
tonal palette of
the electric guitar was further modified by introducing an
effects box in its signal path. Traditionally
built in a small metal chassis with an on/off foot switch, such
"
stomp boxes" have become an important
part of the electric guitar tone in many genres. Typical effects
include
stereo chorus,
fuzz,
wah-wah and
flanging,
compression/sustain,
delay,
reverb, and
phase
shift. Not all special effects are electronic; in 1967,
guitarist
Jimmy Page of
The Yardbirds and
Led
Zeppelin created unusual, psychedelic sound effects by playing
the electric guitar using a violin bow with a delay pedal and wah
pedal

A Boss "stomp-box"-style distortion
pedal in use.
In the 1970s, as effects pedals proliferated, their sounds were
combined with tube distortion at lower, more controlled volumes by
using
power attenuators
such as Tom Scholz' Power Soak as well as re-amplified dummy loads
such as Eddie Van Halen's use of a
variac,
power resistor, post-power-tube effects, and a final solid-state
amp driving the guitar speakers. A
variac is
one approach to power-supply based power attenuation, to make the
sound of power-tube distortion more practically available.
By the 1980s and 1990s, digital and software effects became capable
of replicating the analog effects used in the past. These new
digital effects attempted to model the sound produced by analog
effects and tube amps, to varying degrees of quality. There are
many free guitar effects computer programs for computers that can
be downloaded via the Internet. Now, computers with sound cards can
be used as digital guitar effects processors. Although digital and
software effects offer many advantages, many guitarists still use
analog effects.
In 2002, Gibson announced the first digital guitar, which performs
analog-to-digital conversion internally. The resulting digital
signal is delivered over a standard
Ethernet cable, eliminating cable-induced line
noise. The guitar also provides independent signal processing for
each individual string. Also, in 2003
amp maker
Line 6
released the
Variax guitar. It differs in
some fundamental ways from conventional solid-body electrics. For
example it uses
piezoelectric
pickups instead of the conventional electromagnetic ones, and
has an on-board computer capable of modifying the sound of the
guitar to model the sound of many instruments.
Extended playing techniques
The sound of a guitar is not only adapted by electronic sound
effects, but also heavily by all kinds of new techniques developed
or becoming possible in combination with the electric
amplification. This is called
extended technique. Famous extended
techniques are the use of the tremolo, as mentioned above, playing
harmonics,
palm
muting,
shred guitar,
tapping,
pinch
harmonic,
dive bomb. These are all
common techniques mainly used in hard rock and heavy metal. Also
other techniques exist, such as playing with
audio feedback and
alternate tunings. Sometimes guitars are
even adapted with extra modifications to alter the sound, examples:
usage of the
slide,
prepared guitar and
3rd bridge.
Types
Solid body
Solid body electric guitars have no hollow internal cavity to
accommodate vibration and no sound holes such as those used to
amplify string vibrations in
acoustic
guitars. Solid body instruments are generally made of hardwood
with a lacquer coating and have six steel strings. The wood is
dried for 3 to 6 months in heated storage before being cut to
shape. The sound that is audible in music featuring electric
guitars is produced by pickups on the guitar that convert the
string vibrations into an electrical signal. The signal is then fed
to an
amplifier (or amp) and
speaker.
One of the first solid body guitars was invented by
Les Paul.
Gibson did not present their
'
Les Paul' guitar prototypes to the
public, as they did not believe it would catch on. The first
mass-produced solid-body guitar was
Fender's Broadcaster
(later to become the '
Telecaster') first
made in 1948, five years after Les Paul made his
prototype. The Gibson Les Paul appeared soon after
to compete with the Broadcaster.
String-through body
When discussing electric guitar construction, the term
string-through body is used to describe a type of
solid body electric guitar body in which the strings are threaded
through holes drilled into the bottom of the guitar body. The
strings are typically held in place using metal
ferrules screwed or glued into the holes.
The advantages of a string-through body mostly relate to
improvements in a guitar's
sustain and
timbre. However, this type of body also
significantly increases the tension placed on the strings, which
can cause wear or bowing on the guitar neck over time. It is also
by nature impossible to install a
tremolo
arm on a string-through body.
Examples of string-through bodies on guitars include the
Fender Telecaster Thinline and
Telecaster Deluxe.
Semi-acoustic

150 px
These guitars have a hollow body and electronic pickups mounted on
its body. They work in a similar way to solid body electric guitars
except that because the hollow body also vibrates, the pickups
convert a combination of string and body vibration into an
electrical signal. A variant form, the semi-hollow body guitar,
strikes a balance between the characteristics of solid-body and
hollow-body guitars. Advocates of semi-hollow-body guitars argue
that they have greater resonance and sustain than true solid-body
guitars, as well as lighter overall weight. Typically, a
semi-hollow body guitar will have a form factor more similar to a
solid-body electric guitar, and may include two sound holes, one,
or none.
A number of metal-bodied guitars have worked with the unique
acoustic/sustaining qualities of metal. These are not hollow-bodied
guitars, like a blues steel-bodied guitar, although most are
chambered for weight; instead, these metal-bodied guitars are built
to play as a solid wood body. Several metal bodies were made in the
1950s by violin and cello makers. In the 1970s, John Veleno made a
polished aluminum guitar. Liquid Metal Guitars makes a metal body
guitar made out of a solid block of aluminum and then chrome or
gold-plates the instrument. Many guitars otherwise sold as
solid-bodied instruments, such as the
Gibson Les Paul or the
PRS Singlecut, are built with "weight relief"
holes bored into the body which affect the sound of the instrument.
The Les Paul Supreme edition is currently described by the
manufacturer as a "chambered" instrument, with a weight relief
system designed to positively affect the sound.
Electric acoustic
Some
steel-string acoustic
guitars are fitted with
pickups purely as an alternative
to using a separate microphone. They may also be fitted with a
piezo-electric pickup under the
bridge, attached to the bridge mounting plate, or with a low mass
microphone (usually a condenser mic)
inside the body of the guitar that will convert the vibrations in
the body into electronic signals, or even combinations of these
types of pickups, with an integral mixer/preamp/graphic equalizer.
These are called
electric
acoustic guitars, and are regarded as acoustic guitars rather
than electric guitars because the pickups do not produce a signal
directly from the vibration of the strings, but rather from the
vibration of the guitar top or body. These should not be confused
with
semi-acoustic guitars,
which have pickups of the type found on solid body electric
guitars.
String, bridge, and neck variants
Although rare, the one-string guitar is sometimes heard,
particularly in
Delta blues, where
improvised folk instruments were popular in the 1930s and 1940s.
Eddie "One String" Jones had some regional success with a
Mississippi blues musician
Lonnie
Pitchford played a similar, homemade instrument. In a more
contemporary style, Little Willie Joe, the inventor of the Unitar,
had a
rhythm and blues instrumental hit in the 1950s with "Twitchy",
recorded with the Hall Orchestra. The best-known exponent of the
four-string guitar, often called the
tenor
guitar was
Tiny Grimes, who played
on
52nd Street with the
beboppers and played a major role in the
Prestige Blues Swingers. Grimes' guitar omitted the bottom two
strings.
Deron Miller of
CKY only uses four strings, but plays a six
string guitar with the two highest strings removed. Many banjo
players use this tuning: DGBE, mostly in Dixieland. Guitar players
find this an easier transition than learning plectrum or tenor
tuning.
Seven-string
Most Seven-string guitars add a low "B" string below the low "E".
Both electric and
classical guitars
exist designed for this tuning. A high "A" string above the high
"E" instead of the low "B" is sometimes used. Another less common
seven-string arrangement is a second G string situated beside the
standard G string and tuned an octave higher, in the same manner as
a twelve-stringed guitar (see below).
Jazz guitarists using a seven-string include
veteran jazz guitarists
George Van
Eps,
Bucky Pizzarelli and his
son
John Pizzarelli.
Seven-string electric guitars were popularized among rock players
in the 1980s by
Steve Vai. Along with the
Japanese guitar company
Ibanez, Vai created
the
Universe series seven string
guitars in the 1980s, with a double locking tremolo system for a
seven string guitar. These models were based on Vai's six string
signature series, the
Ibanez Jem.
Seven-string guitars experienced a resurgence in popularity in the
2000s, championed by
Slayer,
KoRn,
Fear Factory,
Strapping Young Lad,
Nevermore, and other
hard
rock/
metal bands. Metal
musicians often prefer the seven-string guitar for its extended
lower range. The seven-string guitar has also played an essential
role in progressive rock, and is commonly used in bands such as
Dream Theater and by experimental
guitarists such as Ben Levin.
Eight and nine-string
Eight-string electric guitars are rare, but not unused. One is
played by
Charlie Hunter
(manufactured by
Novax Guitars). The
largest manufacturer of 8- to 14-strings is Warr Guitars. Their
models are used by
Trey Gunn (ex
King Crimson) who has his own
signature line from the company. Also,
Mårten Hagström and
Fredrik Thordendal of
Meshuggah used 8-string guitars made by Nevborn
Guitars and now guitars by
Ibanez.
Munky of
nu metal band
KoRn is also known to use seven-string Ibanez
guitars and it is rumored that he is planning to release a K8
eight-string guitar similar to his K7 seven-string guitar.
Stephen Carpenter of
Deftones also switched from 7 to 8 string in 2008
and released his signature STEF B-8 with
ESP
Guitars. In 2008 Ibanez released the Ibanez RG2228-GK which is
the first mass produced eight-string guitar.
Jethro Tull's first album uses a
nine-string guitar on one track.
Minarik
Guitars manufactures the "Inferno V" 9 stringed guitar that has
the top three strings doubled up with strings that are an octave
higher, like 12 stringed guitars.
Bill
Kelliher, guitarist for the
heavy
metal group
Mastodon, worked
with
First Act on a custom mass-produced
nine-string guitar.
Andy Woodd from NZ Metal band Cripple Mr Onion uses his own custom
designed 8 string.This gives Cripple Mr Onions albums their
distinct sound.
Ten-string
B.C.Rich manufacture a ten-string
six-
course electric guitar known as
the
Bich, whose radical shape was specifically designed to
allow the machine heads for the four secondary strings to be
positioned on the body, avoiding the head-heaviness of many
electric twelve-string guitars. However many players bought it for
the body shape or electrics and simply removed the extra strings.
The company recognized this and released six-string models of the
Bich, but ten-string models also remain in production.
In October 2008, a ten-string electric
jazz
guitar by
Mike Shishkov was
demonstrated at the 3rd International Ten String Guitar Festival.
This instrument was based on the ten-string
extended-range classical
guitar.
Twelve-string
Twelve string electric guitars feature six pairs of strings,
usually with each pair tuned to the same note. The extra E, A, D,
and G strings add a note one octave above, and the extra B and E
strings are in unison. The pairs of strings are played together as
one, so the technique and tuning are the same as a conventional
guitar, although creating a much fuller tone. They are used almost
solely to play harmony and rhythm. They are relatively common in
folk rock music.
Lead Belly is the folk artist most identified
with the twelve-string guitar, usually acoustic with a
pickup.
George Harrison of
The Beatles and
Roger
McGuinn of
The Byrds brought the
electric twelve-string to notability in
rock and roll. During the Beatles' first trip
to the US, in February 1964, Harrison received a new "
360/12" model guitar from the
Rickenbacker company, a 12-string electric made
to look onstage like a 6-string. He began using the 360 in the
studio on Lennon's "You Can't Do That" and other songs. Roger
McGuinn began using electric 12-string guitars to create the jangly
sound of The Byrds. Another notable guitarist to utilize electric
12-string guitars is
Jimmy Page, the
guitarist with hard rock-heavy metal and rock group Led
Zeppelin.
3rd bridge
The 3rd bridge guitar is an electric
prepared guitar with an additional 3rd
bridge. This can be a normal guitar with for instance a screwdriver
placed under the strings, but can also be a
custom made instrument.
Lee Ranaldo of
Sonic
Youth plays with a 3rd bridge.
Double neck guitar
Double neck (or, less commonly,
"twin-neck") guitars enable guitarists to play guitar and bass
guitar or, more commonly, a six-string and
twelve-string. An early user was
John McLaughlin, but the double-neck
guitar was popularized by
Jimmy Page, who
used a custom-made
Gibson EDS-1275
to perform the "
Stairway to
Heaven" and "The Song Remains the Same".
Don Felder also used the Gibson EDS-1275 during
the
Hotel California tour.
Uses
Popular music
Popular music and rock groups often
use the electric guitar in two roles: as a
rhythm guitar which provides the
chord sequence or "
progression" and sets out the "
beat" (as part of a
rhythm section), and a
lead guitar, which is used to perform
melody lines, melodic
instrumental fill passages, and
guitar solos. In some rock or metal bands with
two guitarists, the two performers may perform as a
guitar tandem, and trade off the
lead guitar and rhythm guitar roles. In bands with a single
guitarist, the guitarist may switch between these two roles,
playing chords to accompany the singer's lyrics, and then playing a
guitar solo in the middle of the song.
In the most commercially available and consumed pop and rock
genres, electric guitars tend to dominate their
acoustic cousins in both the
recording studio and the live venue,
especially in the "harder" genres such as
heavy metal and
hard
rock. However the
acoustic
guitar remains a popular choice in
country,
western
and especially
bluegrass music, and
it is widely used in
folk music.
Jazz and jazz fusion
Jazz guitar playing styles include
rhythm guitar-style "
comping" (accompanying) with jazz chord
voicings (and in some cases,
walking basslines) and "blowing" (improvising
solos) over jazz
chord
progressions with jazz-style phrasing and ornaments. The
accompanying style for electric guitar in most
jazz styles differs from the way chordal instruments
accompany in many popular styles of music. In rock and pop, the
rhythm guitarist usually performs the chords in rhythmic fashion
which sets out the beat of a tune. In contrast, in many modern jazz
styles, the guitarist plays much more sparsely, intermingling
periodic chords and delicate voicings into pauses in the melody or
solo. Jazz chord voicings are usually
rootless and emphasize the 3rd and 7th notes of
the chord.
When jazz guitar players
improvise,
they use the scales, modes, and arpeggios associated with the
chords in a tune's chord progression. Jazz guitarists have to learn
how to use scales (whole tone scale, chromatic scale, etc.) to solo
over chord progressions. Jazz guitar improvising is not merely the
recitation of jazz scales and rapid arpeggios. Jazz guitarists
often try to imbue their melodic phrasing with the sense of natural
breathing and legato phrasing used by horn players such as
saxophone players. As well, a jazz guitarists' solo improvisations
have to have a rhythmic drive and "time feel" that creates a sense
of "
swing" and
"
groove".
Most jazz guitarists play hollow body instruments, but solid body
guitars are also used. Hollow body instruments were the first
guitars used in jazz in the 1930s and 1940s. During the 1970s
jazz fusion era, many jazz guitarists
switched to the solid body guitars that dominated the rock
world.
Contemporary classical music
Until the 1950s, the acoustic, nylon-stringed
classical guitar was the only type of
guitar favored by classical, or
art music
composers. In the 1950s a few
contemporary classical
composers began to use the electric guitar in their compositions.
Examples of such works include
Karlheinz Stockhausen's
Gruppen (1955-57);
Donald Erb's
String Trio (1966),
Morton Feldman's
The Possibility
of a New Work for Electric Guitar (1966);
George Crumb's
Songs, Drones, and Refrains
of Death (1968);
Hans Werner
Henze's
Versuch über Schweine (1968);
Francis Thorne's
Sonar Plexus (1968)
and
Liebesrock (1968–69),
Michael Tippett's
The Knot Garden (1965-70);
Leonard Bernstein's
MASS (1971) and
Slava!
(1977);
Louis Andriessen's
De
Staat (1972-76);
Steve Reich's
Electric Counterpoint
(1987),
Arvo Pärt's
Miserere
(1989/92), and countless works composed for the quintet of
Ástor Piazzolla.
In the 1980s and 1990s, a growing number of composers (many of them
composer-performers who had grown up playing the instrument in rock
bands) began writing contemporary classical music for the electric
guitar. These include
Shawn Lane,
Steven Mackey,
Nick Didkovsky,
Scott Johnson,
Lois V Vierk,
Tim Brady,
Tristan Murail,
John
Rogers, and Randall Woolf.
Yngwie Malmsteen released his
Concerto Suite
for Electric Guitar and Orchestra in 1998, and
Steve Vai released a double-live CD entitled
Sound Theories, of his work
with the Netherlands Metropole Orchestra in June 2007. The American
composers
Rhys Chatham and
Glenn Branca have written "symphonic" works for
large ensembles of electric guitars, in some cases numbering up to
100 players, and the instrument is a core member of the
Bang on a Can All-Stars (played by
Mark Stewart). Still, like many
electric and electronic instruments, the electric guitar remains
primarily associated with rock and jazz music, rather than with
classical compositions and performances.
R. Prasanna
plays a style of Indian classical music (
Carnatic music) on the electric guitar.
In the 21st century, European avantgarde composers like
Richard Barrett,
Fausto Romitelli and
Karlheinz Essl used the electric guitar
(together with extended playing techniques) in solo pieces or
ensemble works.
See also
References
Further reading
- Denyer, Ralph, The Guitar Handbook, (ISBN
0-330-32750-X), Pan Books; 2Rev Ed edition (27 November
1992)
- Smith, Monica M., "The Electric Guitar: How we got from Andrés
Segovia to Kurt Cobain", Invention and Technology
Magazine, Summer 2004, Volume 20, Issue 1.
External links