Electric guitar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An
electric guitar (aka
mum guitar,
electric or
electro) is a
guitar using
pickups to convert its metal string vibration into electricity. This is amplified with an
instrument amplifier. The output is altered with
guitar effects such as
reverb or
distortion. The earliest electric guitars were
hollow bodied acoustic instruments with
tungsten steel pickups made by
Rickenbacker in 1931. The electric guitar was a key instrument in the development of musical styles that emerged since the late 1940s, such as
Chicago blues, early
rock and roll and
rockabilly, and 1960s
blues rock. It is used in almost every popular music genre.
[edit] History
There has always been a quest for louder instruments. The guitar was a good candidate for amplification due to its acoustic properties and for its potential as a polyphonic solo instrument. The need for an amplified guitar became apparent during the
big band era, as orchestras increased in size: particularly when guitars had to compete with large brass sections. The first
electric guitars used in jazz were hollow
archtop acoustic guitar bodies with electromagnetic transducers. By 1932 an electrically amplified guitar was commercially available. An early commercially successful solid-body electric guitar was the
Fender Esquire in 1950.
Sketch of Rickenbacker
"frying pan" lap steel from 1934 patent application.
Electric guitars were originally designed by luthiers, guitar makers, electronics enthusiasts, and instrument manufacturers. Guitar innovator
Les Paul experimented with microphones attached to guitars.
[1] Some of the earliest electric guitars adapted
hollow bodied acoustic instruments and used
tungsten pickups. An electrically amplified guitar was developed by George Beauchamp in 1931. Commercial production began in late summer of 1932 by Electro-Patent-Instrument Company
Los Angeles, a partnership of Adolph Rickenbacker, Paul Barth and
George Beauchamp, the inventor. The wooden body of the prototype was built by Harry Watson, a craftsman who had worked for the National Resophonic Guitar Company (where the men met). By 1934 the company was renamed
Rickenbacker Electro Stringed Instrument Company.
[2]
The earliest documented performance with an electrically amplified guitar was in 1932, by
Gage Brewer.
[3] The Wichita, Kansas-based musician had an Electric Hawaiian A-25 (Fry-pan, lap-steel) and a standard Electric Spanish from
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. Brewer's original 1932 Ro-Pat-In Electro Spanish guitar can currently be viewed at the
Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum.
The first recordings using the electric guitar were by Hawaiian style players, including Andy Iona in 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 incorrectly attribute the first recording to Eddie Durham, but his recording with the
Kansas City Five was 15 days later.
[4] 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.
[citation needed]
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).
[5][6][7] 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.
[8]
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
solid body electric guitar is made of solid wood, without functionally resonating air spaces. Rickenbacher, later spelled
Rickenbacker, offered 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.
The first solid body "Spanish" standard guitar was offered by Vivi-Tone no later than 1934. An example of this model, featuring a guitar-shaped body of a single sheet of plywood affixed to a wood frame, can be seen in the
Experience Music Project.
[9] Another early, substantially solid Spanish electric guitar was marketed by the "Rickenbacker" guitar company in 1935 and made of an early cast plastic called Bakelite. By 1936 the Slingerland company introduced a solid body electric model made of solid wood.
A functionally solid body electric guitar was designed and built by Les Paul from an Epiphone acoustic archtop. 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) shares nothing in design or hardware with the solid body "Les Paul" model sold by Gibson. However, the feedback problem associated with hollow-bodied electric guitars was understood long before Paul's "log" was created in 1940; Gage Brewer's Ro-Pat-In of 1932 had a top so heavily reinforced that it essentially functioned as a solid-body instrument.
[10]
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.
[edit] 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.
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.
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.
[edit] Construction
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.
[edit] 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.
[11] 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.
A close-up of the pickups on a Fender Squier "Fat Strat" guitar; on the left is a "humbucker" pickup and on the right are two single-coil pickups.
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 [12] are a type of pickup which sense string and body vibrations using infrared
LED light.
[edit] Tremolo arms
Main article:
Tremolo armSome electric guitars have a vibrato arm (sometimes called a "whammy bar" or incorrectly
[citation needed] "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-style vibrato, 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[13]
[edit] 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
[citation needed], 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.
[edit] Semi-acoustic
An Epiphone brand semi-acoustic hollow-body guitar.
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
[who?] argue that they have greater resonance and sustain than true solid-body guitars,
[14][not in citation given] 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
[15]. 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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. The Famous guitarist Slash from the legendary Guns n' Roses had one and called it Godzilla, for it's monstrous size and green scale look.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[16] 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.
[17] 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.
[edit] See also
sumber:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_guitar
