Electric guitar

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.
. The American composers Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham have written "symphonic" works for large ensembles of electric guitars, in some cases numbering up to 100 players. The "Master Cutler" was the name of a train that ran between London Marylebone and Sheffield (the centre of the cutlery manufacture in the UK) during the 1950s and late 1960s. These include Steven Mackey, Lois V Vierk, Tim Brady, Tristan Murail, and Yngwie Malmsteen with his Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra. The Worshipful Company of Cutlers was one of the London livery companies, reflecting the importance of this trade in the Middle Ages. 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 for the instrument. Cutlery gets its name from the term for a person skilled in making knives, a cutler.

Examples of such works include Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen (1955-1957); 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); and Michael Tippett's The Knot Garden (1966-70). Two forms of utensil combining the functionality of various pairs of cutlery are the spork (spoon / fork) and knork (knife / fork). While the classical guitar had historically been the only variety of guitar favored by classical composers, in the 1950s a few contemporary classical composers began to use the electric guitar in their compositions. Plastic cutlery is made for disposable use, and is frequently used in fast food or take-away outlets and provided with airline meals. When two electric guitars are used, one generally plays the role of "lead" guitar and the other is the "rhythm" guitar. From the nineteenth century, Electroplated Nickel Silver (EPNS) was used as a cheaper substitute; nowadays, most cutlery, including quality designs, is made from stainless steel. In rock music, the electric guitar is generally used in conjunction with electric bass guitar and drum set. name), though steel was always used for more utilitarian knives, and pewter was used for some cheaper items, especially spoons.

It has been used in numerous genres of popular music, as well as (much less frequently) classical music. Traditionally, good quality cutlery was made from silver (hence the U.S. The electric guitar can be played either solo or with other instruments. The major items of cutlery in the western world are the knife, fork and spoon. For example it uses piezoelectric pickups instead of the conventional electro-magnetic ones, and has an onboard computer capable of modifying the sound of the guitar to realistically model many popular guitars. Since silverware suggests the presence of silver, the term tableware has come into use. It differs in some fundamental ways from conventional solid-body electrics. This is probably the original meaning of the word.

Also, in 2003 amp maker Line 6 released the Variax guitar. It is more usually known as silverware or flatware in the United States, where cutlery can have the more specific meaning of knives and other cutting instruments. The guitar also provides independent signal processing for each individual string. Cutlery refers to any hand utensil used in preparing, serving, and especially eating food. The resulting digital signal is delivered over a standard Ethernet cable, eliminating cable-induced line noise. In 2002, Gibson announced the first digital guitar, which performs analog-to-digital conversion internally.

Some innovations have been made recently in the design of the electric guitar. Although there are some obvious advantages to digital and software effects, many guitarists still use analog effects for their real or perceived quality over their digital counterparts. Today anyone can transform his PC with sound card into a digital guitar effects processor. There are many free to use guitar effects software for personal computer downloadable from the Internet.

These new digital effects attempted to model the sound produced by analog effects and tube amps, to varying degrees of quality. By the 1980s, and 1990s, digital and software effects became capable of replicating the analog effects used in the past. Malmsteen, Thurston Moore, Daniel Ash, and Tom Morello, and technicians such as Roger Mayer. Some important innovators of this aspect of the electric guitar include guitarists Link Wray, Jimi Hendrix, Brian May, Eddie Van Halen, Steve Jones, Jerry Garcia, David Gilmour, Yngwie J.

Typical effects include stereo chorus, fuzz, wah-wah and flanging, compression/sustain, delay, reverb, and phase shift. Traditionally built in a small metal chassis with an on/off foot switch, such "stomp boxes" have become as much a part of the instrument for many electric guitarists as the electric guitar itself. Beginning in the 1960s, the tonal palette of the electric guitar was further modified by introducing an effects box in its signal path. This form of distortion generates harmonics, particularly in even multiples of the input frequency, which are considered pleasing to the ear.

The most dramatic innovation was the generation of distortion by increasing the gain, or volume, of the preamplifier in order to clip the electronic signal. By the late 1960s, it became common practice to exploit this dependence to alter the sound of the instrument. The signal is then shaped on its path to the amplifier. 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.

Solenoids (electromagnetic coils) are wrapped around each magnet, giving a periodic induced current (at the same frequency) [1]. When a string is played, it oscillates at a certain frequency, causing the magnetic field it creates to oscillate with it. Magnets are located under each string, which make the strings behave as magnets themselves. The physics of electric guitars and other electric string instruments is fairly simple, since they are based on induced currents (see the electromagnetism article for more details).

Country musician Junior Brown uses a custom-built instrument of his invention, the guit-steel, which has one neck that is a steel guitar, and one standard electric guitar neck. (See main articles on pickups and humbuckers.) Another instrument, the pedal steel guitar, does not look like a guitar at all, but resembles a small rectangular table with one or more sets of strings on top. A similar effect may be achieved using a guitar with multiple single coil pickups with an appropriate selection of dual pickups. Normal pickups are single-coil; humbuckers are essentially like twin microphones arranged in such a way that electrical noise cancels itself.

Hum is annoying, especially when playing with distortion, so "humbucker" pickups were invented to counter this. Such pickups tend to also pick up the ambient electrical noises of the room, the so-called "hum", with a strong 50- or 60-Hz component depending on the locale. Electric guitars are not usually amplified by using a microphone, but with special pickups that sense the movement of strings. Early tremolo systems tended to cause the guitar to go out of tune with extended use; an important innovator in this field was Floyd Rose, who introduced one of the first tremolos which allowed the guitar to stay in tune, even after heavy use.

Eddie Van Halen often uses this feature to embellish his playing, as heard in Van Halen's "Eruption". Tremolo properly refers to a quick variation of volume, not pitch; however, the misnaming (probably originating with Leo Fender printing "Synchronized Tremolo" right on the headstock of his original 1954 Stratocaster) is probably too established to change. Some electric guitars have a tremolo arm or whammy bar, which is a lever attached to the bridge that can slacken or tighten the strings temporarily, changing the pitch or creating a vibrato. Guitar virtuoso Steve Vai occasionally uses a triple-neck guitar; one neck is twelve string, one is six string, and the third is a fretless six string.

Rick Nielsen, guitarist for Cheap Trick, uses a variety of custom guitars, many of which have five necks - more for comic effect than for actual usefulness. English progressive rock bands such as Genesis took this trend to its zenith using custom made instruments produced by the Shergold company. Such a combination may come handy when playing ballads live, where the 12-string gives a mellower sound as accompaniment, while the 6-string may be used for a guitar solo. The purpose is to obtain different ranges of sound from each instrument; typical combinations are six-string and four-string (guitar and bass guitar) or, more commonly, a six-string and twelve-string.

These are commonly known as double-neck (or, less commonly, "twin-neck") guitars. Jimmy Page, an innovator of hard rock, used and made famous custom Gibson electric guitars with two necks - essentially two instruments in one; in his case, a 6-string and 12-string guitar, to replicate his use of two different guitars when playing live "Stairway to Heaven". The largest manufacturer of 8- to 14-strings is Warr Guitars, and their models are used by Trey Gunn and King Crimson. There are even eight-string electric guitars, such as the Novax played by Charlie Hunter, but they are extremely unusual.

Jazz guitarists using a seven-string include veteran jazzman Bucky Pizzarelli and his popular son John Pizzarelli. Seven-string guitars were popularized by Steve Vai and others in the '80s, and have been recently revived by some nu metal bands. Seven-string models exist, most of which add a low B string below the E. Most electric guitars are fitted with six strings and are usually tuned from low to high E - A - D - G - B - e, the same as an acoustic guitar, although many guitarists occasionally tune their instruments in a different way, including "dropped D", various transposed and open chord tunings, usually to simplify fretting of some chord inversions in a certain key.

To this day, the basic design nearly every solid-body electric guitar available today echoes the features of early 1950s originals - the Fender Telecaster & Stratocaster, and the Gibson Les Paul. Each design has it own merits. The more traditionally designed and style Gibson solid-body instruments were contrast to Leo Fender's modular designs, with the most notable differentiator being the method of neck attachment and the scale of the neck. The humbucker, invented by Seth Lover, was a dual-coil pickup which produced a distinctive tone but also offered the advantage of elimination of the 60-cycle hum associated with single-coil pickups.

By 1957, Gibson had made the final major change to the Les Paul as we know it today - the humbucking pickup, or humbucker. Gibson then developed the Tune-o-Matic bridge and separate stop tailpiece, an adjustable non-vibrato design that has endured. The earliest models had a combination bridge and trapeze-tailpiece design that was deemed unsuitable by Les Paul himself. Features of the Les Paul included a mahogany body with a carved maple top (much like a violin) and contrasting edge binding, two single-coil "soapbar" pickups, a 24¾" scale mahogany neck with a more traditional glued-in "set" neck joint, binding on the edges of the fretboard, and a tilt-back headstock with three tuners to a side.

In apparent response to the Telecaster, Gibson introduced the first Gibson Les Paul solidbody guitar in 1952, designed at least in part with input from Les Paul. Gibson, like many guitar manufacturers, had long offered semi-acoustic guitars with pickups, and previously rejected Les Paul and his "log" electric in the 1940s. Rickenbacher (later spelled Rickenbacker, pronounced Rickenbocker) offered a solid Bakelite electric guitar beginning in 1935 that, when tested by vintage guitar researcher John Teagle, reportedly sounded quite modern and aggressive. His "log" guitar, so called because it consisted of a simple rectangular block of wood with a neck attached to it, was generally considered to be the first of its kind until recently, when research through old trade publications and with surviving luthiers and their families revealed many other prototypes, and even limited production models, that fit our modern conception of an 'electric guitar.' At least one company, Audiovox, built and may have offered an electric solid-body as early as the mid-1930s.

One of the first solid body electric guitars was built by musician and inventor Les Paul in the early 1940s, working after hours in the Epiphone Guitar factory. The version of the instrument that is most well known today is the "solid body" electric guitar: a guitar made of solid wood, without resonating airspaces within it. Leo Fender is also credited with developing the first commercially-successful electric bass called the Fender Precision Bass, introduced in 1951. Pink Floyd's guitarist, David Gilmour, owns one of the first Fender Stratocasters ever made.

The Stratocaster has become the most-recognizable and most copied electric guitar design ever. These innovations included an ash or alder double-cutaway body design for balance, a bridge assembly with an integrated vibrato mechanism (called a "tremolo" by Fender), three single-coil pickups, and body comfort contours. In 1954 Fender introduced the Stratocaster, or "Strat", which was positioned as a deluxe model and offered various product improvements and innovations over the Telecaster. Due to the Broadcaster trademark issue, the earliest Telecasters were delivered with headstock decals with the Fender logo but no model identificaton, and are commonly referred by collectors as "Nocasters".

A variant of the Telecaster, the Esquire, had only the bridge pickup. 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. A black bakelite pickguard concealed body routings for pickups and wiring. Features of the Telecaster included an ash body; a maple 25½" scale, 20-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 controls, pickup selector switch, and an output jack mounted on a control plate on the body top.

However, the Gretsch company had a drumset by the same name, (Broadkaster) so Fender was forced to change the name, choosing Telecaster. In the 1930s, steel guitar and instrument amplifier maker Leo Fender, through his eponymous company, designed the first commercially successful solid-body electric guitar, which was initially named the Broadcaster. Some of the earliest electric guitars used tungsten pickups and were manufactured in the 1930s by Rickenbacker. Electric guitars were originally designed by an assortment of luthiers, electronics enthusiasts, and instrument manufacturers, in varying combinations.

Initially, electric guitars consisted primarily of hollow "archtop" acoustic guitar bodies to which electromagnetic transducers had been attached. The popularity of the electric guitar began with the big band era because amplified instruments became necessary to compete with the loud volumes of the large brass sections common to jazz orchestras of the thirties and forties. The electric guitar is used extensively in many popular styles of music, including blues, rock and roll, country music, pop music, jazz, rap and even contemporary classical music. For this reason, electric versions of almost all other similar string instruments have also been produced.

Since all the sound produced by the amplifier comes from string vibrations detected by the electric pickups, an electric guitar that produces minimal acoustic sound may have maximal sustain, since less of the energy from the string oscillations is radiated as sound energy. In contrast to the acoustic guitar and most other acoustic string instruments, the solid-body electric guitar does not rely as extensively on the acoustic properties of its construction to amplify the sound produced by the vibrating strings; as such, the electric guitar does not need to be naturally loud, and its body can be virtually any shape. . The signal may be electrically altered to achieve various tonal effects prior to being fed into an amplifier, which produces the final sound.

An electric guitar is a type of guitar with a solid or semi-solid body that utilizes electronic "pickups" to convert the vibration of the steel-cored strings into electrical current. Gretsch. Peavey. Washburn.

Yamaha. PRS. Dean. Rich.

B.C. ESP. Jackson. Schecter.

Ibanez. Gibson. Fender.