The electric guitar uses ‘pick-ups’ to convert vibration from its strings into electrical current that is amplified to produce sound. Today’s electric guitars can produce an electronic sound or a sound that is more acoustic in tone and timber.
The hollow body electric guitar can be an archtop with a full sound box or it can have a thin body.

While steel guitars are electric, they are not really considered ‘electric guitars’ by most musicians. Musicians use electric guitars to play everything from rock and roll to country, pop, blues, jazz, and rap. Today’s classical composers and orchestrators even include electric guitars among their instruments of choice.

The electric guitar was originally designed in the 1930s by the Electro String Instrument Corporation. That electric guitar was made out of solid wood. One of the most famous and well-renowned guitarists of the forties and today, built a solid body electric guitar for his own use, after working at the Gibson Guitar Factory. Les Paul’s famous invention was built with handmade pick-ups and hardware, and a four by four wooden post to which the neck was attached. He finished the body with hollow Swedish body halves and the rest is history!

It is interesting to note that there was a lot of research and experimentation going on during this time period by guitar manufacturers and musicians alike.
It wasn’t until the 1950s that the electric guitar really came into its own! The first Fender electric guitar was called the ‘Broadcaster’. But that name was changed to the ‘Telecaster’ when the Gretsch drum manufacturer challenged Fender’s use of their ‘Broadkaster’ copyright.

In the mid-1950s, Fender introduced its ‘Stratocaster’, a deluxe model of the original electric guitar it had produced earlier. The ‘Stratocaster’ is still one of the most respected and copied electric guitars. In the early 1950s Fender also produced the Fender Precision Bass, which was to become the first commercially successfully electric bass guitar.

In addition to Les Paul’s time working at Gibson, he went on to influence the Gibson brand and its success by helping to design the Gibson Les Paul Guitar in the early 1950s.

With its burgeoning success in the electric guitar market, Gibson developed the ‘Tune-o-Matic’ bridge and by the late 1950s it put the finishing touches on the Les Paul Guitar it still produces today.
Today’s electric guitars are still designed much like the Gibson and Fender guitars of the 1950s.

In the 1960s, effects boxes or stomp boxes became popular, adding effects like reverberation, delay, fuzz and the famous ‘wah wah’ sound to the repetoire of the rock and roll musician. Using a foot pedal to turn the box off and on, the electric guitarist could create and use sounds audiences had never heard before!

In the late 1980s and 1990s, the computerized age of electric guitars arrived, and musicians began to use software and digital sound to create effects. Gibson introduced the first digital guitar in 2002. This guitar can deliver digital signals using an Ethernet cable and is capable of processing independent signals from each string. The guitar is equpped with its own integrated computer and it can modify sound to mimic many old and new electric and acoustic guitar models.

This new capability has opened up a new world of creativity and innovation for musicians and orchestrators to explore!

About the Author
Find out everything you need to know about electric guitars at our web site: Electric Guitar

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Electric Guitars Have Come a Long Way

The guitar certainly has been, and probably always will be, one of the most popular instruments. Why? I imagine it is because a classic guitar can be taken just about anywhere. You can always play a few strings and soon have a circle of people join you in singing. Even young people join in, especially when some of the classic rock songs are being played.

Ask yourself, or your child, the question what you/they ultimately want to achieve. Will guitar palying be for your own personal satisfaction, where you can play for yourself for hours, and don’t really care what it sounds like to other? Or do you want to be able to play for others, join a a band? Will you be fully committed to practicing?

Your choice of guitar and how you plan to learn to play guitar will depend on your ultimate goal. Getting started with playing the guitar can be expensive, and it does not have to be. If you are unsure, check in the classified ads about buying a used guitar. You can always upgrade later. Call a guitar teacher or talk to the folks at the local music store in your area and ask them a few questions.

Electric guitars require a higher upfront investment, becasue they need an amplifier. It also might require some soundproofing for the room you plan to play in, unless you live in a very remote location. Neighbors generally do not appreciate a group of teenagers jamming at full volume at 10 pm or on a Sunday afternoon. And it is amazing what sound effects can be created with guitar and amplifier. It opens up a whole new avenue of creativity.

Learning how to play the guitar requires a good teacher or good learning program (book, video, audio) and commitment on your part to hours of practice. You can find a good teacher in your local area and you can find good programs on the internet. Many of these programs offer a combination of books and videos. Some include free newsletters or free sample lessons. Check the different avenues out so you can determine what works best for you. It might be a combination of learning with a teacher in person, supplemented by a downloadable program.

So before you run out, buy a guitar and sign up for lessons, ask yourself if you will dedicate several hours each week to practicing and playing the guitar. If you do, you will be able to enjoy many hours of enjoyment playing this wonderful instrument.

About the Author
Christiane Perrin is the mother of 2 teenagers who play guitar and drums. She herself plays the recorder.Playing The Guitar

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Is Playing The Guitar For You

How can you learn to play guitar by not playing? Is it really possible to develop as a guitarist without touching the instrument?

In weight training it is an established fact that muscle growth takes place during rest, for example when you sleep. It doesn’t mean that you will become a famous muscle builder by sleeping. Sleeping is just a part of the overall picture called muscle growth.

Don’t ever think that you will become a good guitarist by not playing guitar at all!

But I define a good guitarist as a good musician. A good musician can convey his musical emotions to somebody else and this ability takes more than just practicing moving the fingers among all those guitar strings.

What can you do to become a better guitarist and a musician when you don’t play? Let me give you a few suggestions:

1. If you play classical guitar, get into the habit of often reading guitar sheet music without your guitar. This practice gives you training in the art of hearing the sheet music in your head and also gives you a better chance to really learn notational symbols in the music and rhythmic subtleties.

2. Take a week off from your guitar playing every now and then and use all your musical energy listening to good music or just being a good citizen. Learn to spot musical and artistic heights in the music. Listen to all types of instrumentalists. With concentration. My best listening position is laying flat on my bed with headphones on forgetting the rest of the world. Maybe you have another approach.

If you feel and enjoy musical and artistic expressions in the music these will probably be implemented in your own guitar playing sooner or later.

3. Be a good musical friend by helping somebody else to play. It will help you become more unselfish and like people more. Well, maybe you already like people sufficiently but to learn to like people is part of our development as musicians as we are supposed to give of ourselves to others when we play.

4. Prepare your body and mind for playing guitar by learning the art of relaxation and stretching your muscles. You can of course find articles on these subjects on the net. Performing in a relaxed manner will help you enjoy your own music more and will help your public to relax and enjoy your music too.

5. Take time to sit down, or stand up if you like, and ponder about what guitar playing means to you. Is there something that you would like to develop in your guitar playing that will give you more joy and happiness. Set a realistic goal and write down what you can do every week to accomplish that goal.

I believe in practicing on my guitar of course but I hope that these pieces of advice concerning not playing guitar will increase your love for your guitar and the art of playing and giving musical joy to others!

About the Author
Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and learn to play resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com

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Guitar Learn Guitar By Not Playing Guitar

I will begin by briefly describing some of the pieces of wood most commonly used. The main body of the guitar is usually made of Agathis, alder, lime, mahogany, or, more recently, Paulownia. Mahogany is used for a wide range of guitar known for its dark and its light weight of these two combine to create a warm, tone, rounded extremely durable. Alder is used on high-quality guitars and produces a brighter than other wood (like mahogany) and provides a tone, resonance well rounded with excellent sustain. Agathis is a timber of good quality and is used for its qualities of resonance and low-cost production. In the past, Linden has been generally used for less expensive models, but because of its resonance frequency and better medium high, and better support alder is now more commonly used for guitars top. Paulownia wood is a flexible durable, lightweight chain that is commonly used as a material in high-end custom guitar body, is used for its light, looks pale, and its resonant properties, it is much appreciated.

The neck of the guitar are usually made of mahogany, sometimes maple or linden. A maple neck will sound harder and brighter than those made of mahogany and maple key would sound brighter than a rosewood.

The tips of the fingers are usually made in rosewood, maple and ebony, in some cases. Rosewood is a term that refers to a series of richly colored pieces of wood, often brownish with darker veins, and generally of good quality. Ebony wood is thick and black and is used on some of the more expensive guitars.

When you choose a line of electric guitar, you must pay attention to pick up, electric guitars often use two types of pickup, single coil and humbucker. One problem with single coil pick up is that not only pick up sounds that you play, but a few lines and Hum. The humbucker was developed for more than that, a humbucker is essentially two single coil pick up the magnetic polarity opposite to work together, the result has doubled production and a larger, less high tone. Humbucker pickups can be connected so that they work in parallel, which produces a much cleaner, but it is rare. When you shop online information for the electric guitar to pick up the configuration is generally stated as follows: SSH, S meaning a single coil pickup, and H referring to a humbucker, the order of the letters AL is the order in which the most important choices are the guitar from the neck to the bridge.

The last (and, in my opinion the most important) thing you have to consider when shopping for a guitar, the style – I like the look of it?

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black electric guitar

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