electric guitar

electric guitar, plucked stringed musical instrument that uses electronic amplification in order to be heard at a louder volume by translating the vibrations of the strings into electrical currents. These electric signals are picked up and amplified by an external amplifier or a speaker. Sounds from the electric guitar can also be distorted and modified.

Core components

While there are many variations on the neck length, shape, number of strings, and general build of electric guitars, most of them consist of the same core components.

Invention and refinement

Although efforts to create an electrified fretted string instrument date to the late 19th century, the first true electric guitar was invented in 1931 by George Beauchamp, with the help of Adolph Rickenbacker. That same year, the two founded the Los-Angeles-based Ro-Pat-In Corporation, which was soon renamed the Electro String Instrument Corporation. Their pioneering instrument, nicknamed the “Frying Pan” because of its distinctive shape, became the first widely recognized electric guitar. The electric guitar would go on to play a central role in the development of popular music throughout the 20th century and remains one of the world’s most widely played instruments.

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Sound Check: Musical Vocabulary Quiz

The electric guitar was born out of a need for greater volume and projection, particularly in ensemble settings and noisy venues. During the 1920s and 1930s, as jazz and dance music grew in popularity, guitarists often struggled to be heard alongside the brass and reed sections of large ensembles. The development of electrical amplification enabled the instrument to compete with the volume of big bands and helped establish performers such as jazz guitarist Charlie Christian as influential soloists. Early adopters of the electric guitar also included musicians who played Hawaiian and country music. In the 1940s and ’50s, the instrument became central to the development of urban blues. As musicians such as Elmore James, Muddy Waters, and Howlin’ Wolf moved from the rural American South to cities such as Chicago, amplification allowed guitars to project clearly in crowded clubs and helped shape the sound of modern blues, rhythm and blues, and eventually rock and roll.

The first electric guitars were, like their acoustic counterparts, hollow-bodied. The most noticeable difference was the inclusion of tungsten steel pickups. The iconic solid-body electric guitar was created by guitarist Les Paul in 1941. No longer relying on any acoustic amplification, the solid-body electric guitar could make much smoother, more sonically isolated tones. The technology for pickups—the nodes attached to the steel strings that transferred electric currents to amplifiers—also advanced quickly about the same time. Most electric guitars had begun to use smaller magnetic single- or double-coil pickups. These pickups are what supply the instrument’s signature electric hum.

While Les Paul and the Gibson Guitar Company readied an electric guitar for mass production, Leo Fender and the Fender Electric Instruments Company beat them to the punch, marketing the first mass-produced solid-body electric guitar, the Fender Broadcaster (later renamed Telecaster), in 1948. The Les Paul Standard became available in 1952. Two years later Fender introduced the iconic Stratocaster, which featured three electric pickups (instead of two).

Influential musicians

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As rhythm and blues, rockabilly, and rock and roll began to emerge in the 1950s, the new sounds and tones that the electric guitar was capable of making were embraced by a new generation of musicians, including Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Carl Perkins, and Buddy Holly. These artists and their contemporaries sparked a conservative backlash against what older generations considered to be immoral, lascivious music. Beyond its sound, the electric guitar became a symbol and a talisman for the burgeoning youth culture.

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In the 1960s manufacturers started equipping preamplifiers (or preamps; separate amplifiers that can adjust the tone and volume of certain sounds) with a range of effects, such as tremolo (a wavering or trembling effect), wah-wah (a fluctuating muted sound, like the covering and uncovering of the bell of a trumpet), and distortion. Guitarists used these innovations to explore new sounds and create new subgenres of rock music. Partly because of their ability to make fuller, louder sounds, electric guitars also lent themselves to use as solo instruments (sometimes used in “dueling” counterpoint) as well as rhythm instruments. Some novel techniques that electric guitars allow for include string-bending, hammering, and sliding. The instrument’s popularity and sonic possibilities also paved the way for the electrification of other acoustic instruments like the bass.

Numerous musicians (not already mentioned) have gained reputations as virtuoso electric guitarists and innovators.

Though most commonly associated with American and British popular music, the electric guitar has been used by musicians throughout the world—notably Nigeria’s King Sunny Adé—to build on, distort, and experiment with traditional sounds.