The electric guitar is a musical instrument that is used frequently in many rock songs. It is one of the main ingredients that constitutes a rock sound and the rock image. An electric guitar is a form of guitar that uses pickups to convert the vibration of its steel-corded strings, into an electric current, which is generally made louder with an instrument amplifier and a speaker.
Some examples of rock musicians who frequently use the electric guitar are Jimmy Page, Jimmy Hendrix, John Lennon, Dave Grohl and Angus Young to name a few. The electric guitar is used prominently to create electrifying, hard hitting sounds in guitar lead breaks and rhythms in songs.
The electric guitar was first used by Jazz guitarists, who facilitated amplified hollow-bodied instruments to produce a louder sound in the Swing-era, Big Bands. The earliest electric guitars made were created by the company Rickenbecker, to follow was Les Paul who created the famous Fender Esquire in the early 1950's.
In the early 1960's some rock guitarists began to explore the multiple sounds that the electric guitar can produce. The first example being Jimmy Page's clever use in the song "Dazed and Confused." Page simply distorted the sound of his twelved stringed, double-neck guitar by using a violin bow and changing the volume through the pre-amplifier. The sound created by Page's use of the violin bow simply creates an edgy and fuzzy sound, which encourages the theme of the song to come through within the song.
Today, there are many forms of the electric guitar that one can buy for their rock band. According to musical instrument expert Phil Jack, owner of Music Headquarters in Newcastle, the solid body electric guitars are most popular in purchase. The solid body electric guitars have no hollow internal cavity that creates vibration, and there are no holes to accomodate string vibration. The most common well known solid body electric guitar was invented by the very famous Les Paul. An example is the typical "sunburst" that is used by musicians such as Jimmy Page and formely also Eric Clapton. Other forms of the electric guitar are seen in semi-acoustic, acoustic, semi-string, twelve string and eight and nine string.
To accomodate one's preffered rock sound, they must experiement and try out as many electric guitars as they can. The electric guitar can be studied extremely easily today, through music shops situated in Newcastle; Music Headquarters at Lambton and Muso's Corner in Newcastle city. A rock musician can also study their electric guitars as easy in a magazine. The most common being the "Guitar" magazine which is released monthly and has direct details about all kinds of guitars, guitar players and music shops where stock can be purchased from.
Without the electric guitar, we today would not have rock songs such as "Foxy Lady" by Jimi Hendrix or "Times like these" by the Foo Fighters. The sounds of the electric guitar has encapsulated the imagery and pure nature as to what is rock music.
Please Note: That Phil Jack is manager of Music Headquarters within Newcastle and I have recently dealt with him through an event I am co-ordinating.
ReplyDelete