THE ARTS | Reshaping ideas, expressing identity
29 July 2008
The Electric Guitar
A new guitar drives musical style
(The following is excerpted from the U.S. Department of State publication, American Popular Music.)
It is impossible to conjure up a mental image of Chuck Berry without an electric guitar in his hands. One of rock ’n’ roll’s most significant effects on popular music was its elevation of the electric guitar to a position of centrality. The development of the electric guitar is a good example of the complex relationship between technological developments and changing musical styles. Up through the end of World War II, the guitar was found mainly in popular music that originated in the South, and in various “exotic” genres (Hawaiian and Latin American guitar records were quite popular in the 1920s and 1930s). Because of its low volume, the acoustic guitar was difficult to use in large dance bands. In 1931 the Electro String Instrument Company introduced the first electric guitars. By the mid-1930s the Gibson Company had introduced a hollow-body guitar with a new type of pickup – a magnetic plate or coil which, attached to the body of the guitar, converts the physical vibrations of its strings into patterns of electric energy.
The solid-body electric guitar was developed after World War II and first used in rhythm & blues, blues, and country bands. The first commercially produced solid-body electric guitar was the Fender Broadcaster (soon renamed the Telecaster). Released in 1948, it featured two electronic pickups, knobs to control volume and tone, and a switch that allowed the two pickups to be used singly or together, allowing the player to create a palette of different sounds. In 1954 Fender released the Stratocaster, the first guitar with three pickups, and the first with a “whammy bar” or “vibrato bar,” a metal rod attached to the guitar’s bridge that allowed the player to bend pitches with his right as well as his left hand. Fender’s most successful competitor, the Gibson Company, released a solid-body guitar in 1952, christening it the Les Paul in honor of the guitarist who helped to popularize the new instrument.
Why are electric guitars such objects of fascination for musicians and fans alike? Like any influential technology, the guitar’s impact is complex. To begin with, the instrument came into the popular mainstream with a somewhat dubious reputation – medieval Europeans had associated stringed instruments with the Devil – and the guitar also was associated with the music of marginalized regions. Many mainstream press put-downs of young 1950s rock ’n’ rollers ridiculed the guitar, suggesting that it was an instrument that anyone could play. But the electric guitar became a symbol of the energetic diversity elbowing its way into the mainstream of American popular music. This feeling of excess and invasion was reinforced by the development of portable tube amplifiers, which provided a dense, sizzling, and very loud sound, augmented by special effects devices such as wah-wah pedals and “fuzz boxes.” Over time, the guitar has acquired an aura of danger and excitement.
[This article is excerpted from American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3 by Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman, published by Oxford University Press, copyright (2003, 2007), and offered in an abridged edition by the Bureau of International Information Programs.]
