Electric guitar

An electric guitar is a type of guitar with a solid or semi-solid body that utilizes electromagnetic "pickups" to convert the vibration of the steel-cored strings into electrical current. The current may be electrically altered to achieve various tonal effects prior to being fed into an amplifier, which produces the resultant sound.

Types of electric guitar

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 some modern guitarists tune their guitars lower, Drop D, to produce a "heavier" sound. Seven-string models exist, most of which add a low B string below the E, and were made popular by Steve Vai and others in the 1980s, and were revived by some so-called nu metal bands. Jazz guitarists using a seven-string include veteran jazzman Bucky Pizzarelli and his popular son John Pizzarelli. There are even eight-string electric guitars, but they are extremely unusual. The Largest manufacture of 8-14 string electric guitars is Warr guitars. They've been around from quite some time and are used by people like Trey Gunn & King Crimson.

Related Topics:
Drop D - Steve Vai - Nu metal

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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 recording "Stairway to Heaven". These are commonly known as double-neck (or, less commonly, twin-neck) guitars. 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. 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. English progressive rock bands such as Genesis took this trend to its zenith using custom made instruments produced by the Shergold company. 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. 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.

Related Topics:
Jimmy Page - Hard rock - Stairway to Heaven - Twelve-string - Ballad - Progressive rock - Genesis - Shergold - Rick Nielsen - Cheap Trick - Steve Vai

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Some electric guitars have a tremolo arm or whammy bar, which is a lever attached to the bridge that can slacken or elongate the strings temporarily, changing the pitch or creating a vibrato. 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. Eddie Van Halen often uses this feature to embellish his playing, as heard in Van Halen's "Eruption". Early tremolo arms 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.

Related Topics:
Tremolo arm - Vibrato - Eddie Van Halen - Van Halen - Floyd Rose

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Electric guitars don't work with normal microphones, but with special pickups that sense the movement of strings. Such pickups tend to also pick up the ambient electrical noises of the room, the so-called "hum", with a strong 50 Hz or 60 Hz component depending on the locale. Hum is annoying, especially when playing with distortion. For this reason, so-called "humbucker" pickups were invented. Normal pickups are single-coil; humbuckers are essentially like twin microphones arranged in such a way that electrical noise cancels itself. A similar effect may be achieved using a guitar with multiple single coil pickups with an appropriate selection of dual pickups. (See main articles on pickups and humbuckers.)

Related Topics:
Pickup - Humbucker

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A "MIDI guitar" is an electric guitar fitted with sensors for sound and note articulation. It is used to transform string vibrations into MIDI messages to control a synthesizer or other electronic musical instrument. There were several variations of this type of guitar including the Roland GR series which used a "hexaphonic" pickup (an individual pickup for each string). Early adopters of the this type of guitar technology were Pat Metheny, and Steve Morse.

Related Topics:
MIDI - Synthesizer - Electronic musical instrument

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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. 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.

Related Topics:
Junior Brown - Guit-steel

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~