History of electric guitar and the evolution it has took.

I chose this subject as I have always had an interest in electric guitar and some of the unique shapes
that are played and the associated genres and players. My favourite guitar brand is dean they have
had many signature artists including Dimebag Darrell, Michael Angelo Batio, Dave Mustaine and
many more.

Guitar has been a staple of music since medieval times when they used mandolins and lutes.
Stringed instruments such as the bass and guitar are still used to this day in an array of genres. The
first electric guitar was patented under Orville Gibson’s company, Gibson Guitars in 1941. The guitar
was made prior to this by a man named Les Paul. Les dubbed his invention “the log” as it was just an
acoustic guitar attached to a piece of solid pine. He had sawn an Epiphone hollowbody in half and
added the halves as “wings” in an attempt to make his guitar more guitar like aesthetically. It had
homemade pickups and a vibrola tailpiece.

Nowadays electric guitar comes in many different shapes, colours and configurations. The most
common guitars are Stratocasters in the 3 single coil pickup configuration. This style while used by
many guitarists has become more of a collectors item or beginner guitar rather than an icon.
However the body shape is loved by many and even has a few variants including the super strat,
which is a Stratocaster with 2 humbucking pickups rather than single coils. Many people choose to
add a Floyd rose tremolo to these if they’re making metal music due to tuning stability and the ease
of restringing a broken string.

One of the main brands of guitar is fender. They produce models tailored towards jazz musicians
such as the strat and tele guitars. However they have been staples of modern music with artists
ranging from all of the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page all the way to Jim Root. Fender makes
expensive custom guitars tailored to the “nostalgia” of the 50’s and 60’s. Most fender shapes
however have been used by other brands paving the way for the likes of Steve Vai, John 5 and even
Michael Angelo Batio.

Another big brand of guitar is Gibson. Gibson are known for making the guitars ‘les paul’ and the ‘sg’.
Both of these models were designed by Les Paul himself while working for Gibson. The les paul
although heavy was a staple of modern craftsmanship. Coming out in the 1950’s it paved the way for
rock music, with its upper fret access and its dual humbucker configuration. Many people loved this
model from the beginning. Gibson put a stop bar tailpiece and a tune o matic bridge on these guitars
in an attempt to increase tuning stability, however with the angled headstock this was no easy task
and is still a major problem now. However the SG or the guitar that started metal is a double horned
body wielding the double humbuckers and a range of tailpieces including stop bar and vibrola units.
The sg was used by Mary Ford, Les Paul’s wife during their country duo days however Tony Iommi
used one in the early 70s to get “the sabbath tone”. The guitar is now seen as a staple of rock and
metal being used by the types of Angus Young, Frank Zappa and Eric Clapton during his cream days.
Nowadays most people go for the affordable brands such as Jackson, Ibanez, Dean and Schecter, this
is due to the high quality control at such an affordable price. Shapes range from ergonomical such as
the strat and tele all the way up to more tedious shapes such as explorer and flying v guitars.
However this has paved the way for new pickup configurations and signature artists, even the
sustainiac pickup itself. Modern shapes allow for unique aesthetics to make you differ from other
artists in more ways than your tone. This also allowed for “genre guitars” which are the likes of the v
and explorer for metal or strats and hollow body for jazz.

There are beliefs that the shape of your guitar and the wood used can alter your town, however
unproven scientifically this has led to most guitars being made from mahogany or ash with maple
caps. The most common maple cap is flamed however there are many such as the birds eye, quilted
and spalted maple all with unique appearances. There is also the pickups which are coils wound with
copper wire creating a magnetic interference which is transmitted into your amplifier. These come in
a range of types. The single coil is a single width bobbin which has a dirty, muddy tone and is better
used without distortion , however with the right EQ can still really great. Next are humbuckers.
These are 2 bobbins connected together by a plate meaning it has a stronger magnetic pull
eliminating the muddy tone. There is also P90 pickups. These are common with jazz musicians as it
gives you the sound of a single coil while looking aesthietically larger and without the muddy aspect
to the tone. However unlike humbuckers this pickup can do clean sounds as well as distorted sounds
without issue.

Electric guitar uses the magnetic interference from the vibrating strings to make sounds however it
also uses the frets to determine what sound is made and allows for octaves to be played making
great riffs and licks. Electric guitar also allows the use of external effects which couldn’t be used with
an acoustic due to the acoustic just relying on vibrations within the body to amplify what is played.
Without effects music such as rock wouldn’t exist due to the dire need for distortion and reverb.

Electric guitar is a staple of music allowing for unique tones. Tone allows every song to sound unique
and genre specific. Tones range from clean crisp twangy tones for jazz to heavily distorted for metal.
Electric guitar was first used in the 1940s and became a household instrument by the 50s. This
meant many kids could enjoy the music they wanted by learning it. This meant that live music would
become such a large thing and we would see the likes of Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley rise to the
scene. These musicians paved the way for rock and roll which even led to metal and pop music
which we love today.

Electric guitar can be played in multiple ways ranging from finger picking(plucking the desired strings
with your fingers), finger tapping(tapping certain frets to achieve certain notes), plectrum(can be
used down picking up picking or alternating between the two) and hammer on and pull offs(like
tapping however relies on one tap or the finger coming off the string smoothly).

The reason I love electric guitar is how versatile it is, and how many different sounds can be made.
My favourite notes to play are pinch harmonics, these notes squeal and make the same note sound
higher pitched. Add these into any style of playing to add a cool effect and make people believe your
writing skills are better than they are. Another favourite technique of mine is bending, as it allows
you to bend your string up steps reaching octaves higher depending on your string gauge. Both
ofthese techniques are seen in a lot of metal music mainly in Pantera as Dimebag Darrell loved to
use these in his writing as it creates a great lead guitar riff and shows you have some experience in
your role. However, along side these techniques an important part of electric guitar is power chords
as they allow for a deep rhythm part which can be played speedily as it’s the same shape up and
down the fretboard. This allows for easy chord progressions which sound full and heavy.