Electric Guitar, How It Works And How It Came To Be

The Electric Guitar Is The Most Prominent Instrument In Rock Music.

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Source: Bradley E Nyberg

“Vintage Electric Guitar” by Big Grey Mare is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

By: Taryn Heuvelman, Journalist

The electric guitar is a very important and famous instrument in rock music. Different versions of the electric guitar started to develop in the 1930’s. The very first electric guitar was created in 1931 by Paul H. Tutmarc. Paul created the electric guitar by creating a pickup using magnets paired with wire coils. By doing this, it increased the vibration of the strings and made the volume of the instrument louder. Paul used the concept of how telephones used magnets to create vocal vibrations in order to create this new method. Although this was the first version of an electric guitar, there are still many other similar versions.

Now you may ask what is the difference between an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar? Well the difference is, the sound of an electric guitar is created by magnetic pickups and controlled by several knobs.

The most popular electric guitars have solid bodies. An electric guitar needs a hollow body and a soundboard in order to amplify the string’s vibrations. So an electric guitar senses the vibrations of the strings electronically and routes an electronic signal to an amplifier and speaker in order to make sound.

The electric guitar is a historic and very popular instrument in rock music, and produces sound in fascinating ways.

Other articles about electric guitars:

https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/electric-guitar.htm

https://missionengineering.com/the-origins-of-the-electric-guitar/