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Dec 9, 2015 · National Archives of Norway. Saralyn Lyons. / Dec 9, 2015. The British sound that swept the United States into a frenzy in the 1960s was created by accident, music journalist, sound engineer, and producer Howard Massey told an audience that gathered to hear his guest lecture Tuesday night at the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University.
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- Rhythm Guitar
“There’s nothing as direct as the human voice, but the strings of an electric guitar are a close second,” says guitarist Jaap Berends. “The strings put you in direct contact with the instrument and can be played in many different ways to shape just as many different sounds for freedom of expression. You can put so much feeling into the electric gui...
The history of the electric guitar starts in the 1920s – the era of big band music. Due to their loud nature, big-bands were looking for a way to boost the volume of their acoustic guitars since growing them in size and fitting steel strings would only help so much. At some point, the idea of capturing the vibrations of the strings with magnetic pi...
At the start of the fifties, it was Leo Fender who managed to be the first to factory-produce solid-body electric guitars. Fender had designed the production process in such a way that he could build huge numbers of guitars – Fender Esquires and Telecasters – at the lowest possible cost, making the electric guitar accessible for the masses – youngs...
The pickup is a crucial part of any electric guitar. Guitar pickups are fitted with little magnets that have coils wrapped around them. Every pickup has a magnet for each string, which intersects and warps the magnetic field of the magnet when it vibrates. These vibrations cause induction, which in turn generates an electrical voltage in the coil a...
What’s great about humbuckers is that they sound extra full, fat and warm when compared to single-coils, which sound brighter by design. “Back in the day, manufacturers weren’t concerned with the sound. They were focussed on solving technical problems,” Jaap says. “It was the musicians who then unravelled the sonic potential of the new technologies...
Electric guitars can be roughly divided into three types of models: solid bodies, semi-hollow bodies, and hollow bodies. Semi-hollow guitars – like the Gibson ES335 that B.B. King used to play – feature a solid block of wood in the centre of the body. The hollower a guitar, the more the body ‘partakes’ in the sound. If the body is solid, most of th...
When it comes to electric guitar amplifiers, there’s a lot to choose from and with prices that vary greatly. Guitar amplifiers can be roughly divided into two groups: valve amplifiers and transistor amplifiers. An important difference between the two is the way they sound. Valve amps are better at retaining the natural sound of your guitar, especia...
While the guitar, amplifier and any effect pedals you’re using largely determine your sound, there’s one thing you can’t underestimate. Jaap: “Your fingers are the single most decisive thing for your sound. That goes for the fingers of both of your hands and it’s something that a lot of players underestimate.” The strings can be played with the fin...
Most guitarists have a tendency to play loud and Jaap believes there’s a technical explanation behind their reasoning. “Valve amps have to ‘push’. The way their volume graduates includes a kind of tipping point. Once that volume threshold is passed, the valve-driven sound really starts to take shape. In that light, it’s understandable that guitaris...
In practice, the role of the electric guitar as a backing instrument involves playing rhythm guitar. Jaap: “Eighty percent of the time, you’re going to be playing rhythm parts as part of the rhythm section of the band. And playing rhythm guitar isn’t necessarily easy; the trick is to keep a consistent rhythm and keep up with the drums.” Playing rhy...
Mar 8, 2019 · Things changed in 1950, however, when Leo Fender, a self-taught electronics enthusiast, created the Esquire, the first mass-produced solid-body guitar. Taking note of Fender’s successes, Gibson ...
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Aug 19, 2016 · The Edge’s chiming guitar ostinato, the sonic signature of U2’s early music, is made not by his fingers but by digital delay devices creating an echo effect. But as he says: “I don’t use ...
Though most commonly associated with American and British popular music, the electric guitar has been used by musicians throughout the world—notably Nigeria’s King Sunny Adé—to build on, distort, and experiment with traditional sounds.
The UK has made significant contributions to electric and electronic music. The VCS 3 was one of the first commercially available synthesisers to be small enough for practical live performance....
The electric guitar is one of the iconic objects of the 20th century. It made, and still makes, sounds which have the power to fix our personal and collective memories in a specific time and...
