The Electric Guitar

Great Essays
The electric guitar is the culmination of thousands of years of history and great effort to enhance the music that we know and love today. It has changed the way we use it in music in our recordings and live performances and still is a dominant instrument in many music genres. To really understand this particular instrument, one must understand its: definition, history, construction, uses, and prevalence/impact in music. To know what an electric guitar is, one must understand just what a guitar actually is. In its raw definition, a guitar is a, “a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, typically made with incurved sides.” And typically, it has number of strings parallel along the neck of the guitar and is tightened …show more content…
It relies on its electronics to amplify its sounds rather than itself to make it loud. So the need to hollow out its inner body is unnecessary and instead just made out of a solid block of wood. Wood, in particular, is used on all types of guitars as it provides the most strength to withstand the torque and immense tension generated through the strings while not sacrificing on its ability to resonate the sound in itself and the unique tone made from that. In contrast, wood is an abundant resource in comparison to plastic and metal which is not really reusable or environmental friendly. On top of that, there are a variety of woods that some believe affects the tone and resonance of the guitar, although this is more prevalent in acoustic guitars. The woods used can include: alder, mahogany, maple, poplar, and others. After the wood is chosen, the body and neck have to made separately. But later they are conjoined either adhesively or through bolts. Within the neck is a metal rod, called the truss rod that stabilizes the form and curvature of the neck to adjust changes in its environment or tension made by the strings. At the top of the neck are its tuners with machine heads connected to the strings to fine tune the sound of the guitar. The tuners may be laid out on one side of the neck or split in 2 on both sides. The strings themselves run from the tuners and onto the fretboard, which is the area to play the chords, through what is called a nut. The nut is seen on most string instruments as it is a guide for the strings to be evenly spaced from each other and above the fretboard. Now down in the rest of the neck is the fretboard. This is the area which one hand coordinates the fingers to be placed to create a note or a chord. To help with this the fretboard has metal “frets” laid out across the neck to accurately indicate where one note

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