The History Of The Electric Guitar Film Studies Essay

Contemporary music can be either loved or hated, listened with pleasure or suffered with a heavy teeth, praised or blamed. However, neither supporters nor opponents of modern jazz, rock and rap would deny that the queen of modern music – electric guitar – is an important invention of the 20th century.

Thanks to the emergence of electric guitar, there appeared such styles rock and roll, hard rock, heavy metal, psychedelic rock, alternative, punk, grunge and hundreds of other types and styles, totally different, but united by one thing – the sound of electric guitar. The electric guitar completely changed the world of contemporary music, and we do not know how it could look like, if in the far 1924 the pickup had not been invented. There appeared hundreds of new companies specializing on the production of electric guitars, such as the Music Man, Ibanez, Jackson, BS Rich; and all of them are based on the findings and ideas presented by George Bishampom, Paul Barth, Adolf Rickenbacker, Lloyd Loher, Les Paul, Leo Fender and Ted McCarthy. Precisely thanks to these people, the contemporary music is such as we know it.

Electric guitar is a kind of guitar with the pickup that converts vibrations of metal strings into electric current oscillations. The signal from the pickups can be processed to produce various sound effects and then amplified for playback through the speakers. Some believe that the electric guitar is made of plastic or metal, but in fact it is usually made of wood. The most common materials are alder, ash, mahogany, maple. As the plates on the bar rosewood, ebony and maple are used. The most common are six-string electric guitars.

It’s better to start telling the history of the electric guitar invention, by saying that there are many styles of music, which are not even impossible without this instrument. In some directions and styles it plays a dominant role, we mean rock and roll and its derivatives up to the Heavy, as well as Doom / Death and Black Metal. Without guitars all of the above are impossible. Electric guitar is used in several other musical styles in varying degrees. In addition, the musical direction which has found electric guitar can exist without it. We are talking about the blues.

In the early twentieth century, the acoustic guitar has become a full member of dance bands. Numerous American jazz and blues bands in the 1920’s and 1930’s used acoustic guitar, but it almost could not be heard, therefore, it was on the post of a rhythm instrument. It did not satisfy audience and musicians. Experiments on gaining derived sounds from the guitar began.

Inventors, as usual, can to help. The first known experiment with amplification of guitar sound with the help of electricity is related to 1924 – when Lloyd Loar (engineer and inventor who worked in the company of Gibson) invented the pickup, a fixed oscillation of the resonator box stringed instruments. However, his invention failed on the market. In 1931, George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacker invented an electromagnetic pickup in which an electric pulse running through the winding of the magnet, created an electromagnetic field, which amplifies the signal from the vibrating strings.

When their instrument appeared, it was immediately called «frying pan», because firstly, the case was all-metal. Secondly, by its form the tool reminded the pan with a disproportionately long “handle” – neck. But in the end it was the first viable and competitive electric guitar. The success of these first models prompted Gibson to create his (now legendary) model ES-150. The first electric Hawaiian-style guitar from the Ro-Pat-In (later – Rickenbacker) appeared on the U.S. market in 1932.

By the end of 1930 many experimenters have begun to experiment and build pickups in a more traditional looking Spanish guitars with hollow shells. But they met trouble in the form of resonance interference (feedback), distortion and other extraneous noise. In the end, that problem was solved with the help of double counter-winding, which extinguished “unwanted” signal. But first, musicians and engineers had tried to solve the problem differently: they put all sorts of rags and scraps of newspaper in the resonator box to get rid of unnecessary fluctuations and pickups.

The most radical option was suggested by guitarist and engineer Les Paul – he just made a deck for guitar monolithic. Unlike pans, however, the deck of Les Paul was made of wood (pine). And it was called “The Log”. For pickup Les Paul used the parts from the phone, and, ordinary piece of wood as the body. Due to the fact that the sound was amplified by the electronics, acoustic resonator was not needed anymore. When he first appeared in public his instrument looked like for something strange. Finally, to appease the public Les Paul attached body Spanish guitar to bars.

Other engineers began to experiment with solid or nearly solid piece of wood. In 1940, Paul Bigsby and Leo Fender were doing that. By 1950, the company founded by Fender already produced a guitar named Esquire, followed by a Broadcaster, then Telecaster, and in 1954 the world saw the first Stratocaster. Since then, the electric guitar became massively produced and became an integral part of modern music.

Electric guitar is the purest product of scientific and technological revolution. The guitar masters of the past were changing the sound of instrument, experimenting with its design and materials it is made of. Modern Torreses modify only the audio signal coming from the sensor to the amplifier. They deal with the frequency converter and chips, resulting in experimental sounds, that don’t sound as guitar. Only the list of effects that can be achieved when playing the electric guitar, using the so-called “gadgets”, can take a couple of paragraphs.

Since the sound of electric guitar does not depend on the shape of its body, the designers give it more and more bizarre shapes. It is true, that the most successful variants of the body of electric guitar are patented by manufacturers (electric guitar with the body in the form of a “dovetail” produces, for example, by Gibson). Besides Gibson the internationally known are such companies as Fender, BcRich, Ibanez.

Computerization has not bypassed the electric guitar also. Today, there are some models of electric guitars, which are equipped with electronic device, which was made it possible to record the sound of string. The sound is recorded in the form of computer code that goes into digital devices, processing and reproducing sound. Due to such innovations, the guitar sound became especially impressive and simply magical. It is impossible not to be fond of modern jazz, blues, funk, rap, rock and other music when the musical world is ruled by electric guitar.

As it was already mentioned, the appearance of the guitar influenced many genres and artists. Electric guitar is widely applied in such kinds of music as jazz, blues, rock, academic music and others.

Electric guitar came to jazz in 1937 thanks to Eddie Durham, who (through the orchestra os Jimmy Lunsford) got to Count Basie. Basie, however, preferred to use him as a trombonist. The only guitar solo by Durham – eight-tact piece, played on an electric National, tapped only in «Time Out» (recorded August 9, 1937). Historical was partly restored on March 18, 1938, when a group of Eddie Durham and His Base Four appeared in the New York studio to record two discs for the label Commodore.

George Barnes became the first “electric” blues man when on March 1, 1938 played in the studio – first with Big Bill Broonzy, and then with Curtis Jones. In 1939, the electric guitar was taken up by the grandees of the Chicago Blues Big Bill and Tamp Red. Then Memphis Minnie recorded “electric” version of the song «Me And My Cauffer», which brought the first big success.

Charlie Christian, who gained fame in the years 1939-1942, but could not receive big glory (in 1923 died of tuberculosis), became the third most important star of early electric guitar (after Durham and McAuliffe). Jazz historians say that he became a key figure in the history of modern electric guitar, influencing the work of such masters as Eldon Shemblin, Merle Travis, Hank Thompson, Chet Atkins, Bill Black, Jimmy Bryant, Barney Kessel, Tal Farlow, Wes Montgomery.

Simultaneously with the emergence of rock music, electric guitar became a key instrument for rock bands. It sounded on the records of many early rock musicians – Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, but a revolutionary impact on the development of rock electric guitar playing techniques was contributed by Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. Their solo parties and techniques for using the guitar sound in the context of the songs, experimenting with the sound had a major influence on subsequent rock music.

In 1960, there appear a number of new discoveries in the use of electric guitars. The celebrated guitarist Jimi Hendrix radically altered views on the guitar sound, creating in every possible way new sounds, using a wide range of effects. First of all, there appeared the first effects pedal of distortion and fuzz, which first were used by garage rock group (Link Wray, The Sonics, The Kinks), and a little later – by more popular artists (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones). By the end of the decade musicians begin experimenting with the use of Guitar Canceller in songs (The Velvet Underground), as well as more aggressive and dirty sound. The latter led to the appearance of the genre of hard rock in the 1970’s, whose most prominent guitarists were Ritchie Blackmore, Jimmy Page.

In 1980, with the development of punk rock and alternative rock, musicians started experimenting with finding new sounds of electric guitars. An important role was played by some groups of the late 70’s, for example, Joy Division, whose guitarist Bernard Sumner created not just the rhythm or the solo parts in the traditional sense, but atmospheric soundscapes perceived on a subconscious level. Revolutionary role in the development of rock guitar in 1980’s was played by Sonic Youth, whose guitarists Torston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, using non-traditional settings and playing techniques, feedbacks, all sorts of strange guitar effects, could create a unique sound, which became the basis for all subsequent evolution of rock.

Such groups as The Jesus and Mary Chain, Big Black, The Jesus Lizard, Pixies, Nirvana used the work of Sonic Youth, creating the genre of noise rock. It gave the development to the subgenre shoegazing, in which the sound of electric guitars was the most distant from the usual standards. The songs of shoegazing groups impose a huge number of parties, which sometimes sounded like synthesizers, traditional guitar riffs on the back burner, and all together they created a very strange and revolutionary effect. Brian Eno called that sound “pop music of the future.” Leading groups of the genre are My Bloody Valentine (guitarists Kevin Shields and Debbie Googe), Slowdive, Ride, Pale Saints.

At the same time in the 80 years, basing on the folk-rock the 60’s a softer guitar sound appeared, it gave multiple parties “Symphony” effect when imposing. A huge role in the development of such a sound was played by Johnny Marr from The Smiths.

Electric guitar was very popular among composers of classical music also. In the 1950-1960’s, many composers of classical music began to use electric guitar in their compositions. Among these works – Gruppen by Karlheinz Stockhausen (1955-1957), String Trio by Donald Erb (1966), The Possibility of a New Work for Electric Guitar by Morton Feldman (1966). Among the later works of this kind there are MASS by Leonard Bernstein (1971), Electric Counterpoint by Steve Reich (1987), Miserere by Arvo Pärt (1989-1992), Symphony â„- 4 by Lepo Sumer (1992) with electric guitar solo in the third part.

In the 1980-1990-ies even more young composers began to write compositions for electric guitar. Among them there are Steven Mackey, Nick Didkovsky, Scott Johnson and Tim Brady. Experimental composers, such as Glenn Branca and Rhys Chethem have written several “symphonic” compositions for electric guitars, which sometimes required up to 100 guitars.

Electric guitar made famous a lot of outstanding musicians. Jimi Hendrix, an American guitarist, singer-songwriter and record producer was one of them. He is considered to be the greatest electric guitarist in musical history and one of the most leading musicians of his period in different genres. The main his genres were psychedelic rock, hard rock, blues-rock, acid rock, funk-rock. A lot of his compositions and songs can be considered as vivid examples of outstanding, prominent performance of electric guitar.

His album “Electric Ladyland” (1968) is commonly considered The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s greatest achievement and focuses attention on his unbelievable abilities as singer, musician. One of the most interesting songs in the album is “Gypsy Eyes” that is based on the field holler. The song is about Jimi’s mother. The author had major issues with his mom abandoning him as a child. Jimi nearly romanticized her as being an excellent mother…and he really wants to find out if she loves him.

The genre of the song is: psychedelic rock, funk rock, blues-rock. This song is followed by complex and original structures. It is full of sizzling, aggressive guitar sound and can be understood as a slice of blues and psychedelic features. “Gypsy Eyes” start out with a sole bass drum beating, then a fast hammer on pulloff continuation, to bass note to a high melody. While listening, there appears a real magic, voodoo gypsy feel to it that draws the listener in.

The song is based on a standard, ancient blues field holler, with Jimi Hendrix creating some great synergy between his vocal and the lead guitar riff. In fact, the song is loaded with a collection of riffs, and Hendrix neatly compiles them together in one song. Utilizing the recording studio as an instrument, Hendrix’s overdubbing technique reaches an early peak here, as the multiple guitar parts swirl around each other in spectacular fashion. In addition, the flanging/phasing effects are also a part of the arrangement, and by proxy the song itself.

Characterizing the song, there can be said that the song features guitar themes that float between left and right channels.

Richard Middleton remarks that licks in rock music are often used all the way through a formula and variations technique and that the composition “Gypsy Eyes” “is put together from variants of five stock ideas…familiar from other recordings in the same style” (Middleton, 1990).

“Drum lick A”

“Drum lick B”

“A complex of riffs on guitar and bass guitar”

“A basic melodic falling pattern, using the notes of the pentatonic scale”

“A characteristic guitar effecty, the attacked single note with long decay and glissando fall” (Middleton, 1990).

He concludes that “the combination and variations of these formulae are many and highly imaginative. But the basic formulae are so simple that the recording could well have been worked out ‘in performance” (Middleton, 1990).

Jimi Hendrix wrote very different music, for example in his composition “Purple Haze” from the album “Are You Experienced” (1966), is known for its use of the “Hendrix chord” (dominant 7 # 9) that is played as the first chord right after the introduction. Such chord structure was regularly used in jazz by such musicians as Horace Silver at the beginning of 1960s, but was not implemented in rock on a regular basis. The beginning of the composition is remarkable for its well-known use of the distinctive tritone interval; it was often used by jazz artists. It is sounded when Hendrix plays an E7 #9 (low to high: E, G#, D, G) on the guitar while the bass plays an E (and its octave);( Rooksby, 2002) such a “dissonant” interval was unusual in popular music of the time. The guitar solo is played through an Octavia, an effects pedal that increases notes by one octave. The effect was developed by Roger Mayer, an acoustical and electronics engineer, and Mayer claims he made it in cooperation with Jimi Hendrix (Octavia). A dubbed guitar part using the Octavia can also be noticed in the outro.

concl

Electric guitar is a very well known or may be, even the most famous musical instrument in the world. Without this musical instrument people could not appreciate the talent and creativity of great musicians of our time. Thanks to the emergence of electric guitars, rich sound processing, as well as analog and digital processors allowed to change the sound of classical guitar incredibly. The appearance of an entirely new electronic sound foreshadowed the emergence of great virtuosos of the music world. Such legends of rock music, and simply outstanding personalities like Jimmy Hendrix, Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Jeff Beck, BB King, Keith Richards (Rolling Stones ) fairly occupy a special place in the hall of fame of the world cultural enrichments and deserve respect. Thanks to the emergence of electric guitar, there appeared such styles rock and roll, hard rock, heavy metal, psychedelic rock, alternative, punk, grunge and hundreds of other types and styles. The electric guitar completely changed the world of contemporary music, making it brighter and more interesting. The electric guitar has been the most popular musical instrument for more than a half of a century and its popularity seems to be immortal.