| Acoustic guitars and their various musical relatives can | | | | appeared, allowing notes to be bent down or up |
| be traced back thousands of years, but the idea of a | | | | (before, they could only be bent upwards by pulling the |
| guitar using electric currents to amplify its sound had to | | | | string away from its natural line, thus tightening it). The |
| wait until the 1930s to start to take root. Necessity | | | | tremolo arm was part of the early sound of rock 'n' roll, |
| was, perhaps, the mother of invention here, as the | | | | and could make a vibrato sound or create the long, |
| volume of the guitar, used previously in blues and jazz, | | | | sustained, wailing sounds associated with Jimi Hendrix. |
| could not compete with the new sounds of the big | | | | Other sound effects, such as chorus, overdrive, |
| band and the shriek of brass instruments. Early | | | | vibrate, wah-wah, reverb and delay (echo) could also |
| experiments with simply adding microphones to guitars | | | | be controlled via foot pedals by the player, further |
| had only limited success, partly due to the quality of the | | | | adding to the variety of sounds available. The pickup |
| tone and partly because of the feedback that could | | | | was also applied to bass guitars, and is now seen on |
| occur as soon as a reasonable volume was reached. | | | | violins, mandolins, cellos and many other types of string |
| The breakthrough came when Les Paul, a jazz | | | | instrument. |
| guitarist, successfully experimented with a magnetic | | | | Musical styles using electric guitars |
| pickup system that could convert the vibrations of the | | | | The genres of music that use electric guitars are too |
| strings to an electrical signal to be amplified and sent to | | | | numerous for this article, but their origins can be traced |
| a speaker. Soon, guitarists started adding pickups to | | | | back to the jazz and big band sound that became |
| their hollow-bodied guitars, but in fact there was no | | | | popular between the wars. Blues guitarists pioneered |
| need for an electric guitar to have a hollow body, as | | | | the "dirty" sound that would later morph into heavy |
| the pickups could detect very subtle vibrations and | | | | metal, and no rock and roll group would be complete |
| amplify them anyway. Before long, Fender, | | | | without at least one electric guitar. Bob Dylan was |
| Rickenbacker and, of course, Gibson were producing | | | | once called "Judas" by a heckler when he swapped |
| solid-bodied electric guitars. | | | | his acoustic for an electric on stage, a significant |
| Innovations unique to the electric guitar | | | | moment in electric folk. The sixties saw mainstream |
| Electric guitars allowed many innovations that would go | | | | pop and psychedelic bands putting the instrument to |
| on to define their sound. Most noticeably was the fact | | | | good use, and disco, punk, ska and reggae music of |
| that volume and tone controls could be added to the | | | | the seventies used the instrument's inherent rhythm; a |
| electronics between the pickup and the cable, which | | | | lively and thriving African sound is once of the guitar's |
| meant that the accomplished guitarist could adjust the | | | | most innovative current streams. Whenever a new |
| tone and loudness whilst on stage. Second and third | | | | technology has come along, especially the electronic |
| pickups were added at various points along the body | | | | revolution of the late 1970s and 1980s, people have |
| to take advantage of the difference in tone at various | | | | written off the electric guitar, but it shows no sign of |
| points along the strings, and these could be blended | | | | losing popularity. |
| together with multiple controls. The tremolo arm | | | | |