What Makes an Electric Guitar Sound Like an Electric Guitar

SOURCE: www.strat-talk.com

An Atlantic magazine article explains how Hendrix and other artists created their signature sound.

Sound:This article talks about the invention of the electric guitar and how it has evolved through faults in amplification technology and if these things never happened, music wouldn't be what it is today. It talks of how guitar effects were created by artists experimenting with their amplifiers and messing with the vacuum tubes. In one part of the article it talk about how the guitarist from The Kinks created his signature sound by taking a razor blade to his speaker cone, creating a crunchy sound and distortion was born. The article gets very technical and explains the process of how sound waves travel and guitar effects change them.

Analysis: I thought this article was very informative and showed me the more technical side of amplification. I found it very cool and interesting how musicians created these signature sounds through mistakes and extreme tampering with expensive tube amps. I find it amazing how you can create these sounds with messing with circuitry and these sounds have been mastered and compacted into a pedal that you can turn on and off and get the sound whenever you want. This article will help me because it shows me how these sounds are created and the pioneers and musicians who perfect them.

FUTURE RESEARCH: What makes different bands successful in various genres?