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In this article, Averie explores how electric guitars work.
Electric Guitars: History and science
Electric Guitars: History and science
By Averie Black
By Averie Black
Before the 1930s, string instruments were constrained to orchestral instruments and the acoustic guitar. However, a new invention took the stage that is still extremely important to music today: the electric guitar. With science's help, guitars' sound can now be broadcast across stadiums.
The need for an electric guitar was simple. During big jazz band performances, with all of the noise from people dancing and other instruments, the acoustic guitar was drowned out. Amplification suddenly became necessary to be able to hear as the shifting culture began demanding louder music. While the invention of the electric guitar is often credited to Orville Gibson, founder of Gibson Guitar Company, the actual inventors of the electric guitar are Adolph Rickenbaker and George Beauchamp in 1931, who designed the Rickenbacker Model A-22 Electro Hawaiian. According to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which displays one of these guitars, “The Rickenbacker Model A-22 Electro Hawaiian guitar is the first commercially successful electric guitar. Nicknamed the "Frying Pan" because of its shape, it was also the first solid body guitar.” Electric guitars continued to gain popularity, rapidly growing in the early 1950s thanks to Leo Fender’s modern design.
Image of the Rickenbacker Model A-22 Electro Hawaiian guitar by The Met Museum
From the outside, it may be a bit confusing to learn how electric guitars work. Unlike their acoustic relative, electric guitars have a solid body, meaning there is no amplification effect from the hollow cavity like an acoustic guitar would have. Electric guitars also lack a vibrating soundboard which is the top piece of wood on an acoustic guitar that helps to project sound. With a complete lack of all parts that create sound in an acoustic guitar, electric guitars instead rely on alternative methods. The relationship between the metal strings and the magnetic pickup is what produces the sound in an electric guitar. Normally, when a string is plucked, the air molecules around it shift to produce the sound we hear. With electric guitars, not only do the molecules shift, but so does the magnetism of the pickup. Behind each string is a magnet that has coils wrapped around it that pick up the electricity produced from the shift in the magnetic field. As Bazilla, a YouTuber who does education content, puts it, “...this wire takes the electric signal that represents the wave created from the strike of the string where it can later be modified for sound. The signal is then fed into an amplifier which makes it larger.” However, there is even more to how electric guitars work than just the guitar itself.
Image of a Guitar Amp by Freerange Stock
Amps, although separate from the instrument, are a crucial part of being able to play electric guitar. The amp takes the sound and-- guess what-- amplifies it. Well, it does more than that, but the main purpose is to amplify the sound. Three main parts make up an amp: the preamp, the power amp, and the speaker. According to Roland, a manufacturer of electronic music equipment, “The preamp contains the circuitry that is primarily responsible for shaping the guitar sound and delivering it to the power amp in an optimal form.” This is also where the musician can control sound customizations like bass, mid, treble, and volume. The power amp then takes the signal from the preamp and gives it more voltage before handing it to the speaker, which takes the boosted signal and projects it into audible sound. There are combo amps, which contain all three parts of an amplifier and are most commonly used, then there are amps that contain only the preamp and power amp and have the speaker separately. The ladder is more common for larger audiences that need big speakers.
Electric guitars have been, and continue to be, a key part of the music sphere. While it may be hard to tell how they work on the surface, a tangled mix of magnetism, electricity, and sound waves work just below the surface.
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