Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:44:01.019Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Even in the Quietest Moments: Amplifying the Electric Guitar

from Part II - Technology and Timbre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2024

Jan-Peter Herbst
Affiliation:
University of Huddersfield
Steve Waksman
Affiliation:
Smith College, Massachusetts
Get access

Summary

The electric guitar is often presented as a novel but straightforward solution to a particular problem: amplification. It is remarkable, then, that histories of the instrument focus mainly on the iconic six-string itself. No electric guitar is complete without an amplifier, and no companion to the electric guitar is complete without a corresponding history of electronic amplification. This chapter is about certain tendencies and possibilities that have existed around electric guitar amplification. It covers the historical development of the amplifier, focusing less on a loudness teleology than the instrument’s social and political construction. It also discusses the history of amplification in relation to recent scholarly interests in signal chains and supply chains. The chapter concludes with a discussion of electric guitar amplification and the problem of electricity—suggesting that the power of the amplifier has never been found in loudness alone.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Selected Bibliography

Doyle, Peter, “Ghosts of Electricity: Amplification,” in The SAGE Handbook of Popular Music, edited by Bennett, Andy and Waksman, Steve (SAGE, 2015), pp. 532548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Matthew, “George Beauchamp and the Rise of the Electric Guitar up to 1939,” unpublished PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh (2013).Google Scholar
McSwain, Rebecca, “The Social Reconstruction of a Reverse Salient in Electrical Guitar Technology: Noise, the Solid Body, and Jimi Hendrix,” in Music and Technology in the Twentieth Century, edited by Braun, Hans-Joachim (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), pp. 186198.Google Scholar
Waksman, Steve, “California Noise: Tinkering with Hardcore and Heavy Metal in Southern California,” Social Studies of Science 34/5 (2004): 675702.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×