The Benefits!

Clarification:

• I guess I do actually get bored when I have to go grocery shopping at Sprouts with my wife 😅. Glad I have a solution for boredom that always works, next time I'll be sure to bring my guitar with me and jam while my wife drools over vitamins!

What is a Guitar Anyway?!

Definitions:

• Pitch is the sound of a musical note. Using your voice or a musical instrument you emit certain frequencies which register as specific pitches. When we translate those pitches into music we organize them using the first seven letters of the alphabet and can then also refer to them as musical notes
• Tone refers to how a pitch sounds. Not volume or note wise, but character wise. The tone could be brassy, soft, balanced, etc..
• Direct Input or DI refers to the action of plugging your instrument in to record or perform rather than amplifying or recording it via a microphone.

Clarifications:

• In the video I say that most electric guitars have a set of knobs that control volume, tone, and what pickups are active. It is true that the knobs control volume and tone, but the active pickups are generally controlled by a switch that is adjacent to the knobs.
• In the video I only cover the two types of electric guitars that I have in my studio, Stratocaster and Hollow Body. There are literally countless other types of electric guitars!
• In the video I say that guitars began to take their modern form in the mid to late 1700s. It is actually recognized that guitars began to take their modern form in the 1400s, though the amount of strings on the guitar back than was completely different than today. Back in the first days of guitars they had four courses rather than six strings. A course is a set of two strings (same as on a mandolin or twelve strings guitar). By the 1600s they had five courses, and by the1800s they generally had six strings, like today.

Elaborations:

• Hollow Body electric guitars are frequently favored by jazz musicians.
• John Lennon was one of the founding members of one of the most overall influential musical groups of all time, The Beatles.
• Guitars originated in Spain in the 1400s, two-hundred years later Spanish settlers would bring guitars to America. Though the oud and the lute, which predate written history and are generally believed to have Arabic origins, were clear influences on the guitar, fact remains that literal guitars originated in Spain. The oud, lute, and other related ancient fretted string instruments are not considered guitars!
• Today there is a modernized way of making guitar strings out of animal guts, these strings are called Catgut strings. Despite the name, they are never made from cat guts but generally use the intestines of sheep and goat. Historically it was popular to make strings out of cattle intestines and it is possible that the word catgut may be an abbreviation for cattlegut.

Discussion question!

Let us know in the discussion section what has inspired you to learn guitar and what your musical aspirations are!