There are many approaches to the electric guitar. Most bodies are made from kiln-dried wood. The necks are narrower than acoustic guitar necks.

All electric guitars are fitted to be amplified. Without amplification, it’s very quiet. The guitar is connected to a loudspeaker by cord.

Electric guitars can have many different effects. The wah-wah pedal, at right, provides many different tonal distortions. Funk guitarists use this method a lot.

Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin truly made the double neck guitar famous. Its twelve strings make it get more tones, so there’s a reason why it’s so popular!

The Fender Stratocaster is probably the most popular guitar of all time. There were two reasons that it was built. One was that some people didn’t like the Telecaster. The other was to give the Les Paul solid body some competition.

In 1952, the Les Paul from Gibson was introduced. At first it only made 2,000 of them,  but then the guitar basically shut down. But it rose again because guitarists like Mike Bloomfield and Eric Clapton like the thick sound.

The Gibson Flying V is the first guitar to depart from all other guitar design before it.  This guitar established basically a cult of musicians, mostly punk, who play this guitar.

Jimi Hendrix is one of the greatest guitars players and possibly one of my favorites. He was given his first guitar at age twelve. In 1966 he was discovered by Chas Chandler, and started churning out hits like “Purple Haze” and “Foxy Lady”. He died 4 years after he was discovered by overdose. Here he is in high school, at left.

The Fender Precision was the first electric bass guitar.