The Cambridge Companion to the Electric Guitar
The electric guitar is one of the most important musical instruments and cultural artifacts of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and enjoys popularity worldwide. Designed for students, this Cambridge Companion explores electric guitar technology and performance, as well as the instrument’s history and cultural impact. Chapters focused on the social significance of the electric guitar draw attention to the ways in which gender and race have shaped and been shaped by it, the ecology of electric guitar manufacturing, and the participation of electric guitarists in online communities. Contributions on electric guitar history stretch the chronology backward in time and broaden our ideas of what belongs in that history, and those addressing musical style investigate the cultural value of virtuosity while providing material analysis of electric guitar technique. The Companion’s final section considers the electric guitar’s global circulation, particularly in Africa, the Afro-Caribbean, and Southeast Asia.
Jan-Peter Herbst is Reader (Associate Professor) in Music Production at the University of Huddersfield. His background as a rock guitarist has led him to specialize in the study of electric guitar playing and rock and metal music production. Herbst has also edited The Cambridge Companion to Metal Music (2023).
Steve Waksman is Elsie Irwin Sweeney Professor at Smith College. He is the author of Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience (1999), This Ain’t the Summer of Love: Conflict and Crossover in Heavy Metal and Punk (2009), and Live Music in America: A History from Jenny Lind to Beyoncé (2022).
