Guitar

The guitar has inspired generations of rock, pop, blues, jazz and folk music (to name just a few genres). While the acoustic instrument has dominated folk and modern acoustic music, the electric instrument has defined rock, metal, punk, blues, and contemporary jazz. It is an instrument capable of the most beautiful of rhythms and textures, with a grunt of distortion that inspires defiance and grit, and at the same the it can produce the most ear splitting lead solos. 

It’s the instrument responsible for the nice round, pure tones of Django Reinhardt. It’s also the foundation for the funkiest of infectious rhythms of James Brown with James Nolen’s distinctive “Chicken Scratch” styled solos. It’s responsible for the incredible crunch of powerful heavy metal from Metallica, through the blistering solos played with absolute precision by Steve Vai. What about the creative onslaught of Jimi Hendrix? Then there’s the depth of emotional turmoil, stirred up by Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour.

This most ubiquitous of musical instruments has been responsible for many of the most remarkable moments in music from the 20th and 21st centuries. It’s in a class of it’s own.

Effects and amplifiers provide the basic instrument with a huge range of sounds. It never ceases to amaze. The sheer talent of some of its virtuoso performers. The number of houses with a cheeky acoustic or electric sitting in the corner of a room, hanging on a wall, or hidden in a cupboard is hard to get your head around.

All combined this makes it one of the most versatile traditional instruments in modern music.