Amplified - A Design History of the Electric Guitar
- Submitting institution
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Sheffield Hallam University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 3930
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
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- Publisher
- Reaktion Books
- ISBN
- 9781789142747
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- February
- Year of publication
- 2021
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- Yes
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- Publication delayed from October 2020 due to Covid-19 pandemic. Confirmed in letter from Vivian Constantinopoulos, Editorial Director of Reaktion Books
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This research examines the design history of the electric guitar as a technological object, a cultural icon and a social construct. It also exposes the remarkably small extent to which professional industrial and product design input has been exploited in the design and development of the electric guitar over the course of its history, and explores if the development of the electric guitar has benefitted or not from that input.
While the subject of the history of the electric guitar is a popular one that over the years has resulted in countless books ranging from encyclopaedias of guitars to detailed histories of guitar manufacturers and individual models of guitars, there has been surprisingly little written about the design history of the electric guitar as a mass-produced object, or the social and cultural history of its production and consumption. The vast majority of publications related to the electric guitar have been celebratory trade books rather than critical observations of the nature of the design of the object and its use in a social and cultural context.
Primary research was conducted in the form of interviews with noted guitar historians (including Tony Bacon and Tom Wheeler), well-known dealers in vintage guitars (George Gruhn, Walter Carter), staff of various guitar manufacturing companies (including Gibson, Fender, Epiphone and Peavey), guitarists (including Gordon Giltrap and Paul Brett), and numerous guitar designers (including Trev Wilkinson and Hartley Peavey), luthiers, collectors and promoters.
Archival research was conducted at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC and the Country Music Hall of Fame, Nashville, including visual analysis of historic advertising material, alongside secondary research using published texts.
The book’s publication was scheduled for October 2020 (as shown in Reaktion’s Autumn/Winter Catalogue 2020), but this was delayed until February 2021 due to Covid [publisher’s letter available on request].
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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