How Is An Electric Guitar Chord Produced?

The electric guitar has introduced several new chords to the guitar; the power chord, the amp chord, and so forth, but it's the sound of the electric guitar itself that sets the electric guitar chord apart.

What is it about the electric guitar chord and its sound that sets it apart from the classic chords of the acoustic guitar?  For that we need to examine the fundamental differences between the two instruments, and the characteristic differences in their sounds.

From Acoustic To Electric

One of the oldest instruments is the acoustic guitar and its particular sound, many would argue, has set it apart from other instruments, affording it a special place in the history of music. This pride of place originates from the way that it handles the sound.  Before the guitar, stringed instruments simply relied on the vibration of the strings to create the sound, and this meant that for each note you wanted to play, you had to have a string of a specific length.  That process resulted in the need for either very limited or very large instruments such as the lyre or the harp.

With the development of the guitar, the player could now limit the length of the string by pinching it off against the neck.  This enabled the production of a much wider range of notes, and the ability to play a chord by strumming all the strings, and pinching them off making a pleasing set of notes.

This also allowed the body of the guitar to be developed into a resonance chamber which would amplify the sound and direct it, allowing more people to hear it at a time.  This mellowing resonance chamber distinguishes the smooth sound of the guitar that so many have come to recognize and appreciate.

With the advent of the age of electricity came the development of the electric guitar chord.  The thing that sets the electric guitar chord apart from its acoustic cousin is inherent in the nature of the beast.  An electric guitar still uses the string, and the neck, but it is in the way that it handles the vibrations of the strings that we start to see the real difference.

Electric guitars use the pickup to sense the vibrations of the strings, and turn them into a signal which is then run through an electric amplifier and made louder. This method does away with the need for an acoustic resonance chamber, allowing different bodies to be designed, each of which can change the way the strings vibrate.

This process also allows various distortions and effects to be applied to the signal on the way to the amp, thus creating entirely new sounds.  In this way, the electric guitar chord set itself apart and has become the exciting and creative instrument of today's music.