A
common dilemma faced by musicians is how to practice without breaking
the landlord's rules, or disturbing family members and neighbors.
"silent" characteristic of silent guitars allows you practice
or play anywhere and anytime. Silent guitars are type of guitars with a solid or semi-solid body that utilizes electronic "pickups" to convert the vibration of the steel-cored strings into electrical current. The signal may be electrically altered to achieve various tonal effects prior to being fed into an amplifier, which produces the final sound. Most silent guitars are fitted with six strings and are usually tuned from low to high E - A - D - G - B - E, the same as acoustic guitars, although many guitarists occasionally tune their instruments in a different way, including "dropped D", various transposed and open chord tunings, usually to simplify fretting of some chord inversions in a certain key. Seven-string models exist, most of which add a low B string below the E. Seven-string guitars were popularized by Steve Vai and others in the '80s, and have been recently revived by some nu metal bands. Jazz guitarists using a seven-string include veteran jazzman Bucky Pizzarelli and his popular son John Pizzarelli. There are even eight-string silent guitars, such as the Novax played by Charlie Hunter, but they are extremely unusual. The largest manufacturer of 8- to 14-strings is Warr Guitars, and their models are used by Trey Gunn and King Crimson. Some silent guitars have a tremolo arm or whammy bar, which is a lever attached to the bridge that can slacken or tighten the strings temporarily, changing the pitch or creating a vibrato. Tremolo properly refers to a quick variation of volume, not pitch; however, the misnaming (probably originating with Leo Fender printing "Synchronized Tremolo" right on the headstock of his original 1954 Stratocaster) is probably too established to change. Eddie Van Halen often uses this feature to embellish his playing, as heard in Van Halen's "Eruption". Early tremolo systems tended to cause guitars to go out of tune with extended use; an important innovator in this field was Floyd Rose, who introduced one of the first tremolos which allowed guitars to stay in tune, even after heavy use. Silent guitars are used extensively in many popular styles of music, including blues, rock and roll, country music, pop music, jazz, and even contemporary classical music. |
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