Bob Dylan's Distortion On The Electric Guitar

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On July 24th 1965, Bob Dylan’s performance at the Newport Folk Festival was the first to feature a Fender Stratocaster with the distortion cranked up. The audience being accustomed to Dylan’s traditional folk style music, were unprepared for his new style of playing guitar, and Dylan was ultimately booed off stage for his performance. Although Dylan was met with much negative criticism for his performance, his distortion on the electric guitar pioneered a new musical sound of hybrid folk and rock sensibilities. Dylan’s performance marked a pivotal moment in the use of the Electric Guitar paving the way to new forms of Rock and Roll in the 60’s. Music is a reflection of the cultural trends and artistic inspiration of the time it is written. Because of how frequently changes in society occurs, different genres of …show more content…

The electric guitar had significant modifications and alternatives to the acoustic. Traditionally when an acoustic guitar is strummed, the sounds travels through the soundboard is projected into the soundhole to be amplified. However,the electric guitar does not have a soundhole to increase the volume of the guitar. Instead, the electric guitar uses the vibration of its strings and converts them into electrical signals. When a guitarist strums the guitar, the vibrations of the strings are detected by the pickup through direct electromagnetic induction. However the pickup alone is not strong enough to amplify the sound of these string instruments adequately. The signal generated by an electric guitar is then brought through an amplifier which increases the volume of the guitar. The sound travels through a preamplifier which amplifies the voltage from the pickup and compensates for any loss of frequencies through an equalizer. The sound finally reaches the loudspeaker housed inside a cabinet, which is the electric guitars equivalent to the soundboard of the acoustic

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