
The change from acoustic guitars to electric guitars was a huge revolution espiacally for jazz musicians looking to amplify their sound! The first one to be made was by Adolph Rickenbacker in 1931 (seen on the right.) It was a hollow body guitar with sound holes punched in. It used electromagnetic pickups to work. An electromagnetic pickup worked by having a magnet positioned above 1000,s of fine copper strung coil. When you change a magnetic field if the presence of a closed loop system of metal was nearby it would create an eletrical feild withing that coil. So how a electric guitars pickups work is simply this. The guitar strings are attracted to the magnet below them (Above the pickups) and when you pluck a string it creates a change in the magnetic feild because its chasing the string, as this happens a electrical feild is produced in the copper wire below the magnet and is detected by the pickup, the pickup sends a signal to the amp, which then sends it to the speakers and then produces the sound that you hear when you play your guitar!
