Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience - Softcover

Waksman, Steve

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674005473 ISBN 13: 9780674005471

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2001

Synopsis

Around 1930, a group of guitar designers in Southern California fitted instruments with an electromagnetic device called a pickup--and forever changed the face of popular music. Taken up by musicians as diverse as Les Paul, Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix, and the MC5, the electric guitar would become not just a conduit of electrifying new sounds but also a symbol of energy, innovation, and desire in the music of the day. Instruments of Desire is the first full account of the historical and cultural significance of the electric guitar, a wide-ranging exploration of how and why the instrument has had such broad musical and cultural impact.

Instruments of Desire ranges across the history of the electric guitar by focusing on key performers who have shaped the use and meaning of the instrument: Charlie Christian, Les Paul, Chet Atkins, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, the MC5, and Led Zeppelin. The book traces two competing ideals for the sound of the instrument: one, focusing on tonal purity, has been favored by musicians seeking to integrate the electric guitar into the existing conventions of pop music; the other, centering on timbral distortion, has been used to challenge popular notions of "acceptable" and "unacceptable" noise. Instruments of Desire reveals how these different approaches to sound also entail different ideas about the place of the body in musical performance, the ways in which music articulates racialized and gendered identities, and the position of popular music in American social and political life.

About this title

About the Author:

Steve Waksman is the 1998 winner of the Ralph Henry Gabriel Dissertation Prize awarded by the American Studies Association. He is Visiting Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at Bowling Green University, and is on the editorial board of Popular Music and Society.

Review:

“Instruments' natural-language passages are knowledgeable and sympathetic. Waksman's profiles of musicians Charlie Christian and Les Paul--each chapter centers on one guitar icon--provide useful overviews of their careers and an aficionado's suggestions for listening.”―Jim Taibi, Business Week

“Until recently, the history of the electric guitar, the most influential of the 20th century, had never been fully chronicled. Now, Instruments of Desire traces it through its 70 years of development, examining its pan-genre musical influence, its role in race and gender politics, and the unprecedented power that rewarded those who mastered it.”―Patchen Barss, National and Financial Post

“[Waksman] plays to both ax-heads and bookworms so that prickly issues of race, sexuality...and technical authorship are also addressed in this perceptive and overdue narrative of a singularly American machine.”―Kirkus Review

“As a survey of the development of the electric guitar and its impact on society, the book is invaluable--and frequently fascinating. Instrument designers such as Leo Fender and Paul Bigsby are given their due, but the focus is on the musicians themselves. Among those discussed in detail--and with a keen musical ear--are Charlie Christian, Chet Aktins, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, Wayne Kramer (of the proto-punk MC5), and Jimmy Page.”―Lee Hildebrand, Berkeley Express

“Waksman presents a scholarly treatise on the history and development of the electric guitar and how its use shaped the course of popular music...Well written, and with extensive footnotes...this is an excellent analysis of the growth and impact of the electric guitar on popular music and culture.”―Eric C. Shoaf, Library Journal

“Waksman's critical look at the electronically enhanced plectral lute and meticulous tracing of its influence is a darn fine book...Although it tells blues and rock musicians' stories, this isn't a book about musicians or, really, music. It is an exploration of the 'racialized nature of rock's favorite mode of Phallocentric display... the electric guitar.' Waksman makes much of the sexuality conveyed by the instrument and keeps the issue of race close to the surface of the discussion. Far more theoretical and involved than most other books about guitars, Waksman's is a delineation of the implications of one of our era's endemic icons, the boy with his guitar. Persuasive, responsible, and wide-ranging, this is the thinking headbanger's guide to the evolution of the mighty axe.”―Mike Tribby, Booklist

“As a musician Steve Waksman can get deep enough inside the guitar to explain its workings with a precision uncommon in musicologists and unknown in social scientists. As a historian he has the taste and guts to meld sources humble and hifalutin into a coherent narrative that is neither. Thus he comes closer to revealing the secrets of the definitive 20th-century instrument than anybody else who's been foolhardy enough to try.”―Robert Christgau

“Instruments of Desire is a powerful book. The way in which Waksman moves with real authority from style to style as he considers each guitarist is almost a virtuosic accomplishment in itself.”―John Covach, editor of Understanding Rock

“This is a new kind of--polyphonic and polyrhythmic--history of popular music. It seamlessly weaves together everything from theory to biography, from economics to technology, from race and gender to aesthetics. Anyone interested in popular music will enjoy reading this book, and everyone will leave it wiser than when they came to it.”―Lawrence Grossberg, author of Dancing in Spite of Myself

“These instruments of desire are the tools of our trade, the means of production and while the muddled, middle-aged prophets of year zero predict their demise, Steve Waksman lays out a history that's essential reading for all foot soldiers in the music biz wars.”―Jon Langford, The Mekons

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0674005473
• ISBN 13: 9780674005471
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384