Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience [Hardcover]

Steve Waksman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 4, 2000

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Waksman (Harvard Univ.) presents a scholarly treatise on the history and development of the electric guitar and how its use shaped the course of popular music. Beginning with the first electrified instruments of the 1930s, he traces two competing sound ideals: one with a focus on tonal purity (favored by artists such as Les Paul, Chet Atkins, and Wes Montgomery), and the other centering on a more distorted sound (used by Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page) that challenged popular notions of acceptable and unacceptable "noise." In comparing these two divergent ideals, Waksman, editor of the Journal of Popular Music Studies, argues that they also draw on different concepts about the place of the body in musical performance, about the ways in which music articulates racial and gender identities, and about the position of popular music in American social and political life. Well written, and with extensive footnotes, the book's only apparent drawback is that it ends with music produced in the mid-1970s. In that sense, it is less than complete. (Perhaps a second volume will bring the work up-to-date.) Still, this is an excellent analysis of the growth and impact of the electric guitar on popular music and culture; for all libraries.
-Eric C. Shoaf, Brown Univ. Lib., Providence
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Waksman's critical look at the electronically enhanced plectral lute and meticulous tracing of its influence is a darn fine book. Its purview includes Hendrix, Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, the ubiquitous Pete Townshend, and Blue Cheer (Blue Cheer?), as well as, of course, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, and Chuck Berry. Respect is rightfully paid to Chet Atkins and Les Paul, too. But, 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

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (February 4, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067400065X
• ISBN-13: 978-0674000650
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,024,204 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars smart *and* entertaining, August 21, 2000

By 

maria damon (mpls, mn USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience (Hardcover)

this is a terrific book; it weaves together lots of well-researched cultural history, theoretical savvy, musical insight and a true rock and roll spirit to create an eminently readable and yet very intellectually responsible volume. it is hard to find a scholarly book that is so accessible, entertainingly written, and consistently adept at keeping so many balls in the air at once --gender and racial politics, sonic codings in popular music (purity of sound vs. distortion), the facts and figures of the history of popular music and the development of the electric guitar, etc. etc. highly recommended for smart groovoids.

0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars not enough guitar, May 19, 2008

By 

Paul S. Wilson "paul" (Highland Village, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience (Hardcover)

While this book is mostly readable and does contain interesting and useful information where it is dealing specifically with guitars, and the direct histories of the artists involved...
....it fails when it takes an acedemic's perspective and drags in unwanted cultural, social speculations.
I bought a book because I wished to read about nuts and bolts guitars and electric guitar history. I did NOT wish to enroll in a class in ethnic studies. If the author wanted to write about ethnic studies, I'm sure he could have found better and more appropriate subject matter.
Tell me how Gibson put the Les Paul together with what woods and wiring and what problems they had. Tell me about electric guitar chord progressions in rock compared to jazz.
As it is there are whole pages of academic, social intrepretive mishmosh.

I will finish the whole book and there are interesting facts that are what I was looking for. But giving a psychological interpretation about a photo of Les Paul and Mary Ford sitting on a Gibson guitar was not what I need. Instead of suggesting that Les Paul was a sexist, why not talk about how Mary Ford had learned to play her electric guitar? Not a word about that.
And when it comes to an important fact like how Chet Atkins fingerpicked his electric guitar like no one else had done, there is one paragraph.

This appears to be a book for a sociologist, not for a guitar player.

4 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Waksman: intelligent and gifted, March 27, 2000

By 

joe rada (Miami University..Oxford,Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience (Hardcover)

I would like to quickly state my thoughts about Dr. Steve Waksman. Although I have not yet been able to read through the entire book, I have read many sections of it. Dr. Waksman is a professor of mine at Miami University in Oxford, Oh. Throughout the semester he taught me a countless amount of information on the guitar and the history of Rock n' Roll. Out of all my classes I have ever been enrolled in, his American Studies class has not only been the most interesting, but I have also gained the most out of it. I am about to start reading the book and I'm sure I won't be able to put it down. Thanks Dr.Waksman! Sincerely, Joe Rada