As electronic guitarists, we consider ourselves to be nothing if not modern, yet we play an instrument that is anything but. No one knows when the first guitar was invented, but there are pictures of distinctly guitarlike devices dating back something like 3,000 years.
One reason we love this instrument is that even before it is electrified the guitar yields a wide variety of sounds through various string (gut, nylon, steel) and body materials (woods, metal). Once plugged in, the palette expands exponentially, with different pickups, pickup combinations, and amplifiers churning out a cornucopia of tones, from Wes Montgomery's to Eric Clapton's. Effect pedals — fuzz, wah, delay, etc. — further expand the already uniquely large number of sounds.
Before the ready availability of synthesizers, both modular and compact, it…