| Invented around 1930, the electric guitar has been central to the history of twentieth century sounds, participating in a broad rethinking of musical timbre that entailed a parallel redefinition of the boundary between music and noise. "Instruments of Desire" examines the history of the electric guitar in light of the instrument's role as a means of shaping and manipulating sound. Specifically, the dissertation traces the development of two distinct sound ideals: an aesthetic of tonal purity, favored by musicians such as Les Paul and Chet Atkins who sought to integrate the electric guitar into the existing conventions of pop; and an aesthetic of timbral distortion, generated by African American musicians such as Muddy Waters and Jimi Hendrix and further utilized by white rock bands like the MC5 and Led Zeppelin, who used the electric guitar to challenge popular notions of "acceptable" and "unacceptable" noise.;Following the French musicologist Jacques Attali, "Instruments of Desire" argues that these competing ideals of how music should sound are embedded in the deeper function of "noise" as a means of structuring relationships of power and difference. From this perspective the electric guitar, in its capacity to generate noise, becomes a key device for exploring music as a social practice. The electric guitar therefore joins the history of the body as it has been articulated by Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, whereby use of the instrument invests the body of the performer with meaning, conferring upon it a unique identity whose "natural" appearance works to conceal its reliance upon artifice and technology. Furthermore, the electric guitar has played a significant role in the racial dynamics of popular music. Black musicians like Charlie Christian, Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix have used the instrument to negotiate between the contradictory demands of audiences, record companies and African American traditions of musical performance. Meanwhile, for white musicians such as the MC5 and Led Zeppelin the electric guitar came to embody a set of countercultural desires that hinged upon the transference of racial and sexual identity between African American and white men. |
