Although solid-state technology dominates modern electronics, vacuum tubes are important in guitar amplifiers representing millions of dollars in annual sales.While solid-state amplifiers create a more faithful reproduction of the signal from the guitar's pickups, players tend to prefer the tone of valve amplifers.

These automated guitars are available from the Ragtime Automated Music company.The Ragtime company continues the tradition of piano-roll player pianos and fairground organs, but using modern technology.MIDI files are used to drive individual solenoids which act as string pluckers and fretters.

A Physical Resonator For A Virtual Guitar is a project from Amit Zoran and Pattie Maes at the MIT Media Laboratory. It is an electro- acoustic guitar with a changeable soundboard. By releasing a catch the middle part of the guitar can be popped out. The strings are secured on a tailpiece, so the soundboard can be changed without taking them off.

There are three ways of attaching the neck to the body of an electric guitar: set necks where the neck is glued to the body with a tenon joint (most Gibson guitars), though necks where the neck & body are made from the same piece of wood and bolt-on necks (most Fender guitars).

You probably don't realise it but when you are playing you hold your pick (or plectrum) in a million different ways. The angle between the pick and the strings, the length of exposed pick and how hard you squeeze the pick all affect the sound you will get. How you hold your pick eventually becomes a sub-conscious thing: difficult to describe but crucial to the sound you get.

The violins of Antonio Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesù, have gained legendary status. Many change hands for millions of dollars, but are they valuable because they sound great or because of the legend that has built up around them? This subject is relevant to guitar players.

Ironic Sans has a collection of links to patents filed by celebrities, have a look at Eddie Van Halen's rock-out guitar-support .

Why do people play the guitar? Is it to express their inner feelings, to become famous and rich, to improve their attractiveness or to annoy the neighbours? I think the main reason people play the guitar is that it makes them feel good.

Are you experiencing a hand rash that is worse on your fretting hand than on your strumming hand? Are you also prone to other allergies, such as asthma or hay fever? If so there is a possibility that you have an allergy to your guitar strings.

There are quite a few guitar models listed in the guitar-list.com database. I thought it would be useful to see how many there are in each category, using the IBM ManyEyes visualization tools. The size of each circle is the number of different models of that brand name. You can click on the links below to explore the diagrams for each type of guitar.