The jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, although limited by burn injuries, developed a musical technique that created a new musical genre. David Williams and Tom Potokar, of Morriston Hospital Swansea, analysed archive photographs and constructed a three-dimensional computer model of his injuries.

In the September 2006 issue of the British Medical Journal, G.P. David Connell speculates about the unnaturally long fingers of bluesman Robert Johnson .

Some audiophiles believe that cryogenic freezing of their audio equipment somehow improves the sound.  New-age audio inventor and pseudo-scientist Peter Belt (of PWB Electronics) claimed that cryogenic freezing of CDs provides 'friendly', 'relaxing' energy patterns, making them sound better.

This is a trailer for Trimpin: The Sound of Invention, a documentary film about engineer, sound artist, and inventor, Trimpin. The film is currently showing on the festival circuit. One part shows how Trimpin rigged up a load of guitar robots to make the famous tower of guitars sculpture in the Experience Music Project in Seattle.

This is one of those How-It's-Made factory tour films, which shows how guitar strings are made in the D'Addario factory. It also shows the quality control procedures used to test that the strings are fit for their purpose. The strings are stretched and twisted in a medieval torture chamber until they break. I never knew there was such a thing as a ball-end-sorter.

Milwaukee Servoelectric Guitar is an ingenious experimental instrument. Individual servos for each string control the string tension, with a clever compensator wheel arrangement. The servos are powered by low cost home made amplifiers. The tension / frequency sensing circuit is a novel design incorporating a potentiometer and springs.

Head banging is a vigourous and often violent rhythmic movement of the head and upper body.

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), through 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.