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The guitar is a classical instrument that has been used by numerous musical styles. Before the 1950's guitarists used an acoustic guitar played in front of a microphone to amplify the sound. But this was not very entertaining and the guitarists were limited to what they could do. Les Paul, a well known guitarist, tried the idea of electrifying his acoustic guitar with a needled from an old gramophone plugged into an old radio. This did not work at first because there was too much feedback, but he did not give up. He built a solid body guitar with magnetic pickups and tried to find a company that would put his design into production. Many rejected him, but Gibson accepted his design which would revolutinize the music industry with the Gibson Les Paul electric guitar.

Leo Fender was another key player in the guitar revolution. Although he was not the first to build an electric guitar he had a vision of the guitar being mass market item. His guitar featured a bolt on the neck of the guitar, this was done so the neck would be easier to change. His first guitar was the Equire, then the Telecaster which featured an extra pickup, and finally the Stratocaster, which is his most popular model. The Stratocaster features 3 pickups, a floating trem system and became the most popular and copied guitar shape of all time. Little has changed in its design over the 50 years it has been in production.

Now that the electric guitar has been amplified, guitarists were able to use thinner strings and experiment with sounds such as, bending strings, vibratos, whammy bars, wah pedals, distortion, and pinch harmonics. There also able to be more entertaining because they were able to jump around and do tricks, such as swinging the guitar around your back or play behind your back.