Io canto il corpo elettrico : Le culture della chitarra elettrica

The article is a brief account of the social and cultural significance of the electric guitar.
It addresses the technological (electromagnetic) development of the instrument, and it
takes up some contextual issues central to understanding the electric guitar’s development
as an icon in contemporary culture. Focusing on the body-instrument nexus (the
«body electric»), the essay tries to understand how the main approaches to the instrument’s
audio quality (based on the loudness and the potential roughness of the sound)
entail different ideas about the place of the body in musical performance, the ways in
which music articulates racialized, sexualized, and gendered identities, and the position
of electrified music in contemporary social and political life. At the end of the article the
argument is made that, despite narratives of rebellion and freedom, the electric guitar
promotes traditional gender roles.