Origin of Names
Historically, some electric guitarists have reversed the normal meanings of the terms vibrato and tremolo when referring to hardware devices and the effects they produce. This reversal of terminology is generally attributed to Leo Fender and the naming of the Fender "Vibroverb" amplifier, which actually used tremolo (rapid volume changes) in an attempt to create a vibrato-like (rapid changes in pitch) sound. See vibrato unit for details of the history of these terms in relation to electric guitar, and related issues. Ironically, Fender had previously introduced the "Tremolux" amplifier in 1953, which used the correct terminology.
While the (so-called) "tremolo arm" can produce variations of pitch including what is normally termed vibrato, it can never produce the effect normally known as tremolo (modulation of volume). Tremolo, on the other hand, is exactly the effect produced by the electronic vibrato units built into many classic guitar amplifiers. Other widely used names for the device include "vibrato bar" and "whammy bar", the latter named in reference to guitarist Lonnie Mack's aggressive, rapid manipulation of the pitch-bending device in his 1963 song "Wham!".
Read more about this topic: Vibrato Systems For Guitar
Famous quotes containing the words origin of, origin and/or names:
“In the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window, with which Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Each structure and institution here was so primitive that you could at once refer it to its source; but our buildings commonly suggest neither their origin nor their purpose.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All nationalisms are at heart deeply concerned with names: with the most immaterial and original human invention. Those who dismiss names as a detail have never been displaced; but the peoples on the peripheries are always being displaced. That is why they insist upon their continuity—their links with their dead and the unborn.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)