Episode 4

Hit It! (Mostly About Hitting Things)

You don't make musical sounds by just sitting there. You have to fight for them. Music begins with little acts of violence, and we've been learning how to do that for a very long time.

This episode is about turning kinetic energy into mechanical energy into sound energy. It's about force. It's about electrical circuits and stone arrowheads. It's about how we learned to make fists and hold guitar necks. It's about Stanley Kubrick and the Ramones, and how we learned important skills from breaking things, blowing speakers, and abusing musical instruments. Some of it's about me in 5th grade, and it's all about the fact that the guitar is...inevitable.

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About the Podcast

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A People's History of the Guitar

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About your host

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Grant Samuelsen

Grant Samuelsen has led a multimodal professional and personal life in the worlds of contemporary art and music, business, and academia, and he has degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Carnegie Mellon University. He has published essays, articles and criticism, and he's been a guitar player since he was 13. He's interested in everything, which is a problem, but the history of the guitar has held his attention for the longest period of time, so he's doing this podcast. He's originally from the Chicago area and lives in Madison, Wisconsin with his family, guitars, and a female Staffy named after one of the male members of Black Flag.