Fender

Fender may refer to:

Fender Stratocaster

The Fender Stratocaster is a model of electric guitar designed in 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has continuously manufactured the Stratocaster from 1954 to the present. It is a double-cutaway guitar, with an extended top "horn" shape for balance. Along with the Gibson Les Paul, it is one of the most often emulated electric guitar shapes. "Stratocaster" and "Strat" are trademark terms belonging to Fender.

The Stratocaster is a versatile guitar, usable for most styles of music and has been used in many genres, including country, rock, pop, soul, rhythm and blues, blues, jazz, punk, and heavy metal.

Design developments

The Fender Stratocaster was the first guitar to feature three pickups and a spring tension tremolo system, as well as being the first Fender with a contoured body. The Stratocaster's sleek, contoured body shape (officially referred to by Fender as the "Comfort Contour Body") differed from the flat, slab-like design of the Telecaster. The Stratocaster's double cutaways allowed players easier access to higher positions on the neck.

I Am

I Am may refer to:

Music

Albums

Songs

Fender Custom

The Fender Custom (or Maverick) was a short-lived model released by the CBS-owned Fender in 1969. Essentially a six-string Fender Electric XII, the Custom was an attempt to sell off unused factory stock instead of simply writing it off. The guitar was made with unused parts from Electric XII guitars, including the body, pickups and neck, and also unused Fender Mustang bridges. The six extra holes in the headstock for the tuning machines were filled and veneered over. The Custom was featured more prominently in sales material than its companion, the Swinger, but sold poorly, and was never expected to compete with Fender's more popular models. A notable fan of the Fender Custom was Cheap Trick's lead guitarist Rick Nielsen.

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Musical instrument

A musical instrument is an instrument created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have been used for ritual, such as a trumpet to signal success on the hunt, or a drum in a religious ceremony. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment. Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications.

The date and origin of the first device considered a musical instrument is disputed. The oldest object that some scholars refer to as a musical instrument, a simple flute, dates back as far as 67,000 years. Some consensus dates early flutes to about 37,000 years ago. However, most historians believe that determining a specific time of musical instrument invention is impossible due to the subjectivity of the definition and the relative instability of materials used to make them. Many early musical instruments were made from animal skins, bone, wood, and other non-durable materials.