Surf music
An instrumental guitar style built on heavy spring reverb, tremolo picking and a clean, bright single-coil tone.
Surf music made the guitar the lead voice of an instrumental tradition rather than a backing instrument, and it did so with very little equipment: a single-coil guitar through a valve amplifier with a spring reverb turned up. Its vocabulary includes long tremolo-picked single notes, glissandi into phrases, and a characteristic drip from the reverb tank. The style is also where the tremolo arm and the reverb crash entered the rock guitar's vocabulary.
Example: A clean instrumental with heavy spring reverb, tremolo picking on the melody and a low-string riff is surf music.
See also
Related
- PageSpring reverb
- PageTremolo
- PageTremolo bar flutter
- PageAmericana
- PageBebop
- PageBluegrass
- PageAaron Dessner
- PageAce Frehley