Signs Conveying Difference: The Case of the Guitar



Gibson Firebird V Electric Guitar
Source: Long and McQuade

 

Schoenbach Student Violin Package 220 4/4 OF
Source: Long and McQuade

This past week in lecture, Professor Michael Petit was suggestive of three aspects encapsulated by the conception of signs (1 Oct. 2013). Though significance can be attributed the all three of the concepts, I am going to focus upon that of difference. Professor Petit acknowledged that anytime a sign gains a form of illustration, a linking process in reference to different images is continuously prevalent “behind the scenes”  (Lecture: 1 Oct. 2013). Take the case of the guitar: the instrument’s design features extended strings, analogous in physical conception to the violin, among a myriad of examples, and yet the agents of differentiation centering upon the connection between the two musical tools are what allows for the full and multi-layered grasping of them in their own respects (ibid). In this conception, which provides an outfit of role-player for both similitude and a lack of sameness (ibid), I am curious about which of the two is more pivotal in the formulation of product, in this case the guitar: If the instrument pays its greatest adherence to concepts of construction which place it underneath the umbrella which also houses the violin, it indeed appears painted in the light of a simply modified manifestation of stringed musical tool (ibid).

 

                                                                                 Works Cited

Gibson Firebird V Electric Guitar. Gibson. Long and McQuade. Web. 6 Oct. 2013.

Petit, Michael. "Rhetorical Analysis." The University of Toronto at Scarborough. The University

     of Toronto at Scarborough, Scarborough, ON. 1 Oct 2013. Lecture.

Schoenbach Student Violin Package 220 4/4 OF. Schoenbach. Long and McQuade. Web. 6 Oct

     2013. Web.