h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Would a acoustic guitar work in space?
If you're out in space...
You got a fish bowl on your head....

In space, no one can hear you strum.

oh wow!

No and paradoxically neither would an air guitar

Sound needs a medium to travel in. remember that physics lesson when the teacher had a bell under a big jar connected to a vacuum pump when the bell was set ringing you could hear it. when the air was sucked out it was silent.

Of course technically it still works but you can't hear it.

Nevertheless, those whose talents are not great should be encouraged to play where the sound can't be heard.

Agreed send them into space.

Nuke the site in orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

My guitar skills are a perfect example of minimalism. I promise not to play at all.

thank you.

Quote of the Day!!!!

Hah! He's here for 2 mins and gets qotd!


Congratulations!


Guitars don't have buttons, do they?


lil x

Thats because i am so froody.

Yes, an acoustic guitar would work in space. For a given value of "work".

I have quite thick fingers, to the point that the cheap electric guitar I bought is, quite simply, impossible for me to play because the strings are too close together. There is no position in which I can put any of my fingers on the fretboard where they're not touching at least two strings. This causes any attempt at forming chords to fail miserably, and there's nothing I can do about it (other than buy a more expensive guitar with the strings slightly further apart - my mate's got one that would work for me, but it was over ten times the price of mine )

Now consider the fact that if you're going to play in space, you're pretty much going to have to wear a spacesuit. The gloves of a spacesuit are not known for their dexterity-enhancing qualities. Your fingers would be REALLY fat in those things.

However, it would be possible to fit pads to the fingertips, allowing you to form chords, with a LOT of practice. It wouldn't be pretty, and you wouldn't be playing "Coging's Glory" any time soon (search youtube for it), but you could probably manage "Wonderwall" with a bit of work. You could easily glue a pick to your strumming hand.

The next thing would be will the guitar actually stand up to the physical rigours of the environment? Probably, but not for long, depending on position. If you take it out of the ambient environment of the ship you used to get it (and you) up there, it's going to start radiating heat. Not very fast, but it will cool down. Eventually, the body would get brittle and break.

So... you've arranged for your physical ability to strum and make chords, and we've established the guitar won't physically shatter for at least a few minutes. But can you hear it?

Well... yes. But only if you hold it up against your helmet. If you do that, the vibration of the strings would be transferred, via the body of the guitar, to the visor, and then make the air in your helmet vibrate. So you *could* hear it. One important thing though - a large part of the design of an acoustic guitar is the mass of air in the body. It's this that distinguishes it from solid-body electric guitars, and what makes the strings' vibration loud enough to hear at a distance. In space, the body is full of nothing at all, so it's pointless. You would get exactly the same effect using an electric guitar as you would an acoustic.

So would an electric guitar work in space? Yes. Power it up, plug it in, and it would work just as well. What would work, unless you physically pressed it up against the visor of your helmet, would be the amp. But it would be trivially easy to wire that up to the intercom of your helmet. Since the electric guitar works by detecting disturbances in the magnetic fields of the pickups, rather than by vibrations of the air, it would work perfectly well in a vacuum.

The trick would be keeping it tuned. If you were in orbit, you'd likely be going in and out of sunlight every few minutes (well, 90, say). The guitar would be alternately heating up and cooling down, contracting and expanding constantly, so there's no way it would stay tuned. My strat doesn't stay tuned when the heating comes on - Bod knows what it would be like in orbit.

I suppose it depends what you mean by space ... we all occupy space ... and why are you wearing that fish bowl ... it seems cruel on those fish.

Hoovooloo you could tune your guitar to a major chord then you just have to bridge the six strings and strum. Get a bottleneck (or any metal tube) and you are a slide guitar player.