Physics Lessons That Rock

At first, the students in Kevin Fine’s Upper School physics class may have found his assignment to build an electric guitar unorthodox, but they soon discovered a project rich in scientific discovery.  

While helping his own son assemble a guitar kit, Fine realized how much overlap there was with his science curriculum. “I saw how much my son was learning by building the guitar. And I also saw how much more meaningful that guitar was to him than if he would have just bought one.” 

In some ways, an electric guitar is the perfect physics project: vibrating metal strings disturb a magnetic field, generating an electric signal through induction that is then amplified and interpreted as music. In preparation for the project, the class studied circuits, potentiometers, capacitors, and low-pass filters — all essential components to building an electric guitar.  

In fact, Fine was a little disappointed that the guitar kits came with so many components pre-assembled, so the class expanded the project by conducting lab experiments and demonstrations focused on the circuitry and electronics behind the instruments. 

“We learned about so many things while building the electric guitar: springs, sound, frequency, tension, and electrical circuits,” said Mac Saye ’27. “It gave everyone a memorable hands-on learning experience. Plus, we got to walk away with something tangible, something that we made.” 

Fine designed the project to reinforce a sense of agency and curiosity. “I wanted boys to realize they can build real things that are as good as anything they could buy and that, with their physics knowledge, they can break complex things down and understand them.” 

A major “ah-ha” moment for the class was learning that electric guitars themselves are not powered instruments. Instead, vibrating magnetized strings induce changes in the magnetic field within coils of wire, generating the electrical signal sent to the amplifier. In this way, guitars are surprisingly similar to electrical generators. 

“We are surrounded by objects, all of which operate on principles that the students are learning in physics,” said Fine. “An electric guitar isn’t a magical object. It can be built up from simple pieces, and you can understand how it works.”