In fact, stop in at any local Guitar Center store and you'll find many electric guitars featuring the tremelo bar. Newer models are popular, but the most valuable are vintage used electric guitars with the original device intact and functional.

The device was developed and introduced in the late 1940's and 1950's and gave guitar players an interesting playing option. The bar or arm is still produced on certain models of electric guitars today. The original concept of the tremelo bar on a guitar was to create a vibrato effect.

Vibrato is the production of pitch variation. However, tremolo is a variance in volume. The tremolo effect was already an electronic feature in amplification technology and was very popular. Indeed, the two sounded similar. However, the misnomer took hold and the tremolo name caught on for guitar players.

Two simple styles of such devices are the most common. In both styles, the strings are fastened to the rest of the guitar at the tailpiece and run over the top of the bridge. There are springs that allow the bridge to move or "float" where the tailpiece and bridge meet. In one style, a rotating tube is used along with the springs; in the second style, the bridge and the springs are simultaneously operated.

The pitch of any note played with the guitar can be changed by moving the articulated arm in either direction. The springs are used to move the bridge either up or down to tighten or loosen the string's tension. In this way, the vibrato sound can be effected if the action is replicated either in a slow or rapid fashion.

The first musicians to use the tremelo bar include Leo Fender and Lonnie Mack, whose song "Wham!" might be responsible for the term "whammy" bar. Later users of this device include Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. The tremelo bar has been used in new and innovative ways more recently by Steve Vai and Eddie Van Halen.

You should try a used electric guitar at a guitar center near you, because used guitars are fun to play and produce an amazing variety of sounds. Used electric guitars with tremelo bars produce a sound that is distinctive and impossible to match on any other instrument.