{"id":16209,"date":"2019-04-29T01:06:40","date_gmt":"2019-04-29T01:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=16209"},"modified":"2019-04-30T09:55:57","modified_gmt":"2019-04-30T09:55:57","slug":"how-air-guitar-became-a-serious-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/how-air-guitar-became-a-serious-sport\/","title":{"rendered":"How air guitar became a serious sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Byrd McDaniel<\/a>, Brown University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Advertised as the \u201cgreatest thing you\u2019ve never seen,\u201d the 2019 U.S. Air Guitar Championships<\/a> will take place this summer. <\/p>\n

Competitors from around the country will don elaborate costumes, construct fantastical personas and perform comedic pantomimes of famous rock solos. Impaling themselves with their air guitars, swallowing them and smashing them to smithereens, they\u2019ll elevate guitar playing to heights only imagined by real guitarists. <\/p>\n

The winner will go on to represent the U.S. in the Air Guitar World Championships<\/a>, which will take place in Oulu, Finland, in late August.<\/p>\n

As an ethnomusicologist<\/a>, I\u2019ve studied air guitar competitions as a scholar, audience member and competitor. In fact, I was named the third best air guitarist in Boston in 2017 \u2013 truly one of my proudest moments. <\/p>\n

Beyond the humorous, ironic fa\u00e7ade of these performances is a sincere craft that has exploded in popularity over the past couple of decades.<\/p>\n

Origins in \u2018shadow conducting\u2019<\/h2>\n

The phonograph, which became a common household item in the the first decade of the 20th century, inspired some of the earliest known instances of solo air playing. The Minneapolis Phonograph Society described how some of its members<\/a>, from the privacy of their homes, had \u201ctaken to \u2018shadow conducting,\u2019 that most exhilarating phonographic indoor sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

The privacy aspect was important: At the time, many feared the mass consumption of music could have a corrosive effect on people\u2019s bodies and mental health<\/a>. Air playing could be viewed as a sign of madness and pathology \u2013 a symptom of music overtaking the body. <\/p>\n

One journalist for the Washington, D.C., Evening Star wrote an article about patients at an asylum<\/a>, including \u201cone young girl [who] appeared to be fingering an imaginary guitar.\u201d And a 1909 article in The Seattle Star described a pantomiming prisoner who \u201cspends his time in jail playing on an imaginary piano, hoping thus to give the impression that he is insane and so escape a more severe punishment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Air playing also has deep roots in musical comedy. In vaudeville and variety shows, performers could get quick laughs by pantomiming to background music. Later, actors Fred Astaire and Jerry Lewis would continue this tradition of comedic air playing in films like \u201cCinderfella<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n