ABSTRACT
The gap between real guitars and virtual guitars, toys and virtual guitars, non-toys and real guitars, augmented guitars and non-augmented guitars has not only narrowed but exists on a continuum. In Understanding Material Culture, Ian Woodward provides an extremely erudite and useful overview of the state of material culture studies, detailing the emergence of the discipline in a synthesis of Marxist thought, semiotics and cultural theory. The distance between real and virtual guitars is explored ever further as manufacturers now seek to provide a guitar that is more guitar-like or real but can also function as a guitar controller for a video game. The reviewers engage fully with a critical assessment of the pros and cons of each controller, as if reviewing a selection of real guitars. The Internet is said to offer a new era in guitar research enabling users to access to a wide range of sources based around the world that were once unavailable to researchers.
