Guitar feedback is a self-sustaining tone that lets rock musicians generate drones without a bow or wind

Guitar feedback is the self-sustaining oscillation that arises when an amplified guitar’s output is directed back into its pickups: the string keeps ringing on the amplified energy, producing a held, slowly-evolving tone that is functionally a drone. This gave the avant-garde drone a route into rock. John Cale, a Theatre of Eternal Music member, carried Young’s drone ideas into The Velvet Underground, whose 1966 EP ‘Loop’ is buzzing, drifting guitar-feedback drone; the Beatles’ two-second feedback opening on ‘I Feel Fine’ (1964) had already put the sound in front of mass audiences. Post-punk, dream-pop, and shoegaze bands (My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Sonic Youth, Jesus and Mary Chain) later made loud feedback drone a defining, immersive technique.

Examples

Velvet Underground ‘Loop’ (1966): guitar-feedback drone via John Cale, ex-Theatre of Eternal Music. Beatles ‘I Feel Fine’ (1964): two-second feedback opening. Shoegaze: extremely loud drones ‘to overpower and transport their audiences.‘

Assessment

Explain the feedback mechanism that makes a guitar sustain a tone, and trace the lineage La Monte Young → Velvet Underground → shoegaze noting what each link carried.