How electric guitars work:

 Wooden guitars make their sound through resonance: you simply pluck the string and the guitar's wooden body (and the air inside it) vibrate to generate the sounds you hear. Electric guitars are very different and work mostly through electromagnetism: 1) Under the strings there are *pickups*, which are tiny magnets (gray) with coils of wire wrapped around them (green). 2) The magnets produce magnetic fields above and below them (red). 3) When you pluck one of the metal strings, it cuts through and (effectively) changes the magnetic field. 4) The changing magnetic field produces a small electric current in the coil that surrounds the pickup. 5) The electric current is boosted in size by an amplifier. 6) The larger current from the amplifier drives a loudspeaker and plays the twangy guitar sound you can hear