Boom! You caught me.

I’ll come clean now and admit it: I am not a guitarist so I really don’t understand that scene in Spinal Tap. My 30+ years as a non-electric-guitar-playing musician have left me ill-equipped to truly appreciate Tuffnel and unqualified to offer an opinion on this matter.

Thanks for setting me straight!

You need to be a guitar player to fully appreciate the cleverness of this joke. It’s also funny because Tuffnel was totally oblivious to the fact that you don’t play an amp loud for loudness sake but for the sweet distortion you get from the overdriven tubes.

Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?

Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.

Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it’s louder? Is it any louder?

Nigel Tufnel: Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You’re on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?

Marty DiBergi: I don’t know.

Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?

Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.

Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.

Marty DiBergi: Why don’t you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?

Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.