How does an electric guitar pick up only sounds from the strings and not speech for an example?

Question

Edit: Thanks for all the answers <3

In: Technology

Answer 1

A guitar pickup is not a microphone. It detects changes in the magnetic field around it due to a vibrating steel string nearby.

Pickups are a coil of wire wrapped around magnets. If the wire is loose then it can itself vibrate when the guitar is tapped or a loud noise is made near to it. When the wire vibrates it sees changes in the magnetic field and therefore generates a signal.

This is not desirable behaviour from a pickup so they are often potted with wax to stop the coils vibrating