alt Hacker News> Sometimes one of those modifications invents a new instrument that captures the heart of millions
Absolutely — the pedal steel is the obvious example. The entire notion of the upward country pedal steel guitar bend is actually a side-effect of the continuous behaviour of a pitch shifting mechanism that the original designer did not design it for, which has now evolved to create an entire genre.
And as an addendum I guess some of these more strident modifications are a bit more in scope now with the relative ease of working with metal in CAD and the lower cost of tooling generally.
I think as a musician one should maybe focus on playing instruments more than being dependent on products, but perhaps the balance is shifting more towards customisation than ever before.