KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Andrew Reid, from South Knoxville, sits at the intersection of musical creativity and engineering. Reid was a finalist at the 2025 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition in Atlanta. The judges awarded him "Judges Choice," for his innovation for managing sound effects and volume on an electric guitar.

Reid created the "3 Axis MIDI Guitar" while studying at Johnson University. The idea for the invention came to him while imagining what to do for his senior project. He said that, as a tinkerer of everything from instruments to cars, it wasn't his first attempt at modifying something.

"I was put in piano lessons in second grade and kind of hated it, honestly, and then, as I got older, I got into the guitar," Reid said.

His creation effectively adds new ways people can change the sound of their guitars, all easily accessible near the strings so musicians can adjust their music on-the-fly using as little as their pinky finger.

Jeff Albert, the interim chair of Georgia Tech's school of music and one of Guthman's organizers, said that was right up the competition's alley.

"People ask, 'What are the rules? What are the parameters?' And that's just hard to say because there aren't any rules to creativity," Albert said. "When I play with effects, there's always, 'How do I manage the effects when I have to have both hands of the instrument?' Traditionally that's been foot pedals, but Andrew's instrument was interesting because he came up with another way."

The creation was one of 10 brought to Atlanta for the competition. His instrument rivaled a 3D printed, music-making dinosaur head and an instrument that combines elements of the slide guitar, harp and percussion instruments, among others.

First place in the competition went to a team from Italy and Germany whose "Chromaplane" used two electromagnetic pickup coils to interact with a cloud of electromagnetic fields, similar to the theremin, but which encouraged people to play music together.

Reid and the other finalists performed over two days. First they played for the judges, then they performed during a concert to a crowd of almost 1,000 people as a duet with an Atlanta-area musician. Reid said that was a far cry from where he started, playing before church crowds.

He said his next step would be to find ways to sell his instrument to other musicians.