Electric guitar
An
electric guitar is a
guitar that uses the principle of electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric
signals. Since the generated signal is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, it is
amplifiedreverb and
distortion. Arguably, no other musical instrument has had more of an impact on how music has evolved since the beginning of the twentieth century than the electric guitar. Conceived in 1931, the electric guitar became a necessity as jazz musicians sought to amplify their sound. Since then, it has evolved into a stringed musical instrument capable of a multitude of sounds and styles. It served as a major component in the development of
rock and roll and countless other genres of music. before sending it to a loudspeaker. Since the output of an electric guitar is an electric signal, the signal may easily be altered using electronic circuits to add color to the sound. Often the signal is modified using effects such as
History
Various experiments at electrically amplifying the vibrations of a string instrument date back to the early part of the twentieth century. Patents from the 1910s show telephone transmitters adapted and placed inside violins and banjos to amplify the sound. Hobbyists in the 1920s useds carbon button microphone attached to the
bridge, however these detected vibration from the bridge on top of the instrument, resulting in a weak signal.
[1] With numerous people experimenting with electrical instruments in the 1920s and early 1930s, there are many claimants to have been the first to invent an electric guitar.
Electric guitars were originally designed by
luthiers, guitar makers, electronics enthusiasts, and instrument manufacturers. Guitar innovator
Les Paul experimented with microphones attached to guitars. Some of the earliest electric guitars adapted
hollow bodied acoustic instruments and used
tungsten pickups. An electrically amplified guitar was developed by George Beauchamp in 1931. Commercial production began in late summer of 1932 by Electro-Patent-Instrument Company
Los Angeles, a partnership of
Adolph Rickenbacker, Paul Barth and
George Beauchamp, the inventor. The wooden body of the prototype was built by Harry Watson, a craftsman who had worked for the National Resophonic Guitar Company (where the men met). By 1934 the company was renamed
Rickenbacker Electro Stringed Instrument Company.
The acoustic properties of a guitar and its potential as a polyphonic solo instrument made it a good candidate for amplification. The need for the amplified guitar became apparent during the
big band era as orchestras increased in size, particularly when guitars had to compete with large brass sections. The first
electric guitars used in jazz were hollow
archtop acoustic guitar bodies with electromagnetic
transducers. By 1932 an electrically amplified guitar was commercially available. Early electric guitar manufacturers include:
Rickenbacker (first called Ro-Pat-In) in 1932, Dobro in 1933, National,
AudioVox and Volu-tone in 1934,Vega, Epiphone (Electrophone and Electar), and Gibson in 1935 and many others by 1936.
The
solid body electric guitar is made of solid wood, without functionally resonating air spaces. Rickenbacher, later spelled
Rickenbacker, offered a cast aluminum electric steel guitar, nicknamed "
The Frying Pan" or "The Pancake Guitar", developed in 1931 with production beginning in the summer of 1932. This guitar sounds quite modern and aggressive as tested by vintage guitar researcher John Teagle. The company
Audiovox built and may have offered an electric solid-body as early as the mid-1930s.
The first solid body "Spanish" standard guitar was offered by Vivi-Tone no later than 1934. An example of this model, featuring a guitar-shaped body of a single sheet of plywood affixed to a wood frame, can be seen in the
Experience Music Project.
[2] Another early, substantially solid Spanish electric guitar, called Electro Spanish, was marketed by the "Rickenbacker" guitar company in 1935 and made of
Bakelite. By 1936, the Slingerland company introduced a wooden solidbody electric model.
The earliest documented performance with an electrically amplified guitar was in 1932, by
Gage Brewer.
[1]George Beauchamp of Los Angeles, California. Brewer publicized his new instruments in an article in the
Wichita Beacon of October 2, 1932 and through performances that month. Brewer's original 1932 Ro-Pat-In Electro Spanish guitar can currently be viewed at the
Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum. The Wichita, Kansas-based musician had an Electric Hawaiian A-25 (frypan, lap-steel) and a standard Electric Spanish from
The first recordings using the electric guitar were by Hawaiian style players, including Andy Iona in 1933. Bob Dunn of
Milton Brown's Musical Brownies introduced the electric
Hawaiian guitar to
Western Swing with his January 1935 Decca recordings, departing almost entirely from Hawaiian musical influence and heading towards Jazz and Blues. Alvino Rey was an artist who took this instrument to a wide audience in a large orchestral setting and later developed the
pedal steel guitar for Gibson. An early proponent of the electric Spanish guitar was jazz guitarist
George Barnes who used the instrument in two songs recorded in Chicago on March 1, 1938, "
Sweetheart Land" and "
It's a Low-Down Dirty Shame". Some incorrectly attribute the first recording to
Eddie Durham, but his recording with the
Kansas City Five was 15 days later.
[3] Durham introduced the instrument to a young Charlie Christian, who made the instrument famous in his brief life and would be a major influence on jazz guitarists for decades thereafter.
[citation needed]Gibson's first production electric guitar, marketed in 1936, was the
ES-150 model ("ES" for "Electric Spanish"; and "150" reflecting the $150 price of the instrument, along with a matching amplifier). The ES-150 guitar featured a single-coil, hexagonally shaped "bar" pickup, which was designed by Walt Fuller. It became known as the "
Charlie Christian" pickup (named for the great jazz guitarist who was among the first to perform with the ES-150 guitar). An early commercially successful solid-body electric guitar was the
FenderEsquire in 1950.
Early proponents of the electric guitar on record include: Jack Miller (Orville Knapp Orchestra), Alvino Rey (
Phil Spitalney Orchestra), Les Paul (
Fred Waring Orchestra),
Danny Stewart (
Andy Iona Orchestra),
George Barnes (under many aliases),
Floyd Smith,
Big Bill Broonzy,
T-Bone Walker,
George Van Eps, Charlie Christian (
Benny Goodman Orchestra)
Tampa Red,
Memphis Minnie, and
Arthur Crudup.
A functionally solid body electric guitar was designed and built by Les Paul from an Epiphone acoustic archtop. His "log guitar" (so called because it consisted of a simple 4x4 wood post with a neck attached to it and homemade pickups and hardware, with two detachable Swedish hollow body halves attached to the sides for appearance only) shares nothing in design or hardware with the solid body "Les Paul" model sold by Gibson. However, the feedback problem associated with hollow-bodied electric guitars was understood long before Paul's "log" was created in 1940; Gage Brewer's Ro-Pat-In of 1932 had a top so heavily reinforced that it essentially functioned as a solid-body instrument.[1]
In 1945, Richard D. Bourgerie made an electric guitar pickup and amplifier for professional guitar player George Barnes. Bourgerie worked through World War II at Howard Radio Company making electronic equipment for the American military. Barnes showed the result to Les Paul, who then arranged for Bourgerie to have one made for him.
