Blues Society of Western PA - Newsletter

- By 13 year old Paul Markgraf---8th grade term paper

There are many different kinds of guitars. They vary in sound, quality, and ability. I know how to play the guitar but I always wanted to know their origin. I have decided to break up the guitar into two categories: electric and acoustic.

The development of the electric solid body guitar owes a great deal to the popularity of Hawaiian music in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Hawaiian guitars were solo instruments played with a metal slide. Electric Hawaiian guitars were the first instruments that depended entirely on their sound being amplified electrically not just acoustically.

A key figure was Adolph Rickenbacker, who originally made metal components for Dopera Brothers National Resonator Guitars. While at National, Rickenbacker met George Beauchamp and Paul Barth who had been working together on the principle of magnetic pick-up. Together they formed the Electro String Company and in 1931 produced the first Hawaiian guitars. Their success prompted Gibson and others to start producing electric guitars.

In the 1940’s Gibson’s new electric models became firmly established. People began to work on ways of applying the solid body of the Hawaiian and steel guitars to regular instruments. In 1944, Leo Fender, who ran a radio repair shop, teamed up with Doc Kaufman, a former Rickenbacker employee. They started K & F Company and produced a series of steel guitars and amplifiers. Fender felt the pick-up magnets in use at the time need not be so large. He incorporated a new pick-up, which he wanted to try in a fingerboard. Though only meant to demonstrate the pick-up the guitar was soon in demand. 1946 saw the formation of Fender Electric Instrument Company and the introduction of the Broadcaster.

At the same time Les Paul was working in the same direction. Paul experimented with pick-ups throughout the 1930’s; he experienced feedback and resonance problems and began to think about solid body guitar after hearing about a solid body violin by Thomas Edison. Paul was convinced the only way to avoid body feedback was to reduce pick-up movement. The only way to do that was to mount it in a solid body. Paul persuaded Epiphone to let him use their workshop on Sundays, where in 1941 he built the historic “log” guitar. In 1947 Paul Bigsby in consultation with Merle Travis built a solid body electric guitar. Fender was more concerned with utility and practicality rather than looks and wanted a regular guitar with the clear sound of an electric Hawaiian but without the feedback problems. The result was the Broadcaster which he began producing in 1948 later renamed the Telecaster.

In 1954, Fender began producing the Stratocaster. Along with the Telecaster and the guitars Les Paul was designing for Gibson, they set the standard for solid body guitars.

The acoustic or classical guitar, a string instrument, is a very light-weight non-electric guitar. The sound of the acoustic guitar comes from its hollow body. It can perform a range of music from Spanish folk to orchestral concertos. It is a handsome instrument made of wood with nylon strings. It’s wide capabilities have made it on of the most important instruments in Flamenco, the folk music of Spain.

Today, guitars and their relatives are incredibly popular around the world. Acoustic guitars today are used for many different types of music. Aside from being wonderful soloists, they also make wonderful accompaniments to the voice or other instruments.

Perhaps one of the most common acoustic guitar is the classical guitar. The classical guitar’s ancestor was the gittern from medieval times. Around the 1400’s, the gittern developed into an instrument which resembled a downsized version of the modern classical guitar. This instrument first appeared in Spain. The classical guitar has changed very little since.

The acoustic guitar can be used as a melodic, soothing remedy for stress. The electric guitar can be distorted into thousands of different sounds. Although these two instruments are different they both played an important role in many different types of music.