The Evolution of the Guitar- From Acoustic to Electric
The guitar is an instrument that has been around since 1500BC! They are over 3500 years old. This begs the question: How long have electric guitars been around? Well, the short answer is not that long. In the 1920s musicians were recording music which was gaining fame over the newly developing radio industry. The microphones the radio stations used were not very powerful or high tech so they struggled to pick up the sound of the acoustic guitars (Smithsonian). There was also the issue of concerts being performed where patrons could not hear everything because of the low volume produced by the acoustic guitar. This led to a necessity (the mother of invention). The necessity was to somehow make guitars louder.
According to an article by the Smithsonian, in the 19th-century steel strings were implemented which increased the volume of the guitar but also increased the amount of tension placed on the body of the instrument. This led to the redesign of the shape, size, and all-around look of the old flattop guitar. The more modern acoustic guitar that we are familiar with was created by an Italian Luthier, Gaetano Vinaccia (Romano).
The original electric guitar was built by George Beauchamp and Adolf Rickenbacker in 1931 (Romano). They named it the frying pan because of its likeness to an actual frying pan. The guitar was made from aluminum and looked quite different than the guitars we know today. They worked on the guitar for 5 years before finally getting a patent for it in 1937 (Romano).
I love the guitar!! But I could never get the hang of it...I could play the violin but for some reason not the stinking guitar. I had no idea the guitar dated back that far. I was hoping to read some of the musical elements but I assume there's way too much into it or it's hard to find mostly online.
ReplyDeleteYou picked great examples to showcase the differences in sound and the information you presented is well researched! I love that they called the original electric guitar the frying pan, there are infinite possibilities of cool names, but they just stuck with a piece of cookware that resembled the shape of the instrument. I agree that the electric guitar is largely responsible for shaping rock music into what we know it as today. It's fascinating, though not entirely surprising, that there is evidence of string instruments stemming from 3,000+ years in the past. Interestingly, an article I found mentioned that the two stringed instruments that historians believe to be the most influential on the development on the modern guitar, are the lute and oud. Additionally, the instrument that most resembled the silhouette of the modern guitar appeared during the 15th or 16th century in Spain. Here's a link to the article: https://stringjoy.com/history-of-the-guitar/
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