Electric Guitar History

Learn the history behind the electric guitar and how it was invented.
What is an electric guitar?

The definition of an electric guitar is a guitar with either a hollow body, semi-solid body, or a solid body with pickups. These pickups amplify the vibrations of the strings electronically.

The reason musicians wanted a louder guitar

When the guitarist played with a band they found that the brass and drum sections overpowered them. Many times the guitar player would be placed in the front of the stage with a chair and a microphone and could not move or he would not be heard. Sometimes any movement at all would cause the microphone to feedback and ruin the performance. This was when some of the guitarists began to think of ways to electrify their guitars.

Beginnings of the Electric guitar

The electric guitar came to life as a result of the Hawaiian guitar. The Hawaiian guitar was very popular in the 1920’s to 1930’s. It was the only guitar that depended on electricity to make it sound at that time. This fact led guitarists to begin to toy around with the idea of an electrically amplified solid body Spanish guitar.

It is believed that Audiovox may have built an electronic guitar with a solid body around the 1930’s. It is a well known fact that Adolph Rickenbacher (Now spelled Rickenbacker) began working on an electric guitar as early as 1931 when he got together with George Beauchamp and Paul Barth. They started the Electro String Company and began producing Hawaiian guitars. These guitars used tungsten pickups. Their popularity gave incentive for Gibson and others to try their hand at electric guitars.

Les Paul Contribution

One of the most well known guitarists to influence electric guitars was Les Paul. To begin with he used a gramophone needle to electrify his guitar. He used a semi-acoustic guitar and tried to improve on it, but found that there was too much feedback and electrical problems. He got the idea for a solid body guitar from learning about a solid body violin made by Thomas Edison. In 1948, he built the Telecaster. This was the beginning of a long line of solid body electric guitars of every make and model. He developed his own line of guitars called the Les Paul Series. Of course they are now much more refined that the first ones he made.

Leo Fender makes a guitar with a new pickup

Leo Fender teamed up with Doc Kaufman to form the K& F company and made solid body guitars. He tried a new, smaller pickup in a solid Hawaiian shaped body with a regular guitar neck for a demonstration and it became popular. He built the Stratocaster in 1954. Fender thought that the set in neck (Neck blued into the guitar) was too hard to design and repair. He decided to bolt the neck to the guitar body which is the way most guitars are today. The pickguard covers the wiring for the pickups. Both Les Paul and Leo Fenders solid body guitars models are copied today by many companies.

Today electric guitars are used in a variety of ways. Mostly they are used by rock bands. They are also used for lead guitar and rhythm guitars. They are also used as solo instruments and to accompany singers.