The Evolution of Electric Guitar

The Electric Guitar was important to evolution and innovation in music. Without it, modern music would sound completely different. Blues, Jazz, rock, and Pop wouldn’t sound anything like their current iterations.

The First Electric Guitar: Rickenbacker

The first electric guitar was invented by Adolph Rickenbacker in the 1930s. This was more of an experiment than an actual product.

1931 frying pan.

Later in the 40’s semi-hollow body electric guitars were popular with their louder tone which was perfect for blues and rock at the time. This cemented the electric guitar as a lead instrument and made the electric guitar much more popular. Chuck Berry invented rock & roll using a semi-hollow body guitar.

Gibson ES ”Electric Spanish” 335

In the ’50s and 60’s big band jazz music was becoming increasingly more popular and the need for a louder guitar with less feedback became prevalent. This is important as this leads to the invention of the solid body guitar.

The First Solid Body Guitar: The Fender Broadcaster

Leo Fender

Leo Fender was an avid guitar luthier and noticed that there was a push towards louder guitar music but the semi-hollow body guitars of the time couldn’t keep up, so he devised an invention that had a completely solid body and no feedback at all he called it, the Fender Broadcaster later renamed Telecaster. Leo Fender has now become an incredibly famous person for creating the Stratocaster, a double-cut guitar, pushing towards a more ergonomic design. The curves in the and the 2 cuts next to the neck of the guitar make it incredibly comfortable.

Fender Broadcaster

Humbuckers:

Humbuckers were an instrumental invention in allowing heavier music like rock and metal to become prevalent. As the name implies they were made with the intent to stop hum, which would appear in single-coil pickups played through an overdriven(to achieve the distorted sound) amp.

Humbuckers have a much more full and deep tone while Single coils have a brighter, thinner, or dull tone. Refer to this video for guitars with different pickups. Please use headphones for the best experience.

Time-skip 80’s

In the 80’s A man named Floyd Rose was working to make a better tremolo system(a system that changes pitch temporarily) that didn’t go out of tune all the time. He called it the floating tremolo system because it was held in the air by tension from the strings and from springs in the back of the guitar.

The Seven String Guitar: Ibanez Universe

In the 90’s well-known guitarist Steve Vai was asked to help design the first seven-string guitar with Ibanez, they wanted to make a new market for guitars and they succeeded.

Ibanez UV7

Back to Bassics: The Fender Precision Bass

Leo Fender also invented the electric bass. When he created it because he thought upright bassists couldn’t get the precise selection of notes they needed to play. The fact that upright basses were fretless was the problem for him. He created a bass shaped like a guitar with frets and humbucker pickups and called the precision bass because of the frets present on the fingerboard. It also made bass much more accessible it was cheaper, smaller, and more portable than upright basses and cut through the mix in rock music.

1952 Fender Precision Bass

Does innovation in guitars matter?

I created a survey with a variety of guitars from Fender Stratocasters to Strandberg Bodens to see if people liked innovative guitars.

In the survey, the most popular guitars are the Gibson Les Paul and the Fender Stratocaster the Abasi Larada 8 which is one of the most innovative guitar designs with an ergonomic body and 8 strings had no votes. The Gibson Les Paul is an uncomfortable, heavy guitar and the Fender Stratocaster has single coils that hum constantly so why are they so popular? Because of the famous guitarists that played them Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Eric Johnson, and many more played Stratocasters, Jimmy Paige, and Slash played Les Pauls making them incredibly popular. Keep in mind though most people surveyed didn’t know much about guitars and a majority voted on the looks of the guitars.

I also asked my guitar teacher to answer 8 questions on this topic. When asked if Innovation in Guitars important to him he responded: “No not really, of course when I was younger I owned magazines and things like that but when I found what I wanted in life and Guitar I realized a guitar is a guitar.”

The consensus seems to be that Aesthetics and Popularity rule over innovation in sales of guitars.

If you’re interested in the rest of the interview please use the audio here.