PERTH COLLEGE

First Study - Guitar

Outcome 2
Ross Fraser 15/02/2013

ORIGINS AND TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE INSTRUMENT It is difficult to pinpoint the exact date the first guitar was invented. It is believed that the instrument was first mentioned as far back as the year 1265 and invented around the 15th century in Spain1. The instrument was referred to as a four course guitar. It had four pairs of strings and was a lot smaller than the guitar we know today. The five course guitar (a guitar with five pairs of strings) is believed to have first appeared in Italy in the 16th century. The strings were tuned to the notes A, D, G, B and E, which is the same tuning used for the top five strings of the regular, six string guitar today. By the 17th century, the six course guitar had been manufactured in Italy. This type of guitar was originally made with twelve strings and eventually, six individual strings. In the 19th century, the body of the guitar was made bigger and this led the way for the future of guitars. Up until the early 1920s, all guitars were acoustic. Guitarists wanted to be able to play at greater volumes. With this in mind, engineers designed the electric pickup which was used on many stringed instruments (including the guitar) to amplify the sound. Although this was a great development, the electric guitar still had its problems and it wasnt until 1932, when a Rickenbacker guitar was built with better pickups (which provided a stronger signal than previous guitars) that the electric guitar gained commercial success. At this time, the guitar was used only as a rhythm instrument and was played by Hawaiian style guitarists who laid it flat on their laps2. In 1939, jazz guitarist Charlie Christian created a unique style of lead guitar playing, which made the guitar stand out in the music. This style was the beginning of guitar solos and it has developed throughout the years3. Throughout the 1930s and 40s, engineers worked on developing the electric guitar and produced many different types of the electric guitar. In 1950, guitarist and guitar builder, Les Paul designed one of the first solid body guitars. At first, this style of guitar was not as successful as Les Paul had hoped but when people realised the benefits of a solid body guitar, it became very popular and it has become even more popular with guitar players through time4.

THE GUITAR AND ITS PLAYERS FROM 1930 1970 After looking at the history of the guitar, it is clear that the 1930s to 1970 was a crucial time for the development of the guitar. The 1930s saw the invention and development of the electric guitar. Throughout this decade, guitars (both electric and acoustic) became larger in size to fulfil the demand for a bigger sound. Also in the 30s, came the success of cutaway guitars which allowed players to play higher up the neck. This style of playing became very popular and was the preferred way to play for many players5. In the 1940s there came an important development in the form of the single coil pickup. The pickup produced a better sound from the electric guitar compared to what had been heard previously. This was the pickup of choice for most players until the Humbucker pickup was produced in 1957. This

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http://www.guitarandlute.com/gtrhstry.html http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/electric-guitar3.htm 3 http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/electric-guitar3.htm 4 http://guitardomain.com/electric-guitar-history/ 5 http://cdn.cloudfiles.mosso.com/c9951/The-History-of-Gibson-Guitars.pdf

pickup was known firstly as the hum-eliminating pickup, as it produced a much clearer sound than the pickups previously used6. During the 1950s, solid-body guitars were first introduced, along with the tune-o-matic bridge. This type of bridge allowed players to adjust each string height individually and it has been used by guitar manufacturer, Gibson, ever since7. The next major development of the guitar came in 1966 when the first acoustic-electric guitar was invented. This guitar allowed acoustic guitars to be plugged directly into a speaker system without the need for a microphone8. From 1930 to 1970 there were many influential and significant guitarists to emerge. One of the most influential guitar players from the 1930s to the 1950s was jazz guitarist, Django Reinhradt. Reinhardt played professionally from a young age and through time he invented his own unique style of guitar playing, which would later become known as hot jazz. At the age of 18, Django was involved in an accident which resulted in him receiving burns to his left hand, leaving two of his fingers unusable. He carried on playing guitar and the majority of recording that can be heard today include Django playing with just two fingers.9 Another significant guitar player from this period is B.B King. Since the late 1940s, King has been known as the king of blues10 and has been cited as the guitarist who invented the guitar solo. Kings style of playing included bending the strings and adding vibrato to notes11.

THE GUITAR AND ITS PLAYERS FROM 1970 PRESENT By the 1970s the design of the guitar had been settled on and from then on it was more about the way in which people played the guitar that became significant. Music had changed a great deal by this time and musicians were becoming more experimental, especially guitarists. Progressive rock was the main genre in the 70s and guitarists would push the instrument to its limits. In the late 60s and 70s, Jimi Hendrixs music was made famous by his unique style of guitar playing. He is seen by many as the greatest and most influential guitar player ever. Hendrix utilised all parts of the guitar, combining both rhythm and lead playing at the same time. He played blues style guitar with distortion and fuzz effects to create his sound, along with using feedback as part of his songs, which had never really been done before.12 Another significant guitarist of the 1970s was Eddie Van Halen. He is known for many unique playing techniques. Although he was not the first to use the tapping technique on the guitar, he certainly
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http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/music-and-theater-arts/21m-380-music-and-technology-contemporary-historyand-aesthetics-fall-2009/projects/MIT21M_380F09_proj_mtech_2.pdf 7 http://www.epiphone.com/News/Features/News/2011/Understanding-The-Epiphone-LockTone-StopbarTune-o.aspx 8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic-electric_guitar 9 http://www.redhotjazz.com/django.html 10 http://www.bbking.com/bio/ 11 http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/history-of-modern-guitar-playing 12 http://www.jimihendrix.com/us/jimi

helped popularise it13. He also used a two-handed tapping method, pinch harmonics and tremolo picking in his playing which all added to his unique sound14. Another technique he used was volume swells. This technique had been used before by other guitarists before Eddie, but what was unique about Van Halens take on the technique was that he used the volume control on his guitar rather than an effects pedal to create to sound. In the early 1990s, Rage Against the Machine guitarist, Tom Morello, appeared on the scene with a style of guitar playing that had not been heard before. He combined his interest of hip hop DJs and heavy rock bands such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and applied them to his guitar playing to create a unique guitar sound. Morello uses effect pedals, feedback, volume, tremolo picking and string scratching within his playing to create his sound. One technique he is well known for is recreating the sound of a DJ scratching by using one hand to scratch the strings of the guitar and the other hand to switch between pickups using the pickup selector switch, having one pickup volume turned down15. This technique combined with heavy rock riffs is what makes him stand out16. APPENDIX / REFERENCES
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Van_Halen http://www.electric-guitar-junkie.com/Van-Halen-Guitar.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyxKJLgfT7A http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/10-things-you-gotta-do-to-play-like-tom-morello/7712 http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/music-and-theater-arts/21m-380-music-and-technology-contemporary-history-andaesthetics-fall-2009/projects/MIT21M_380F09_proj_mtech_2.pdf http://www.epiphone.com/News/Features/News/2011/Understanding-The-Epiphone-LockTone-stopbar-Tuneo.aspx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic-electric_guitar http://www.redhotjazz.com/django.html http://www.bbking.com/bio/ http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/history-of-modern-guitar-playing http://www.jimihendrix.com/us/jimi http://www.guitarandlute.com/gtrhstry.html http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/electric-guitar3.htm http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/electric-guitar3.htm http://guitardomain.com/electric-guitar-history/ http://cdn.cloudfiles.mosso.com/c9951/The-History-of-Gibson-Guitars.pdf
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Van_Halen http://www.electric-guitar-junkie.com/Van-Halen-Guitar.html 15 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyxKJLgfT7A 16 http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/10-things-you-gotta-do-to-play-like-tom-morello/7712