Description: The invention of the electric guitar arose from the popularity of Hawaiian music during the 1930s. A Swiss American inventor and founder of Rickenbacker Guitar Company. Started manufacturing metal bodies for the National Stringed Instrument Company. Aldoph Rickenbacker (b. April 1, 1886 d. March 1976) and his colleague George Delmetia Beauchamp (b. March 18, 1899 d. March 30, 1941) were both responsible for the development for the first electric guitars who were referred to as “frying pans” they were converted from the Hawaiian slide guitar. The frying pan electric guitar had six raised strings, a single coil pickup, selector switch and audio jack. The body of the frying pan was made from cast aluminium. In the 1930s Hawaiian music was very popular and the demand for electrical amplification to reach more audiences was recognized. Very soon Adolph Rickenbacker introduced the Bakelite Model-B Spanish guitar. These type of guitars were modified archtops with pickups attached to the soundboard. The first patent for the solid body electric guitar was issued in 1937 by Guy Heart who was a General Manager of the Gibson Guitar Company. Since the founding of Fender guitars Leo Fender (b. August 10 1909 d. March 21, 1991) came out with his telecaster who was developed in 1949 only had a single coil pickup and three controls including volume. The stratacasters and later his esquire models were released slightly after. Today it is almost inconceivable to hear any genre of music or see any live-concert with out the presence of the electric guitar be it in folk, blues, rock, alternative, jazz, classical, funk, metal, punk, ska, reggae, cumbia, salsa need I say more? Not only in North America one can hear the electric guitar in many regions from around the world. This includes in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin and South America. In Africa the popularity of the electric guitar is wide spread through all the continent including Madagascar.

The Pickups for the Electric Guitar: The first known pickups were developed by Loyd Loar (Jan. 9 1886 to Sept. 14 1943) a sound engineer who worked for Gibson Guitars. Loyd was well known luthier for his flat top mandolins and arch top guitars. Since 1929 Les Paul was experimenting with his own design of pickups. During the 1940s Leo Fender ran a radio repair shop in which he and other electric guitar makers experimented in developing much smaller and compact-sized pickups prior to which the pickups were too large. Since the 1960s pickups are designed, assembled and wired in many different, sizes, shapes and varieties. The most common pickups are featured on my electric guitar you see in the photo, the second most common pickups are the humbucker pickups which are two pickups wired together in one package. Humbucker pickups were patented by Seth Lover (of Gibson) in the 1950s although the patent was finally issued in 1959. Prior to the humbucker pickups guitarists had to cope with the 60 cycle hum present in single pickup designs.

Playing Techniques: For most of the playing either fingers or the flat pick are used or the electric maybe played with a slide "electric bottle-neck guitar" these techniques vary from musician to musician. Some methods of playing electric guitars have taken on unique developments such as the prepared guitar in one would insert all sorts of objects from paper clips, alligator clips nuts, bolts and so on and often plucked or played with a bow. In Vietnam a form of the electric guitar is modified with a scalloped fretboard in where the space in between each frets are carved in a concave like pattern this allows for greater vibrato. Also fretless electric guitars can be made by removing the frets or assembling the neck with a fretless neck. Rock bands like Led Zeppelin in one of their tracks used a bowed-guitar in which is where the guitar can be played with a violin bow, this lead to developments such as the Ebow (Electronic bow) much later on, a portable device which uses the elector-magnetic currents of the electric guitar to produce the sound when the e-bow is placed over a string.

My project in Detail: My electric guitar is a result of a three year collaborative project between a close friend and I. Prior to my electric guitar project I knew little of building musical instruments, this is something that is gained by experience much like playing a musical instrument “practice makes perfect”. For the body of the instrument the wood was the toughest wood I have worked with in a very long time. I know it is not oak, but I do know this species of wood was quite tough even through through the surface planer. The original body of the guitar was rather crude when I acquired the instrument and it was not suitable to work with for restoring this electrical guitar. The paint job was attrocious and silver and a layer of primer paint was white. During the first days of this project I started to sand down the body and the neck by hand and the rest of the project was thanks in large part by a friend of mine and his workshop from the beginning of the project to when my friend and I completed the guitar. The current details of this electric guitar the body has been replaced with some tropical hard wood which looks like pine although the density of this species compares to ironwood or ebony. The neck is from the original guitar and the frets are in good enough condition so the neck and the frets did not need replacement during this project.