Description: During the 1920s an electric guitar was simply an acoustic guitar with electromagnetic pickups installed underneath the sound hole often arch top guitars were the choice to have the pickups installed for these early electric guitars. The first patent for the solid body electric guitar was issued in 1937 by Guy Heart; he was the General Manager of the Gibson Guitar Company. Almost in parallel timing Fender's early electric guitar's being the Esquire was introduced. And later then in the 1940s the invention of the electric guitar arose from the popularity of Hawaiian guitars. Mr. Adolph Rickenbacker was responsible for the development of the electric guitar at this time then he formed his own company. Rickenbacker introduced the Bakelite model-B Spanish guitar. An early development of the electric guitar was known as the “electric frying pan” Basically the "electric flying pan" was an aluminum-cast pan attached to a wooden neck, having raised strings and electromagnetic pickups attached.

Today it is almost inconceivable to hear any genre or see any live-concert without the presence of the electric guitar be it in Folk, Blues, Rock, Alternative, Jazz, Classical, Funk, Metal, Punk, Ska, Reggae, Cumbia, Salsa and world music need I say more? :). Since the 1950s and 1960s the electric guitar rose to its iconic status. Not only in North America but one can hear the electric guitar in many music’s from around the world. This can range from Latin America, South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. In Africa the electric guitar is wide spread through the entire continent including Madagascar.

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 fret-board in where the space in between each frets are carved in concave like pattern this allows greater vibrato. Fretless electric guitars can be made by removing the frets or assembling the neck with a fretless neck or by installing the an entire fretless neck in the first place. A multitude of "pedals" are used as special effects this includes multiple effects processors and also computers both software and hardware. 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. 

The Pickups: The first known pickups were developed by Loyd Loar who worked for Gibson Guitars; he was a known luthier for his flat top mandolins and arch-top guitars. Since 1929 Les Paul was experimenting with his own design of pickups. In 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 were 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.


My project in Detail: My electric guitar is a result of a three year collaborative project between a very close friend and I through which we gained a lot of knowledge and experience.  The original body at the time was lacquered in a rather crude manner, so were the original pickups both had to be replaced. The body and the back of the neck were painted white although the primer layer was silver paint. 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 its dense as ebony or ironwood. 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.