Acoustic guitars and their various musical relatives can be traced back thousands of years, but the idea of a guitar using electric currents to amplify its sound had to wait until the 1930s to start to take root. Necessity was, perhaps, the mother of invention here, as the volume of the guitar, used previously in blues and jazz, could not compete with the new sounds of the big band and the shriek of brass instruments. Early experiments with simply adding microphones to guitars had only limited success, partly due to the quality of the tone and partly because of the feedback that could occur as soon as a reasonable volume was reached. The breakthrough came when Les Paul, a jazz guitarist, successfully experimented with a magnetic pickup system that could convert the vibrations of the strings to an electrical signal to be amplified and sent to a speaker. Soon, guitarists started adding pickups to their hollow-bodied guitars, but in fact there was no need for an electric guitar to have a hollow body, as the pickups could detect very subtle vibrations and amplify them anyway. Before long, Fender, Rickenbacker and, of course, Gibson were producing solid-bodied electric guitars.
Innovations unique to the electric guitar
Electric guitars allowed many innovations that would go on to define their sound. Most noticeably was the fact that volume and tone controls could be added to the electronics between the pickup and the cable, which meant that the accomplished guitarist could adjust the tone and loudness whilst on stage. Second and third pickups were added at various points along the body to take advantage of the difference in tone at various points along the strings, and these could be blended together with multiple controls. The tremolo arm appeared, allowing notes to be bent down or up (before, they could only be bent upwards by pulling the string away from its natural line, thus tightening it). The tremolo arm was part of the early sound of rock ?n? roll, and could make a vibrato sound or create the long, sustained, wailing sounds associated with Jimi Hendrix. Other sound effects, such as chorus, overdrive, vibrate, wah-wah, reverb and delay (echo) could also be controlled via foot pedals by the player, further adding to the variety of sounds available. The pickup was also applied to bass guitars, and is now seen on violins, mandolins, cellos and many other types of string instrument.
Musical styles using electric guitars
The genres of music that use electric guitars are too numerous for this article, but their origins can be traced back to the jazz and big band sound that became popular between the wars. Blues guitarists pioneered the ?dirty? sound that would later morph into heavy metal, and no rock and roll group would be complete without at least one electric guitar. Bob Dylan was once called ?Judas? by a heckler when he swapped his acoustic for an electric on stage, a significant moment in electric folk. The sixties saw mainstream pop and psychedelic bands putting the instrument to good use, and disco, punk, ska and reggae music of the seventies used the instrument's inherent rhythm; a lively and thriving African sound is once of the guitar's most innovative current streams. Whenever a new technology has come along, especially the electronic revolution of the late 1970s and 1980s, people have written off the electric guitar, but it shows no sign of losing popularity.
When the first electric guitar was made in the 1930s, critics hated it. Its sound was too different and way before its time. It took sometime for people to warm to the unique sound and once it began to be played more and more it was realized that it was more versatile than the original guitar.
The electric guitar's importance became known at the time when jazz orchestras multiplied in number. The electric guitar was originally designed by a collection of guitar manufacturers, electronics aficionados, and instrument producers.
The first electric guitar was designed by Les Paul, who experimented with microphones attached to guitars. The very first time that such a guitar was played in public was in Wichita, Kansas by Gage Brewer.
The two instruments that Brewer used were from George Beauchamp in Los Angeles. Brewer continued to advertise the guitars, writing an article about them in Wichita Beacon and using the at another performance in October. But it was not until another five years that the electric guitar was to be recorded for the very first time.
Eddie Durham is often credited with recording the very first use of the electric guitar. But 15 days earlier, George Barnes recorded Sweetheart Land and It's Low-Down Dirty Shame using an electric guitar.
The first electric guitars produced for the public was by Electro String Instrument Corporation which was founded by George Beauchamp, Paul Barth and Adolph Rickenbacker in 1931
The company's mass-produced electric guitars were created from cast aluminum, and these were actually played on a person's lap using a steel slide. This is somewhat similar to the steel guitar at present. Due to its unusual material, these guitars were affectionately called "Frying Pans".
In 1946, Leo Fender created the first solid-body electric guitar which became a commercial success. It was an evolution from "Frying Pan" versions and was named the "Esquire". It quickly gained favor with Country-Western artists.
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