The evolution of the electric guitar

The electric guitar came about mainly because the desire for “louder music” was on the minds of many of the guitar makers. It was in the 1920s that dance music became more popular. Although different from what dance music is today, it was the heyday of the flapper girls and club scene and everyone wanted to hear their music out loud, but they weren’t sure how to do it. Concert stages were also getting bigger and even musicians wanted louder and more powerful instruments. You could see guitars changing styles with new technology to get bigger sounds, but no one had thought of amplifying the guitar yet.

However, before the innovation happened, the need for electric guitars can be traced back well before the 20th century. Around 1800 the Spanish-style 6-string guitar was introduced, already stronger than guitars made earlier. It was in the 1850s that the guitar body was strengthened and the guitar began to have a flat top design. In 1890, Orville Gibson introduced a carved body guitar that made it even louder and set the standards for the future arch top guitar.

Then you got to the 1920s when the needs intensified. With big band music and commercial radio, everyone was trying to think of the next great guitar invention. Some companies decided to go with larger sizes and metal bodies, but the true inventors of modern guitars began to focus on electricity to make their guitars sound more. John Dopyera was better and designed a steel bodied guitar with a resonator amp that was similar to what you could find with banjos at the time. It was built into the top of the guitar.

Then, in 1923, Lloyd Loar, an engineer who worked with Adolph Rickenbacker, developed a pickup that detected vibrations in the soundboard of many different string instruments. It’s sometimes said that Rickenbacker was actually behind the making of the electric guitar, because he fitted it with tungsten pickups, but it’s really up for debate which was the first real electric guitar. However, the guitars that he incorporated into these were not successful. Then, in 1931, George Beauchamp created an electromagnetic pickup that created a field that amplified the movements and vibrations of the strings. It was a simple invention involving a current passing through a coil of wire wrapped around a magnet. It was known as the “Frying Pan” guitar. This was the first commercial electric guitar that could be used by the common player.

In the late 1930s, there were many other guitar manufacturers jumping into the electric guitar game, many of which came up with new technology. However, there were issues with distortions, feedback, and harmonics for the most part. It was the famous guitarist and inventor Les Paul who was the first to work on the sound difficulties most inventors faced. It was in 1940 that the Les Paul mounted the strings and pickups on a solid block of pine to stop some of the body vibration. Along with his guitar made from a single piece of wood and without sound holes, this electric guitar may not have been anything great to look at, but it certainly paved the way for some of the most famous electric guitars in the world.