Guitar

What is the Guitar?

History

Overview

What does a guitar look like?

The Industrial Revolution

From its origins in Spain 4000 years ago, the guitar has evolved to become a staple in many genres of music

This is a brief overview of the topics that are going to be covered in this presentation

the oud

How did the Industrial Revolution affect the evolution of the guitar?

Lets look at the basic shape of the two most popular types of guitars

The electric

The acoustic

Only 80 years old....

Since the beginning...

Guitar

The guitar first originated from Spain. The Moors were the first to introduce the oud into culture as early as 4000 years ago; this is what has evolved into the guitar. Truly, the guitar can only be traced back to the 15th Century. Then, it had 4 strings. A 5th string was added during the Baroque period. At the end of the Baroque period 2 major changes occurred. The double strings were replaced by single strings, and instead of 5 pari, there are six single strings.Before the Industrial Revolution, the guitar had a slim body with animal hair for strings. Then around 1900 Christian Frederick Martin starting making guitars with steel strings and a stronger body. This made for a louder sound. The he also starting putting pickups into guitars that have evolved into now a days electric guitars. Now the guitar has evolved into so many specific types of stringed instruments that nearly every culture has their own form of it.

The very first electric guitar was invented in 1937. This is a diagram of what we now call the electric guitar.

The acoustic guitar has been around for a very long time and has changed little. This is a diagram of what we now call the acoustic guitar.

• The guitar is a musical instrument that has now evolved so it is used in almost every different genre of music.
• The guitar is the most versatile instrument. It is used in all different types of music and it can be traveled with with ease. On the guitar you can play any type of style of music.
• Before electricity, there were only acoustic guitars. An acoustic guitar is a hollowed out piece of wood with a hole in the middle with another piece of wood(called the neck) sticks out of one side. Then 6 strings are tied from the tip of the neck, over the hole in the middle of the guitar, then fastened on the other side of the hole to the wood. Then the strings are tightened to certain notes(standard tuning is EADGBE). Along the neck of the guitar there are frets; frets are intervals where fingers are placed to make a chord. Then the musician places his hand in a chord(NUMEROUS amounts) and strums the guitar with either a pick or his hand.

For this explanation right now, I am going to focus solely on the acoustic guitar. The Industrial Revolution brought about so many major advancements in technology, but the acoustic guitar truly only took advantage of 1: mass production of steel. And it was not even implemented untill nearly 50 years after the Industrial Revolution ended in early 1900's by Christian Frederich Martin. With this steel, he made strings out of it and also a support for the neck. The whole reason he put them on guitars in the first place was because of the growing need for a louder instrument. The guitar was starting to be used more in dances, orchestras, symphonies and bands. So, because of that, Martin put steel strings on the guitar thus enforcing a need for a stronger, more supportive body. Ultimately he ended up putting a steel rod inside of the neck called a truss rod. The guitar also took advantage of one other Industrial Revolution progression; railways. With improved means of transportation, railways for example, musicians were able to travel more widely than before. This led to concert tours, which gave artists the opportunity to play for bigger audiences. With the growth of manufacturing, also came the growth of production of guitars. So overall this whole booming of the economy drove the development of the guitar. Now, after the Industrial Revolution, the social middle class became more powerful because of the move to the cities and the distribution of wealth. This then spawned so many other invention with the usage of electricity. This electricity that lights up a light bulb of powers a fridge, this invention then led to the telegraph, then radio, then television, and these inventions then made music more accessible to the common man. With the common man listening to music and genres developing, this made the guitar more popular now that everyone could hear it. Also, with electricity, then came the electric guitar, bass guitar, and amplifiers. Without the Industrial Revolution no true revolution would have ensued to the guitar.

By: David Canon Furth

http://simpleguitarsongs.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Electric-Guitar.png

Guitar in 1832

http://www.pianolessongirl.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Yamaha-with-labels.png

http://www.guyguitars.com/eng/handbook/BriefHistory.html

Standards

Says who?

Here is one example:

"Praise Him with trumpet sound: praise Him with lute and harp!" Psalm 150:3.

I want to start talking about standards as they progress through time. So the first ones we will talk about is the body and strings. Many people believed that the lute was the ancestor of the guitar, but truthfully it was the oud (as previously discussed already). And this oud was made typically out of hollowed out wood with a neck and then strings running from the tip of neck to middle of the guitar. Not only did people use wood, but also a hollow tortuous shell. For strings, people used either hair or animal intestines. And this stuff has been around since the beginning. Numerous times in the book of Psalms the lute is mentioned.

Standards Conti...

Strings

Truly, the guitar can only be traced back to the 15th Century. Then, it had 4 strings. A 5th string was added during the Baroque period. At the end of the Baroque period 2 major changes occurred. The double strings were replaced by single strings, and instead of 5 pari, there were six single strings. And at this time string was still made out of hair or animal intestines. Not until early 1900's did that change.

http://www.lutesandguitars.co.uk/images/JB5c.jpg

Standards Cont...

Tuning and Fretboard

Since the intonation of most modern western fretted instruments is equal tempered, the ratio of the distances of two consecutive frets to the bridge is the twelfth root of 2, or approximately 1.059463. Theoretically, the twelfth fret should divide the string in two exact halves. To compensate for the increase in string tension when the string is pressed against the frets, the bridge position can be adjusted slightly so that the 12th fret plays exactly in tune. When the Great Depression hit, Martin and Co grew the neck of the guitar from 12 to 14 frets, then right after to 15. They did this because with the virtually dead economy, they wanted to appeal more to banjo players so that they could play another instrument and because of that potentially make more money. Before then, typical guitars only had 6 to 8 frets. Also the Industrial Revolution brought about the standards that we have now on the guitar. Standard tuning came about in this era-EADGBE-started by C.F. Martin & Co in the 1830's.

Materials

Wood

Plastic

Plastic?

Many rock and roll bands include a guitarist of some form. And these guitar players use what we refer to as a pick to strum the guitar. This device is minimal to trivial in the all-together make of the guitar, but it is still something. They became popular with the rise of the bands in the 1960's and 1970's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Guitar_picks-KayEss-1.jpeg

• Wood has always been used as the main resonator. Yes, some other cousins of the guitar used tortoise shells or just a hide frame, but mainly wood.
• The wood is what makes the sound for the guitar. It takes in the vibrations of the strings and resonates them.

Steel

Glue

• Glue holds the guitar together.
• Before glue was used, stitching or small nails were used to hold the guitar together.Now, only three different types of glue are legal to use in manufacturing.

• We use steel for the strings of the guitar. They are what is plucked/strummed that vibrate. Steel is also used for trusses. A truss supports the neck of the guitar
• Before steal strings, sheep intestines or silk or animal hair were used as strings. Before 1921 no guitars used a truss. It was just wood.
• Also, classical guitars have nylon strings. It makes the guitar have a lighter feel and it makes plucking much easier.

http://www.guitarrepairtools.org/guitar-fretboard-repair-tools/fretboard-glue.html

Controversy

Bibliography

http://www.pianolessongirl.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Yamaha-with-labels.png

http://simpleguitarsongs.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Electric-Guitar.png

Findlay, Sharon. “The Evolution of the Guitar: Strumming its way through the ages.” Faze Magazine. Web. November 8, 2012. http://www.faze.ca/issue04/evolution_of_the_guitar.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/music_and_movies/article_895.shtml

When developing the mainstream ‘guitar,’ the style to develop was tough. Not only that but also how it has evolved into society. Society has been forced to accept that the guitar is in nearly every genre of music. Without the guitar rock and roll never would have taken off, neither would have country music, folk music, and many more. The guitar is now used in church worship bands, punk bands, rock bands, jazz bands, symphonies, tango music, mariachi bands, classical music, screamo music, and the list just goes on. Many controversy’s have arisen between parents and children into what style of guitar to play. Some parents do not allow their kids to play electric guitars because of the negative stereotype associated with it due to the 60s and 70's, so then they are forced to stick with the mellow acoustic. Now parents are generally so uninvolved in their children’s life that they don’t know if they play the guitar or smoke pot. And truly back in that day, acoustic guitars were just as popular in those crowds(see picture bellow).

“First-ever electric guitar patent awarded to the Electro String Corporation,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-ever-electric-guitar-patent-awarded-to-the-electro-string-corporation (accessed Nov 16, 2012).

Environmental Affects

http://guitar.wikia.com/wiki/Fret

http://www.lutesandguitars.co.uk/images/JB5c.jpg

Go Green!

Howe, Daniel Walker. "WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT." American Heritage 59, no. 4 (Winter2010 2010): 46-47. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed November 30, 2012).

http://www.arkive.org/brazilian-rosewood/dalbergia-nigra/

http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/nug,pipe/Interesting

http://stores.guitarcenter.com/StoreMedia/4e85acab1194a81530e32d51/251/Photos/1/list/1/8#getToKnowSection

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Guitar_picks-KayEss-1.jpeg

http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/nug,pipe/Interesting

http://www.guitarrepairtools.org/guitar-fretboard-repair-tools/fretboard-glue.html

With the growing popularity of the guitar, mass production has also accompanied it. The most popular type of wood that was used was primarily Brazilian Rosewood. But the Brazilian Government put a cap on that because the supply was dwindling to nothing. Now, Brazilian rosewood is still used, but along with East Indian rosewood. Cheaper guitars use mahogany or maple, but the sound quality suffers. A lot of guitar manufacturing companies use Alpine spruces for the soundboard of the guitar. Trees are coming down regardless of guitars, but we are very selective in our species for the sound quality.

Architecture

Quantitative Data

The "Frying Pan"

Scientific Evolution

The telegraph to guitar

This well known performing arts center is right on our campus. This house has a one, large main stage with a countless number of rows of seats facing it. The house is normally shaped like a triangle with the stage at the tip and the seats fanning outward. This aids in acoustics so that the entire audience, not just the front row, can hear the performance. All of this was made for human entertainment, which is the same category that the guitar falls under.

Taylor guitars started in 1974. The development of the guitar and mass production of it came after the Industrial Revolution. Martin and Company started in 1833. Gibson guitars started in 1902. In 1890 Epiphone started. Gretsch started in 1883. Guild started in 1936. Ibanez in 1957. Harmony guitars started in 1892. Levin guitars started in 1891. So really most of the guitar companies started around the early 1900’s because of the population growth and right after the Industrial Revolution. Most definitely the Great Depression was a struggle for the guitar makers, but mostly all got through it. Below is a line graph summarizing this information.

A quick and dirty summary(q&ds)

How has science influenced the evolution of the guitar?

The acoustic guitars that we see around today, the six strings and oval body type, were standardized during the Industrial Revolution, with Martin and Company mainly pushing them. As the guitar started to become more popular, it began to become a major instrument within southern music, today widely known as jazz. But the guitar was not loud enough to even be heard with all of the other blaring instruments. So this was invented; the electric guitar—the instrument that revolutionized jazz, blues and country music and made the later rise of rock and roll possible—was recognized by the United States Patent Office on this day in 1937 with the award of Patent #2,089.171 to G.D. Beauchamp for an instrument known as the Rickenbacker Frying Pan.

The most noticeable advancements of the guitar came about in the early 1900’s. This was due to the Industrial Revolution, which led to increased steel production, and the invention of the telegraph. Both of these two turning points in history came about solely because of Newtonian physics and want we refer formally to as classical physics. No quantum mechanics was needed for the telegraph. And now, little has changed since 80 years ago, other than quality, on the simple, basic, electric guitar. Most acoustic guitars now have the ability to be amplified if wanted, so sound systems are installed into most all of them. The only time science was truly needed was when the guitar went electric. Ultimately, the electric guitar is just an extension of the telegraph. Then as the telegraph transformed into the telephone by time, the need for a louder guitar came about. On May 24, 1844, Professor Samuel F. B. Morse, seated in the chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, tapped a message into a device of cogs and coiled wires, employing a code that he had recently devised to send a biblical text: "What hath God wrought." Forty miles away in Baltimore, Morse's associate Alfred Vail received the electric signals and returned the message. And this then evolved into the telephone. All an electric guitar is is a telegraph; the pick-ups on it act like the tapper and the amplifier is just the same as for the telegraph.

Electric Guitar

Acoustic Guitar

Not that much.....

How she came to be

Architecture Conti....

Inventor G.D. Beauchamp, partnered with Adolph Rickenbacher in the Electro String Instrument Corporation of Los Angeles, California and spent more than five years pursuing his patent on the Frying Pan. It was a process delayed by several areas of concern, including the electric guitar's reliance on an engineering innovation that dated to the 19th century. When a vibrating string is placed within a magnetic field, it is possible to "pick up" the sound waves created by that string's vibrations and convert those waves into electric current. Replace the word "string" with the word "membrane" in that sentence, however, and you also have a description of how a telephone works. For this reason, Beauchamp's patent application had to be revised multiple times to clarify which of his individual claims were truly novel and which were merely new applications of existing patents..

A concert house has come into the picture; ever since the beginning of time, royalty has had some form of musical entertainment. Now since entertainment is a common, daily characteristic of society, no matter the social class, musical entertainment houses have been built. Auditoriums, opera houses, performing arts, theaters, or stages have all been names of these houses. And so with the growing popularity of the guitar, manufacturers and warehouses have needed to come into existence. Below is a picture of the local guitar store.

The whole reason the electric guitar was invented was because of the need for a louder guitar. So no better tool to use than good ole' electricity electricity for this job. The demand for electric guitars grew rapidly during the Big Band Era in the 20’s and 30’s. The big brass bands of the time were very loud, and other instruments had to be artificially amplified to stand up to their powerful sound. Performers experimented with attaching microphones to acoustic guitars in order to amplify themselves.

Why has the acoustic guitar hardly changed over so many years? Because of the simplicity of the instrument. Yes, now power tools and lasers are used to craft the instrument, but that is only for production to maintain precision within that make of guitar. Now with the amplification of the guitar available, nearly all acoustic guitars have a built in sound system. The more you pay, the nicer the guitar.

Here are some examples of electric guitars seen today

Fender Telecaster

Gibson Les Paul

Gretsch Semi-hollow body

Fender Stratocaster

http://stores.guitarcenter.com/StoreMedia/4e85acab1194a81530e32d51/251/Photos/1/list/1/8#getToKnowSection

www.guitarcenter.com