Amplified: A Design History of the Electric Guitar

273 Pages·2021·28.115 MB·English

by  Paul Atkinson

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Design History

of the Electric Guitar
Paul Atkinson
REAKTION BOOKS
For Sandra
Published by Reaktion Books Ltd
Unit 32, Waterside
44–48 Wharf Road
London n1 7ux, uk
www.reaktionbooks.co.uk
First published 2021
Copyright © Paul Atkinson 2021
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the publishers
Printed and bound in China by 1010 Printing International Ltd
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
isbn 978 1 78914 274 7
Published with support from Sheffield Hallam University Art & Design
Research Centre, John Hornby Skewes & Co. Ltd. Vintage® and Fret-King®
guitars – Worldwide Distribution, Design History Society
contents
guitar glossary 6
introduction 9
one
emergence 21
two
the holy trinity 63

three
expansion 103

four
diversity 143

five
technology 191
epilogue 239
references 244
select bibliography 259
acknowledgements 261
photo acknowledgements 263
index 265
guitar glossary
solid-body guitar
Tuners/ Six-on-one-side Headstock
Tuning Pegs/
Machine Heads
Bottom String Top String
(heavier gauge wound strings) (lighter gauge plain strings)
Fretboard
Frets
Neck
Upper Cutaway Fret Markers
Upper ‘Horn’ Lower Cutaway
Lower ‘Horn’
Solid Body
Waist Scratchplate/Fingerguard/Pickguard
Neck Pickup
‘Tremolo’ Arm
Middle Pickup
Bridge Pickup Pickup Selector Switch
Volume and Tone
Control Knobs
Jack Socket
Lower Bout
semi-hollow-body guitar
Three-per-side Headstock
Nut
Scale Length
= Bridge to Nut
Pickup Selector Switch
Neck Pickup
Scratchplate/Fingerplate/Pickguard
Bridge Pickup
Vibrato/‘Tremolo’ Arm
f Holes/Sound Holes
Volume/Tone Control Knobs
Semi-hollow Body
Bridge
Vibrato Tailpiece

introduction
The story of design is often one of the history of inventions.
Frequent questions are ‘Who made the very first one?’ and
‘Who invented it?’ Answers to both these questions might
seem straightforward in relation to the electric guitar, given that it’s
a relatively recent invention. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. The
emergence of the electric guitar was, like many other inventions,
the result of a series of parallel developments – a wide variety of
interested stakeholders, all experimenting and filing patents at
roughly the same time in order to find a solution to the same wide-
ly acknowledged problem of needing to produce more volume, but
approaching it from a number of different directions. This is what
I want to explore in this book. And yet, in the history of rock ’n’
roll, ‘mythology often stands in for history.’1 The real story of this
instrument is clouded by a cacophony of competing claims.
There is, obviously, prestige to be gained from claiming to
have been the first to have produced an electric guitar, prestige
that drives some of this mythology. The electric guitar industry is
one that is peculiarly bound up in its own history: the heritage of
a particular guitar company is of real importance to its customers,
9