Guitar history Mount Rushmore...

[TrevorR]

Saw this discussion elsewhere but thought it was interesting. There are four heads of the US founding fathers carved on Mount Rushmore. If we had a guitar history version, who would be there? In terms of developing the guitar my choices might be...

• C.F. Martin - for developing and/or popularising X-bracing
• George Beauchamp - for developing the first commercial electrified guitar-type instrument and patenting the single cone resonator
• Doc Kauffman - for the Vibrola on the Rickenbacker Electro-Spanish Ken Roberts guitar, and
• Leo Fender - of course for developing the first production line electrics and everything after...

But what about developing guitar playing? Maybe...

• Charlie Christian  (though my personal fave jazz player was Wes Montgomery)
• Davy Graham (or another of the 60s folkie boom players?)
• Jimi Hendrix 
• Eddie Van Halen (perhaps looking a bit sheepish given the level of bad taste hair metal playing he unleashed throughout the 80s and beyond...)

Thats much trickier... over to you guys...

 

[Mrchi]

For me the parker fly and a computer based DAW, were to me the most important progressions

Edited August 21, 2018 by Mrchi

[leftybassman392]

Not to be picky, but guitars go back waaaaay further than C.F. Martin.

Instruments with a recognisably guitar-like shape go back hundreds of years, and by tracing the family trees of guitars, lutes, harps and other chordophones back to the source it's possible to go back at least as far as an ancient Greek instrument called a Kithara (which is actually a lyre, but you get the general idea). The European Vihuela and it's offspring the Baroque guitar, the Indian Sitar, Persian Setar, Arabic Oud plus a whole lot more are all descendants of this instrument in one way or another. Accounts of the lineage vary, but guitars were certainly in common use in the Medieval period: Example

Not wishing to be overly critical, but putting C.F. Martin at the birth of the guitar because he invented cross-bracing is, I'm afraid, a bit arbitrary. It's like putting Dunlop at the birth of the wheel because he made the first commercially viable pneumatic tyre.

Sorry. Not trying to be a killjoy, but facts is facts.

 

Edited August 27, 2018 by leftybassman392

[TrevorR]

18 hours ago, leftybassman392 said:

Not to be picky, but guitars go back waaaaay further than C.F. Martin.

Instruments with a recognisably guitar-like shape go back hundreds of years, and by tracing the family trees of guitars, lutes, harps and other chordophones back to the source it's possible to go back at least as far as an ancient Greek instrument called a Kithara (which is actually a harp, but you get the general idea). The European Vihuela and it's offspring the Baroque guitar, the Indian Sitar, Persian Setar, Arabic Oud plus a whole lot more are all descendants of this instrument in one way or another. Accounts of the lineage vary, but guitars were certainly in common use in the Medieval period: Example

Not wishing to be overly critical, but putting C.F. Martin at the birth of the guitar because he invented cross-bracing is, I'm afraid, a bit arbitrary. It's like putting Dunlop at the birth of the wheel because he made the first commercially viable pneumatic tyre.

Sorry. Not trying to be a killjoy, but facts is facts.

 

Never said he invented guitar, said he invented/popularised x-bracing - and hence was hugely influential in the development of the modern guitar. Sorry to be a killjoy to your killjoyness.

[leftybassman392]

6 minutes ago, TrevorR said:

Never said he invented guitar, said he invented/popularised x-bracing - and hence was hugely influential in the development of the modern guitar. Sorry to be a killjoy to your killjoyness.

Well yes, but a lot of other people had a big say on the development of the guitar as we know it today over many hundreds of years is my point. Why the big deal with Martin? And why the big deal with cross-bracing? Why start with him? I mean, guitars had been doing very well thank you without it for an awfully long time.

Not a problem; just seems a bit random is all.

Oh, and I'm specifically not trying to be a killjoy - I thought I'd already said that actually, but hey ho!

[TrevorR]

7 hours ago, leftybassman392 said:

Well yes, but a lot of other people had a big say on the development of the guitar as we know it today over many hundreds of years is my point. Why the big deal with Martin? And why the big deal with cross-bracing? Why start with him? I mean, guitars had been doing very well thank you without it for an awfully long time.

Not a problem; just seems a bit random is all.

Oh, and I'm specifically not trying to be a killjoy - I thought I'd already said that actually, but hey ho!

Well let’s see... No x brace, no steel string (jazz boxes excepted), no steel string pre war maybe no popular take up of guitar (or even development of jazz boxes) (Victorian fashion for parlour guitars notwithstanding, having died out by then), maybe Les Paul/Adolf Rickenbacker/Travis Perkins (take your pick) invents first electric banjo or ukulele, or harmonica or accordion, maybe Jimi Hendrix revolutionises folk fiddle playing... But that’s not even the point.  FFS it was just meant to be a bit of light hearted fun and discussion starter about the nature of the guitar and who made a difference at some point, not a bloody PhD thesis.

 

Edited August 26, 2018 by TrevorR

[leftybassman392]

15 hours ago, TrevorR said:

FFS it was just meant to be a bit of light hearted fun and discussion starter about the nature of the guitar and who made a difference at some point, not a bloody PhD thesis.

 

All due respect, but you don't think you might be overreacting a little?

If it's to be a discussion, then what's wrong with actually having a discussion around the subject? Any opinion on and around the subject at hand ought to be welcomed, surely?

I'm not stifling debate. All I'm saying is that for an instrument whose ancestors go back quite literally thousands of years, picking developments from the last 150 years or so as your Mount Rushmore moments strikes me as a bit, well, convenient is all. If as you say we're to have a discussion about the nature of the guitar, then let's have a proper discussion about the nature of the guitar.

What about the development of the 6-string, E-A-D-G-B-E format? Or frets? Or the plectrum? Or the design and shape of the resonance chamber?

Edited August 27, 2018 by leftybassman392

[EdwardMarlowe]

I suspect you'd get a very different list, in terms of players, depending on whom you ask. A non-player would likely reference more populist musicians like the Beatles; these days, does anyone other than guitar players really even reference Van Halen at all?  For me, I'm not honestly sure which four I'd narrow it down to, but I would certainly say that there are a lot of big names in  guitar world that I wouldn't pick if it were up to me to choose those who were most important to *me*. 

Hendrix, for sure. Johnny Ramone. Chuck Berry, and maybe..... Joe Moretti? or Link Wray....  I'm sure amore common version would have Clapton, Harrison and Page, or maybe Beck. 

As to the men behind the guitar as a physical instrument as well as those who defined how we play it........ sticking to the electric guitar cause it's just easier, for me the giants would be Lester Polfus, whose ideas on the solid body concept influenced Leo Fender, whose guitars and amps were played by Buddy Holly who took what had been viewed as a country guitar into rock and roll (as well as establishing the two guitars, bass and drums lineup), and Jimi Hendrix, who reinterpreted how it is played to the extent that, now closing in on fifty years after his death, he remains adirect and primary influence on current players to an unmatched degree. Maybe that's my four?