Gibson

Electric Guitars

The Electric guitar hasn’t been around nearly as long as the Acoustic and Classical guitars. In fact, the Electric guitar was created just 70 years ago (the 1930s) by Adolph Rickenbacker. Since that time, the Electric guitar has greatly evolved to the where it is today. In this article, we’ll go over the history of the Electric guitar.

The History

Guitars, or similar instruments, have been around for thousands of years. The Electric guitar was first manufactured in the 1930s by Rickenbacker. Original Electric guitars used tungsten pickups. Pickups basically convert the vibration of the strings into electrical current, which is then fed into the amplifier to produce the sound.

The very earliest Electric guitars featured smaller soundholes in the body. These guitars are known as semi-hollow body Electric guitars and still are somewhat popular today, mainly due to the fact that they are flexible guitars.

However, with the use of pickups, it was possible to create guitars without soundholes (like the Acoustic and Classical guitars have) that still had the ability to be heard, if plugged into amplifiers. These guitars are called solid body Electric guitars.

The Electric guitar’s popularity began to increase during the Big Band era of the ‘30s and 40s. Due to the loudness of the brass sections in jazz orchestras, it was necessary to have guitars that could be heard above the sections. Electric guitars, with the ability to be plugged into amplifiers, filled this void.

The Electric guitar that is most prevalent today is the solid body Electric guitar. The solid body guitar was created by musician and inventor Les Paul in 1941. It is a guitar made of solid wood with no soundholes. The original solid body guitar created by Paul was very plain—it was a simple rectangular block of wood connected to a neck with six steel strings. Les Paul’s original solid body guitar shape has, of course, changed from the original rectangular shape to the more rounded shape Les Paul guitars have today.

During the 1950s, Gibson introduced Les Paul’s invention to the world. The Gibson Les Paul, as it was and still is called, quickly became a very popular Electric guitar. It has remained the most popular guitar for 50 years.

Around the same period of time, another inventor named Leo Fender came up with a solid body Electric guitar of his own. In the late 1940s, Fender introduced the Fender Broadcaster Electric guitar. The Broadcaster, which was renamed the Stratocaster, was officially introduced to the public in 1954. The Strat, as it is now known, was a very different guitar in comparison to the Les Paul. It had a different shape, different hardware and was significantly lighter. Fender’s Stratocaster Electric guitar is the second most popular guitar in the world, second to only the Les Paul.

Over the years, other companies, such as Ibanez, Jackson, Paul Reed Smith, ESP and Yamaha have all produced solid body Electric guitars of their own. However, most Electric guitars still feature the familiar shape of a Les Paul or Strat guitar.

There are so many different brands of guitar strings out there, and within the brands there are many different gauges and types. This can be overwhelming for beginners, so I want to briefly discuss different types of strings and associated sizes and why you want to carefully consider the types of strings you would want to use.

First of all let’s briefly discuss nylon strings. These strings are used on classical guitars and are conducive for fingerpicking. If you own a classical guitar or are considering purchasing one, these are the strings you will use.

Now if you’re playing a standard electric or acoustic 6-string guitar, you’re going to want steel strings. Some of the more popular brands are D’Addario, Dean Markley, Ernie Ball, Elixer, GHS, and Fender. Try the same size of each brand and you will begin to notice differences. I remember trying D’Addario, Dean Markley, and Ernie Ball .009s and I was partial to D’Addarios because it seemed like my pick would get caught on the strings to o easily. So definately experiment with different strings to find out which you prefer.

As for the different sizes, they come in sizes ranging anywhere from sets of .008’s to .013’s. Now, you may wonder what this means. Well the .008-.013 range describes the thickness in inches of the high E string. So when someone says 8’s, 9’s 10’s, they’re typically referring to a set of guitar strings with the high E string of that thickness. The remaining strings are also thicker or thinner depending on the thickness of the high E string, although you can buy individual strings to suit your personal tastes.

What thickness should you choose? I prefer D’Arddario 9s for my electric and Elixer 10s for my acoustic. For me, anything thicker then 10s give my fingers a tough time. But also know that the thicker strings will have a much better tone. As a beginner, I wouldn’t recommend set thicker then 9s for starters until you build up some left hand strength. I don’t recommend 8s at all as they tend to break too easily.

If you’re going to be playing dropped tunings, then you should consider thick strings in the .012-.013 range (Ernie Ball Not Even Slinky Strings are great). This will allow you to tune down and still have tight strings that don’t flap
around. The thinner strings will usually be too slack when you’re tuned down.

You can build a guitar that works great from a simple cigar box. This isn’t the elaborate real stringed guitar that some people can make, but a simple rubber band guitar.

This is a great idea for just playing around or showing the kids, and they will absolutely love having a hand made cigar box guitar to play with.

If you like this, you can later decide to learn how to build an elaborate cigar box guitar. Here’s how you do it.

First you will cut a hole in the bottom of the cigar box. It doesn’t have to be very large, just three inches or so across. You can use a box cutter to do this, but be careful.

You will then poke four or five holes on both sides of the hole where you will insert the rubber bands. Make sure the holes are poked in a straight line.

You can trace a line with a pencil and a ruler if you want to be sure that the rubber bands will be exactly straight. You want to take five rubber bands, and cut them so they are one line instead of a circle.

The next thing you want to do to build a cigar box guitar is put one end of the rubber band through the hole. Tie a large knot so that the band won’t slip back through.

Then you will stretch the rubber band to it’s corresponding hole on the other side of the circle. You will put that end of the rubber band through the hole and tie another knot.

You can make the rubber band tighter or looser, depending on how you want the guitar to sound.

If you don’t like this method, you can check out different ways at http://www.buildaguitar.net

To build a guitar that sounds very different with each band, make the rubber bands all different as far as how tight they are. Then you will cut off the extra rubber band on the inside of the box.

Then you can glue or tape the box shut. With a little extra imagination, you can add a handle, and paint the guitar so it will be your very own.

Les Paul guitars are normally priced in the thousands. If you look around there are some cheap Les Paul guitars to be found. Good cheap Les Paul guitars can be found for under $500 dollars. These types of instruments can provide years of playing enjoyment.

Our first of the cheap Les Paul guitars is the Epiphone Ultra electric guitar. The Ultra looks similiar to the Les Paul Standard, but to make it more “acoustic” sounding, its mahogany body has logically placed hollow cavities making it around 5.5 pounds lighter. It’s very comfortable to play this guitar due to its belly contour on the back.

Next is the Epiphone Les Paul Special II electric guitar. This guitar is cheaply priced and provides a classic humbucker sound. The neck is a nice mahogany, and the fingerboard is rosewood with dot inlays. The hardware is chrome, plus it has tone and volume controls.

Our final affordable guitar under $500 is the Epiphone Les Paul 100 electric guitar. This instrument has two humbucker pickups, a fretboard of rosewood with a bolt-on mahogany neck, plus outstanding body wood. All this gives it one of the best sustaining tone characters. If you want to let your leads sing, try the Les Paul 100.

True interest in playing guitar comes from a burning desire to be what your heroes are. Its a blind passion. But, before you even pick up a guitar, you must first ask yourself these questions: Do I listen to music differently than my friends who don’t play guitar? when it comes to listening to music, do I see myself being able to not only play all of the guitar parts, but be able to play all of the guitar parts on stage? Do I see myself playing guitar above anything else under GOD?

If you answered “yes” to all of these questions, chances are you have what it takes to become a serious guitarist. Now, you should pick up your guitar, and if the burning passion’s there, never put it down. Never let it go. By now, you should know that playing guitar is much more than just something that you do, You are a musician, and that’s not just something that you do, its who you are. So be proud, not just anybody can say their a musician. Your an artist, and that’s a beautiful thing.

Now that you’ve figured out that you are a serious guitarist, you should now set out to be the best guitarist that you can possibly be. You are about to set out on a lifelong journey. a very fulfilling journey of mastering your craft.

So what do I do first? You might ask. You get lessons, buy books on learning guitar, video tape your heroes every time their on television, and then study them, whatever it takes to increase your skill as a guitarist. You should keep in mind that no matter what, if the passion is there, you will learn. So don’t worry if you can’t afford lessons, or afford books on learning guitar, if you have the undying desire and burning passion with or without help. No matter if the odds are in your favor or if the odds are stacked against you.

How do I know? Well, since me and my brother were old enough to remember, we’ve had a very close kinship, and a great understanding of music. But, unfortunately, our family was very poor. We were twelve before we got a guitar to create on. Our parents couldn’t afford guitar lessons, so what we did was got our friends that were learning to play at the same time, and borrow their books on guitar, and then we would watch as they played the way their teachers taught them to play. We practiced night and day. We very rarely played outside like other kids.

We never learned to swim because we played guitar all the time, we didn’t go swimming. But, because we sacrificed so much for our craft, it wasn’t long before our skill was unparalleled by our peers and we were teaching our friends teachers. We were showing guitarists twice or three times our age who were playing guitar before we were even born. We didn’t have a guitar teacher, yet by the time we were the age of fifteen, we were the teachers. When we played talent shows at our high school, we were the talk of the school and very respected.

Now, I’m not saying by any means that you have to do to become a great guitarist. I’m just saying that this is how me and my twin brother learned. You should take your own path. Your path is always the best path to take.

Well, that’s it. As always, I hope you found this article both informative and entertaining. May GOD bless you always, and in always.