History Of Guitar (Part 1) 1672-1932 (Torres, Martin, Gibson, National, Stromberg, Rickenbacker)
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- This week, Josh's Monday Monolog is Part 1 of the History of the Guitar.
1672-1932
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That painting you show was in the cover of most of my classical guitar books.
History of the Guitar .... first there was ... the black ... frozen void ...
ua-cam.com/video/TOSDrT_eDhk/v-deo.html
Mel Brooks has entered the comments.
@@mykhedelic6471 😄
THE FACE LOOKED OVER
THEN THERE WAS NOISE
I studied ancient musical instruments as a guitar-obsessed Archaeology major, and I can confirm that the origin of stringed instruments built roughly like a guitar - body with some sort of bridge, neck, headstock - goes back to at least the bronze age, so even farther back than 500 BCE. I made a type of instrument from the Indus Valley called a dotar. Halved, gutted and dried a large gourd, stretched hide over it and stitched it on with gut. The neck was carved out of soft wood and went straight through the body, the bridge and nut were of the same wood, three gut strings, carved wood tuning pegs. From there, time and your adjacent possibles eventually led to the good old Spanish guitar. The different versions on the way there can get pretty wild, it's a really fun topic. Loved this episode.
Just wanted to pop by and say thank you. This is amazing and greatly appreciated!
Hey Josh. With regard to the Rickenbacker pickup, the metal that surrounds the strings is actually two horseshoe magnets, where the North Pole is on the back (in your lap) and the South Pole is on the top. I confirmed this after watching your video with my 40s Rick and a compass. When you talk about solid bodies next week, make sure you mention the Rickenbacker Bakelite models (they made both lap steel and Spanish style bakelites in the 40s). THANK YOU FOR THIS AWESOME PIECE OF HISTORY!
Since I live in Spain, I've been in a couple of music museums. If you're ever in Almeria go to the guitar museum. Torres laid the foundation for the classic guitar as we know it in this little town in Andalusia. I saw some of his works from the 1800s and they look pretty much like student classic guitars from the present that you can buy in every guitar store for 50 bucks. I also recommend the music museum in Barcelona where you can find some of his master pieces, too.
The earliest music for an instrument called “Guitar” was published in Seville by Alonzo Mudarra around 1565. It had four courses of strings. Documentation suggests gg’-c’c’-e’e’-a tuning and a scale length of around 19”. In other words, a baritone Uke strung for Low G. Christopher Page’s excellent book and video series “The Guitar in Tudor England” which cites the earliest known instance in English of a guy claiming the ladies dug it when he played guitar….
The Baroque guitar that was in the painting was definitely an ancestor of the modern guitar. It has 9 stings tuned from bottom to top A D G B and E. The bottom 4 strings are doubled and the top E string is by itself and is called the Chanterelle or the singing string. The only thing this guitar needs is a low E string and it would pretty much be a Spanish guitar.
Baroque guitar gang!
Made me think of tom hanks in the lady killers lol.
There was gradual , overlapping , parallel transition from Baroque Guitar to Romantic Guitar , in different Western Regions .
English Guitar was used as what we would regognize " as a guitar " , but had 5 courses of doubled strings , tuned in open C .
Russian Guitar we would recognize as a guitar , but had 7 single strings , tuned in open G .
Then came the Spanish Guitar , which solidified the concept of 6 strings .
So, Baroque Djent
3:52 is where it all _begins_ ... ❤
Finally someone who knows that the log was far from the first
LOVE THIS!
Long before (like 30 years ago) I ever went down the pedal rabbit hole, I wanted to know all about how we got to what we know as the guitar. Fascinating!
I've played the Middle Eastern tar, the oldest guitar thing I've personally played - 3 maybe 4 strings across a floating bridge with movable frets on basically a flat side broom handle attached to a fancy wood bowl. Played ouds and lutes and a lot of other stringed weirdness in between - Cuban Tres or Puerto Rican quatro anyone?
Of all of those unique guitar relatives I still have a charango in my collection that's the Inca take on what we would come to know as the guitar - the vihiuela ( I think that is what is in the 16th century painting you show that the girl is playing) which came at the dawn of colonialism in S America, its an instrument of revolution and resistance. The spanish forbade the inca from playing their instruments so this was the inca take on those instruments 🤘 ...
anyway, just 100% cool, Josh. Thank you for being the absolute awesome history Nerd that you are!
Very nice video, Josh. I knew a lot of it already as singular facts but it's nice to see things compiled into one easy to understand and follow video.
Nylon was invented in 1939, so early Spanish style guitars must have had gut strings. Other instruments, such as drums, used animal tissue in their construction. That would actually be an interesting "adjacent possible" to examine - the invention of engineered materials, mostly polymers, and what they have brought to the guitar.
Josh, a long time ago I played in an early English music ensemble. The cello player played a 15th century Viola da Gamba which was fretted, 6 strings and had a Keith Richard’s style open d tuning. Looked like a six string fretted cello.
St colombe rox
There’s a big skip at like 35:10. Cut from Stromberg to frying pan lap steel
John Ambrose Fleming, would like a mention. We think of it as a "rectifier tube", which was needed for Lee de Forest's triode.
I’m curious when the 1/4” jack became the standard for guitars and amps.
Interesting note to add: Lloyd Loar that designed the L-5 also tinkered with early mandolin and viola/violin pickup designs. Another example of that "adjacent possible"
You are a FANTASTIC teacher, Josh! I'm a guitar nerd and I already knew a lot of this stuff, but some things were a huge surprise to me. I could listen to you talking about this (as well as other music related subjects) for HOURS!
Thanks!!! 😊❤️👍
Some of the first circuits were the vacuum tube oscillator in 1912, constant current modulator in 1913 and the Flip Flop in 1919 (one of my personal favs). Harold A. Wheeler designed the Automatic Volume Control for AM radios in 1926 and that circuit used a "diode detector." H. Yagi and S. Uda of Tohoku University were the first to use wave interference to obtain gain and directivity from wire aerials. The first negative feedback amp circuit was 1927, discovered by H.S. Black at Bell Labs. 🤓
Josh - I'm so happy you are in this culture and community. We are all richer for it. I'm fascinated by one major question: Why was so much work put into evolving the guitar when for so long it was such a "side-piece" of musical performance? What made people decide guitar was worth evolving and putting effort into it? (I'm glad it happened...no doubt.)
Perhaps the tuning eadgbe is another guitar definition, for what we consider a guitar today, in terms of the family of features that makes it what it is? The Spanish guitars are the pioneers of using standard tuning? The Lute is played with six strings but the equivalent guitar b string is tuned 1 fret different, from what I remember. A reason for talking about the tuning is because it informs the musical vocabulary and techniques. Perhaps an adjacent in the evolution is the music and tuning.
In the early 60's, before there were light gauge strings, my guitar teacher had me buy a regular set of strings and a Hawaiian guitar G string. I'd use the Hawaiian G to replace the high E, move all the other strings up and eliminate the low E string from the set. That's how I made my first sets of bendable strings.
I heard from a guy who was and alter-Lansing collector/authority that Jim Lansing and the Doprea brothers (dobro) were both located in Long Beach CA in the same what we would call industrial strip. If you compare a Lansing basket and a Dobro cone they are very similar. Perhaps a few shared lunchtime conversations happened?
500 BC Gibson issues first cease and desist letter
Fabulous history lesson. Least boring history lesson, EVER !!!!
Yes. It's a period instrument. Likely a renaissance guitar or some might call it a baroque guitar given the date. Trumpets and violins and clarinets were also different then. So I'd say yes. That's not just a guitar like instrument. It's a guitar. But maybe I'm wrong.
Can't speak from much expertise on the matter but in college, I played in the Colligium Musicum, the Medieval music ensemble. My professor enticed me to play the viola de gamba (viola of the thighs) by telling me it was an interesting crossroad between cello and guitar (my main 2 instruments at the time. He was also absolutely right. I was in it all 8 semesters). It had 6 strings tuned A D G B E A low-to-high, 7 frets on the upper portion of the neck, and then bowed similarly to a cello. The tuning can vary as there are bass, tenor, alto, and soprano viola de gambas. All of them used sheep gut strings and tuning was a nightmare. During out concerts, we'd have to take at least 3 tuning breaks between songs. My professor who ran it would alternate between his viola de gamba, a 12 string lute, and a period 5 string guitar that he said was tuned like a guitar in D Standard without the low D. I always found it interesting how closely related the tunings were and the evolution from one to the other. Especially as a musician who started as a cellist and then discovered non-5th-based instruments, the overlap and almost logical progression of tuning systems being codified and standardized as you move from Medieval into Renaissance into Baroque and Classical and then into more contemporary forms of music and how the instruments are being utilized and therefore necessitating some form of evolution, prompting people to seize the adjacent possible and reconceptualize their instruments is really fascinating. Hope I didn't ramble too much there, just wanted to share what little I knew about old instruments
I've been loving your talks about the fundamental ideas being where these things that we love so much come from (especially this one) and how did we get there and your love and passion for history and the preservation of it. Keep it up, man, this was awesome!! I'm looking forward to the next one
“Nylon,” as we know, is strictly post-WWII. I don’t think the first nylon products were available until 1948 or so. So before that, gut was everything, just like with tennis racquets.
Great history, thanks :D
Couple of ideas for the future of this series:
1. Use split screen instead of the picture overlay
2. Since we're talking about guitars and sound, maybe it would be nice to demo some of the different sounds!
I watched this whole thing live and it was great. you don't get this combination of qualities in a lot of people, knows a LOT about pedals, is fun to listen to and can really play. really starting to like this channel. you should do a synth jam with florian from "bad gear". I would watch the fuck out of that.
@ghost mall he's always using pedals in his setups
My Dad, who was born in 1922 in The Netherlands, was a huge Hawaiian music fan in pre and post war Holland. The Kilima Islanders were the big group there. He also had his own trio. He played Hawaiian steel guitar on an acoustic tuned to C, I think, on his lap with a microphone in it. Thanks for helping bring back those memories.
That's also how Jeff Healey played guitar. He was blind, and still one of the best blues guitar players ever.
Fun fact: From a per capita perspective, Hawaiian music was more popular for far longer than Rock and Roll has ever been. It's influence is still present in modern country music. It's strange that modern culture doesn't recognize it at all. Most people have no idea. What a sad state of affairs.
Josh. Please come to Arizona and visit the MIM. Musical Instrument Museum. Largest museum in the world for instruments. It needs some JHS pedals.
Google says "The first electric circuit was invented by Alessandro Volta (1745-1847) in 1800. He discovered he could produce a steady flow of electricity using bowls of salt solution connected by metal strips."
Awesome video 🎉
I have to offer a compliment. I think JHS works hard to address multiple audiences and commend the company for doing so. That said given my particular interests and planetary tenure these Monday talk sessions are the best thing I have found in a long time. More learning and thinking than trying to be entertaining or funny. Nothing wrong with those things but like many of us time is limited and I look for the greatest return on my time and these sessions are superlative. Josh you have my thanks
Also on standby for the history of the "TS-Jack-Cable"... We all just take it for normal nowadays!
😉
The Ultimate Guitar Book by Tony Bacon starts with luscious pics from the 16th century with the masters and the oddballs from all over the world. A must have for guitar lovers. BTW, Oud is pronounced "Ood".
Yep. And yep.
I love it that you have a backlit microwave. Just an off-topic. Thanks for this series. #nerdsunite
Well, violinists play literally hundreds of years old instruments, which are worth millions. The idea that we play stuff designed in 1955 isn’t that outrageous
BMG was 10 for the price of 1 CD. Columbia was 10 CD's for 1 penny.
I always ordered BMG. My first rock & roll CD's were from BMG. Like 4 GnR, Snow(Informer), Ahmad, Celly Cel, and a couple of other rap CD's. all sorts of stuff lol. BMG started my fascination with music.
If you haven’t read “the concise history of the classical guitar”, its a great read with a wealth of knowledge.
great look at the history, Josh. one thing though, nylon strings were not invented until 1947, so prior to the introduction of steel strings, guitar strings were 'catgut' - actually made from sheep and cattle intestines. the first wound steel strings used silk as a core
You're the reason why they invented internet :). I'm from Sweden and a bit into the history of swedish guitars, makes it clear that the swedish companies (at least Levin/Goya) were quite early
I am starting to like the Monday show more that the normal show. Imagine Jeff Healey playing the frying pan in its day.
Great stuff! Loved the 1890 patent thing, was not aware of that at all. Nor DeForest. Learning is fun! Your overall theme of the need for louder makes a lot of sense and is an easy way to grasp modern guitar evolution.
I'm still unclear as to when steel strings a) became available at all, and b) became prevalent, or at least commonplace. From what I've gathered over the years, steel strings were still an anomaly, a special use-case kind of thing, until well into the 20th century, say somewhere in the teens? And banjos didn't have steel strings until later either, at least that was my understanding. The Hawaiian music craze that had its roots in the late 1800's plays a big role in all this, as you mention, but when could you go to the general store and buy steel guitar strings? Who made those first steel strings?
I love topics like this because there's a lot to know but still many unanswered questions, and a lot of it is open to interpretation and varying definitions. It's like the "what was the first rock and roll record?" thing - great food for thought but impossible to answer without being annoyingly long winded about it.
Interesting topic. I have spent numerous hours researching this topic. I honestly can not find a definitive answer. Loads of speculation still exists. Hopefully, you will continue your research.
I absolutely love this stuff! 🤓 Great video Josh, thank you! 🙏 Another UA-camr who I’ve enjoyed is Brandon Acker, although you’re probably already familiar with him, but he’s done some great work on the history of the guitar too!
The best way to learn is to teach
Monday with Josh, mark your calendar!
We have a Stroh violin. Looks wild but is nice and loud and has a unique metallic tone.
Your Monday monologs have been must watch for me. Another excellent show, thank you so much!
Josh was there really nylon strings way back then? Just looked it up we didn't have nylon until 1939. I'm pretty sure it was just gut strings back then . Not trying to be a mister know it all I'm going to watch the whole show I'm a big fan.
nylon strings were invented in 1947. prior to that wound metal strings had a silk core - also not trying to be a mister know it all, but nylon is definitely a twentieth century material
@@phillipcayzer9998 I looked up when nylon was invented not nylon strings that's why they are different dates.
One of my guitar players used to bring a cuatro to jam with which is very similar to a lute.
Love this series. Worthy of the History channel.
Love this format Josh! BTW, last mention of history and string material left me wondering about when Nylon even came to existence... it apperas to be 1948. Classical guitar strings were originally made with animal intestine and silk wound with animal intestine up until World War II, when war restrictions led Albert Augustine Ltd. to develop nylon strings. I'm guessing Nylon was much louder than intestines and silk too. So the old guitars ar likley quetier than most would imagine. I would love to see you compare a set of Gut strings to nylon on a video. (My citation en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_guitar_strings#:~:text=Classical%20guitar%20strings%20were%20originally,put%20into%20production%20in%201948)
Isn’t the rick frying pan already the first solid body or was that tiny round body hollow?
A topic for Pt. 2?: For years we have heard about PAF Pickups. What year was that Patent Granted?
Great history lesson! I would write more but my JHS Harmonic Trem just arrived, happy days! See ya next Monday….
Wow. I was vaguely aware of this but details count, right? Thanks for this, looking forward to the next episode.
I think when we talk about modern electric guitars - being 50s tech still, it’s just a classic case of “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it” in the 80s they came up with synth guitar and all sorts of weird and wonderful “modern” ideas - but let’s be honest, they’re gimmicky junk, you can’t beat the natural tone of an electro magnet producing a signal to amp. It’s all you need.
Hi Josh, just to let you know that the oud is pronounced like a Scooby doo ghost saying “ooooh”. If you check out the amazing musical comedian Bill Bailey he does a whole sketch on it 😊
Josh, please read all you can about PAUL BARTH, he is one of the forgotten founding fathers of the electric guitar. His contributions are vastly underestimated, mainly because he was a quite unassuming man who never sort the limelight.
Beauchamp and Barth created the horseshoe pickup on Paul Barth’s mothers (Irma Dopyera) kitchen table. They created this Together.
Beauchamp eventually raised the patent in his name. Barth raised a patent for a detachable horseshoe pickup, that could be retrofitted to Spanish guitar, it had to be strapped on.
Beauchamp and Barth were great buddies, while in partnership with the Dopyera brothers the resonator was created, Beauchamp still wanted more volume, hence he worked with Barth and the Rickenbacker frying Pan came about.
Barth was the consistent thread from the early days, he was a founding member of the National String Instrument Corporation, with Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacher, with the first board meeting on 29 February 1928.
Barth remained with the Rickenbacker company until 1957. Les Paul was a regular dinner guest at the Barth family home and was influenced by Barth. Barth replaced Paul Bigsby at Magnatone.
He is also credited with helping Leo Fender set up the original semi-automated assembly line in Santa Ana in the early ‘50s, when the Stratocaster was first being built. Paul built many of the woodworking jigs that were used to shape necks and bodies for the very first Jazzmaster, Jaguar, and Stratocaster guitars. He also built all the jigs
Paul Barth’s fingerprints and influence are all over the iconic guitars we still know today.
Electro String
National
Rickenbacker
Fender
Bartell
Barth
Acoustic Corp
Hohner
Magnatone
Mosrite
Natural Music Guild
The book Finding Fretless is the best source of information about Barth. www.findingfretless.com
By the way, his guitars were played by, The Beatles, Hendrix, Zappa, Chuck Berry and more…..
Such a nice video. I recently aquired a 7 course Lute, and besides playing my synths I study "Partimento" on piano and I hope a harpsichord someday. Only since 2007 do we have a grasp on the history of "Western" harmonic music, thanks to Gjerdingen, Sanguietti, and Baragwanath, and other scholars. The most influential place in the great revival of "historical practice" in music is the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. With respect, I think you may learn there is a huge heritage of Voice, Guitar (Lute) and Keyboard which was "disrupted" right around the time the first modern guitar appeared, though the transition was more nuanced in Latin America, where the Vihuela lived on and morphed into so many variations. Your points about volume are well taken, though I think we have lost alot of acoustic richness in the pursuit of dancehall volume. The Lute really drops my jaw. Hendrix would have loved it. The 12-strings of the Beatles, Smiths and Petty are directly tied to chordophones so central to our harmonic heritage, the many Lutes and Therobos in Europe from 1100 to about 1820. A vast literature of tablature survives, far exceeding what is available for keyboards in the same period. These are the grandparents of the Guitar, and their players were far more educated and sophisticated than most imagine. There is considerable politics in the near loss of the family album and history, from 1850 to today, which is a shame, since there is so much to learn and apply to how we pluck today. Nikhil Hogan's Channel, starting around episode 60 has long interviews with the leading scholars and professors of historical practice today, and the "lute channel" has some fantastic interviews with heavy hitters on the Lute, who all started on Guitars, and remain great fans. Thanks for all your insights on pedals, which has cost me a grand or so lately, but saved a fortune ;)
IC's, transistors and surface mount components are most assuredly NOT 50's tech.
I get your point but c'mon, man. Some things from the 50's and 60's are baked into the cake at this point but we are by and large using tech that came about in the 70's and 80's like IC's, PCB'S, ADA conversion, DSP and MIDI.
The baroque guitar of the early 1600s was a real guitar. There were probably a few variations in tuning especially since the concept of equal temperament and A=440 concert pitch was not yet a thing. A modern guitarist would be able to play a baroque instrument, especially if he/she also had experience with other stringed instruments like ukulele or banjo. The baroque guitar was picked, not usually strummed.
The baroque guitar also had movable gut frets, probably because intonation was still a fluid concept. Common tunings at this time would have been things like traditional and just intonation. Possibly even Pythagorean tuning was still in use in some contexts. The note A during the baroque period was about 415 Hz. Mostly.
Musical score was also very different. The baroque period was an era when many of these concepts began to crystallise. Eventually this became what we know today as western style instruments and musical theory. To a large extent this was to the detriment of traditional and regional folk music.
History is fascinating and it always pays to learn the history of whatever discipline you work in, because it gives insights into why things are the way they are, while opening the creaky museum cabinet of possibilities.
Yes that was a Guitar, the Baroque Guitar, preceded by the Vihuela, the Spanish version of the Lute, which has origins in the Oud, which is commonly understood to be the first guitar like instrument.
The Baroque Guitar evolved into the Spanish Guitar, which was not considered a “Classical” instrument until Andres Segovia “rescued” it from the gypsies in the early 20th century, or so he pompously claimed.
Interesting to note that George Harrison called Segovia the Granddaddy of us all, to which Segovia replied “them? I had nothing to do with them.” Guitarists, lol…
In order to appreciate the Guitar’s existence centuries before Antonio de Torres, reference Gaspar Sanz’ work for the instrument-
Volume 1: Instrucción de música sobre la guitarra española (Zaragoza, 1674)
ua-cam.com/video/MOcsy1Ewj6M/v-deo.html
The first circuit is a tough one, I did some research and Luigi Galvani in 1780 discovered he could make a frog's leg twitch by running electricity through it and he did this by connecting a piece of iron to a piece of copper and when the frog's leg completed the circuit it would twitch. He knew it was electricity (calling it "animal electricity") doing this. The idea of a circuit I don't think had been conceived yet but he was making a complete circuit as apposed to just running electricity to ground like Ben Franklin and others who experimented with static electricity. Galvani's work inspired Volta who invented the battery in 1799 and was part of the inspiration for Mary Shelly's book Frankenstein.
8:30 ...not to be a butt or a "bo-bo" (certainly NOT trying to be a bo-bo).... That's more a diddley-bow than a guitar, which is, however, where a lot of what we consider "The Blues" (always with a capital "B") began. Jack made a very cool electric diddley-bow with a coke bottle bridge. By the gods, I've loved that film since seeing it in the same theater where I saw a performance by Sunn O))). Some places are just magik.
Fun fact: the Stroh violin is used in the score of pretty much every vampire movie when they want things to sound Transylvanian
Have many parallel threads to the adjacent that I'd like to offer up. Had a Jazz guitar teacher that championed the guitar as a saxophone and piano that you could hold on your knee... portable. Music culture is diverse and spreads like a virus (in a good way not a covid way) like with Appalachian fiddle playing you can hear the drones of the Scottish bagpipes.... some musicologists attribute the mandolin as coming from Italian railroad workers back in the day (this is very much a potted history lacking rigor). My ears pricked up with the mention of the Hawaiian influence on American culture during the depression, happy stuff!! The lap steel and the pick up seem like a natural fit. I purchased a Japanese Teisco guitar recently which had weird yellow fake tortoise shell that I found emulated Oahu guitars. Working backwards from the Japanese perspective seems to suggest another interest with the Spanish guitar origin perhaps the brand name Ibanez and its origin in 1935 from a company founded in 1903 specifically catering to a Japanese interest. The Jack White idea of improvising an electric guitar works just as well when thinking about African American history and portable improvised making of instruments... It might get loud but much music has happened adjacent to the human voice. The vacuum tube has also functioned beyond amplification to 'broadcast' i.e. casting out audio visual stuff via radio and television [interesting non guitar side note is the tubes influence in the synthesizer with the Theremin around 1910 as well as it's use in the telecommunication code and decode device during WW2 which is now known as a vocoder]........ Stop me as I'm starting to rant... Absolutely love your stuff Josh and thank you so much for the generosity with which you share your knowledge! So very much appreciated.
Check out Guitar: An American Life, a book and audio podcast by Tim Brookes. It’s a fast moving and entertaining history lesson about how America and Americans influenced development and popularity of the guitar. I’ve gifted this book several times to friends who appreciate music in American culture. It’s not just a book for guitarists. It’s for all of us who appreciate the guitar and its players.
It's it own Rabbit Hole about Resonator Guitar history , but there's a tie in at the end .
The other partner in National Guitar was John Dopera , who did most of the actual designing and inventing .
They had disagreements over direction , and finally a blow up over who stole whose patent . Dopera , ( even though he owned half of National ) said essentially F' you , I'm leaving , and I'm going to put your out of business .
Dobro ( Dopera Brothers ) brought out the louder , richer sounding , and much less expensive Spider Bridge Resonator . And in a couple of years , National was bankrupt , and Dopera Brothers bought up the rights and assets , and made both styles under the respective brand names . And fired Beauchamp .
Thus at liberty , Beauchamp teamed up with Richenbaucher ( spelling later Americanized) , perfected electricity , and brought out the Frying Pan .
Banjo is actually really cool. The story of the banjo is an incredible and truly American story. I don't want to give details in a comment but if you did a little research, you'd probably want to tell that story on your channel. Plus, the banjo is responsible for a lot of what has become the American sound. Everyone had to tune to the banjo or play in the banjo's key. It's the heart of the American string band.
I got to play an 1850 C.F. Martin parlor sized guitar. Crazy when I held it due to the context of Lincoln not having been elected President. That exact model you show. Guitar is still located in St. Louis if you want to check it out Josh.
Looking back into Western pop culture history to see when the guitar started to overtake Banjo, Mandolin, fiddle, piano, and accordion in popularity highlighted one, very popular U.S. star. He was a cowboy, he sang and played guitar.
maybe i misunderstood some of your points, but i think that some of the information you give is not quite accurate.
you make it sound (maybe unintentionally), as if torres strung his guitars also with nylon-strings. there were no nylon-strings in the 1800s. they weren't a thing until 1938 (according to wikipedia), and then it took them some time to catch on (mainly thanks to segovia).
in the days of old there was not only fingerpicking on guitar, but also strumming, either as a mixture of picking and strumming:
ua-cam.com/video/jVl7TaAqb2A/v-deo.html
or as pure strumming for accompaniment:
ua-cam.com/video/NkopCJmS4-4/v-deo.html
while there were possibly no real steel-strings, there were metal-strings (mostly brass, i presume).
chitarra battente:
ua-cam.com/video/4Hx-mAkPc0E/v-deo.html
cittern (not a guitar, strictly speaking, but related):
ua-cam.com/video/jYSaTkXNeiQ/v-deo.html
i don't know recordings from the bmg-movement (or if there are any), but given the long history of strumming on the guitar, it is hard to believe that the people in those bands were not strumming chords at least sometimes.
as a side note - i don't think oud is pronounced like ouch:
ua-cam.com/video/KA5VdzRHh-U/v-deo.html
regards
I highly recommend the book Deep Blues, by Robert Palmer (not that Robert Palmer) which -- IIRC -- goes into some of this history, with the goal of explaining how the guitar ended up in the hands of players like Charlie Patton, Son House, and so many other musicians that played the diverse range of regional folk styles that we now just call "blues."
That's in my stack!
My Grandfather and his brothers bought guitars and banjos from the Sears catalog in the 1920's for their vaudeville act. Sadly, the instruments got lost when the brothers moved on to serious careers during the Depression.
"in a world..." Well for a time in the 80's the guitar evolved into a synth. Then we realized there is no tone wood in a synth.
Fascinating series, if you love guitar- I think it’s a given - we want to know about it’s origins!
I really enjoy content like this. Keep it up! Suggestion for a future topic: History of Amplifiers. But not just guitar/bass amplification, but the evolution of the stage/musical performance amplifications systems. The guitar amp is only a part of the interconnected instrument/vocal, sound reinforcement, stage PA system. There are a lot of adjacent innovations from the big band era, through early rock n' roll, through Woodstock and the arena rock era.
I Am late to this and maybe its covered below,-- it had to start with a single vibrating string; later making it portable, more strings, etc. But you just said that so I retract. I think guitar starts with multiple strings and a resonation device. So weren't;t the first needs for amplification ln the "spanish" played guitar was to get it out (solos) in front of bigger horn bands a la Charlie Christian etc etc,
There’s a great 3 part BBC Arena documentary with Alan Yentob about the guitar. When the Parlour guitar was introduced in the London in the 16th century to the upper classes, piano and harpsichord makers started to worry about it becoming more popular than their keyboards with young socialite women. So they bought a ton of cheap guitars and distributed them for free to ‘women of ill repute’ to play on street corners to tarnish the standing of the guitar and keep the young rich women buying keyboard instruments instead.
I wasn’t able to watch this in real time, but keep coming back again and again to watch. Such fascinating stuff. Thanks so much for sharing 😀
I have been loving these so much! Can’t wait for the next one.
I saw some street musicians in Edinburgh last summer playing Strohviols, they sounded amazing :)
One of the coolest videos on UA-cam hands down. Thanks for doing this man.. im excited for part two!
The guy that invented the tube looks remarkably similar to Nick. Maybe Nick should go as his ghost for Halloween.
The Persian Tar looks a lot like a guitar, including the number of strings. I am not sure, though if it predates the early guitars or not. It also has a strong linguistic link. BTW the setar, which is etymologically related to the sitar, had three strings (se, being persian for three). I have always just assumed that some Persians in Al Andalus got together with some Arabs or other mustali in Al Andalus and mashed their instruments together.
Be aware, the horned instrument likely did not just have a horn but a horn over a diaphragm. So the strings likely used a bridge to vibrate the diaphragm amplified by the horn. In many ways similar in concept to the resonator, but the resonator was more like playing a speaker, and this was not like playing a loudspeaker.
Hawaiian music has never totally gone away to this day .
But Leo Fender , who didn't play , was heavily into the Western Swing scene , and already sucuessfully selling steel guitars .
I beg to differ, the Gypsies changed it to what you call Spanish guitar!!!
The humbleness that Josh shows in his way of learning and teaching what he has learned so far is what we need in this world. Deep dives, small steps towards learning how we are here. If we go wrong, we go back, we learn more and we correct the mistakes. Not deny it. You can't just make 15 second snippets to "the one absolute truth" of the birth and the way of the electric guitar. There isn't one cause it required many paths.
I really like these episodes you are doing and hope you never stop. Hope you also find a way to fund the research and the trips that you and your supporters feel comfortable with.
The irony of the guitar being too quiet for the cool kids...
Maybe just a master bypass switch
what does Dreadnaught stands for?
I mean in a strict sense. I know which type of guitar it refers to...
Half know. Do not trust only one source on the net. (Examples: nylon strings, tuning etc ). Listen. And learn.
Jeez. You make it sound like A Prairie Home Companion was a hundred years ago...
Now, is the Stromberg Electro the same as the phenomenal Stromberg archtops?
So in the BMG movement, guitar is essentially the Hawkeye