30 Aug 2026

August 2026 – A Timeline of Guitar History in 400+ Snippets: Part I

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Prelude

ZIP‑A‑DEE‑DOO‑DAH, YIPEE‑KI‑AY AND YABA‑DABA‑DOO. Halloo again, fine people, here we are once more. Time flies or at least our perception of it does. Two thirds of 2026 is already done and dusted, meaning that it’s the long run down into deepest and darkest winter and the carolling capers of customary Christmas‑time. Sorry to break the news to you this early but it is coming and you know that you can’t avoid or prevent the silly season that concludes each and every year. Oh well, if one can’t beat it, one might as well embrace it. Happy Holidays everyone!

Peace & Love in our time? Yes please. When, exactly? Erm… Never. Not gonna happen. What is wrong with these desperately deluded, depraved, demented despots? Us ordinary everyday folks are expected to put up, shut up and be content with our lot, pay our inflated taxes, do as we’re told and respect the law, so why are the so‑called nation leaders incapable of doing the same at a strategic geopolitical level? No sane person wants conflict. There is no Nobel War Prize to ‘celebrate’ the pointless massacre of millions and the destruction of so much. Peace is not hard. Put down your killing machines, make compromises and co‑exist peacefully. Simples. These international thugs and territorial zealots should be brought to account and be dealt with severely. How long will we, as world citizens, stand by and allow these atrocities to which we are complicit through inaction? Whatever happened to pragmatism, altruism humanism and justice(‑ism)? Anglo‑Irish politician and philosopher, Edmund Burke was spot on nearly two Centuries ago…

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” – Edmund Burke (1729‑1797)

Will we ever learn? Seemingly not. Arguably, humans are the most intelligent and the most ignorant species on this solitary little blue bauble of ours. An unresolvable dichotomy that humans uniquely reserve for themselves. Sadly.

This Month at CRAVE Guitars…

Right, enough angry polemic, down to vintage guitar business. No time to waste. Yup, here we are with the first of another two part series for your discerning deliberation and delightful delectation.

Regular readers may have noticed that I have covered the history of guitars several times over the years in several different ways. However, I don’t think I’ve ever set out a straightforward timeline of key moments throughout guitar history. So, perhaps this is the time to set that particular record straight.

“Sometimes the nicest thing to do with a guitar is just look at it” – Thom Yorke (1968‑)

After another flight of fantastical fancy last month, it is back to a couple of articles of factual reality focusing on the world’s favourite musical instrument. After last month’s barrage of artificial imagery, this article is definitely one for the reality list‑o‑philes out there. So, after last month’s panoply of pictures, we now have a litany of lists (Ed. Alliteration in top form this month).

As usual, no AI was used in the research and writing of this article. Quotes of wisdom are all about the perpetual and enduring fascination, addiction and obsession with the unassuming instrument. Also as usual, this piece of work is not undertaken with forensic academic rigour and is intended as infotainment (such a horrible ‘word’) purposes only. However, strenuous diligence was applied with the aim of achieving a balance between factual information and popular entertainment. We have an awful lot to get through this month and next, so please bear with me while the story unfolds.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m just a guitar player, and my job is to go out there and play and entertain and do my thing” – Les Paul (1915‑2009)

The Rationale for the Article

The in‑depth history of the guitar’s evolution was explored in, ‘A Potted History of the Guitar’ published by CRAVE Guitars in nine parts from March to November 2018. That was an extensive narrative exercise, originally illustrated with many images obtained from Google Images. After a rude and costly awakening to the perils of using such images, all pictures not created by me were later removed from the series, thereby largely undermining the exercise. That series still works but it lacks the visuals that made it ‘real’. What a shame.

Below are links to each of those ‘History of the Guitar’ articles, should you be so inclined to take a(nother) look (each link opens in a new browser tab)…

In addition, there was the supplementary/complementary article, published in January 2024…

“A guitar is like an old friend that is there with me” – B.B. King (1925‑2015)

There is even some new information in this article that wasn’t included in the original series of articles. If you prefer narrative storytelling to the list‑of‑snippets style, those articles are probably a good place to start. They cover much of the same material but in a very different way.

My original intention was, perhaps, to publish the original series in expanded form, such as a book, but that never happened due to the overwhelming constraints of the whole process. Another alternative was to publish the articles as a dedicated page on the website. However, those 10 articles included a massive amount of detail that I felt was not readily digestible as online content. As a result, nothing further happened and the articles have been gradually relegated down a long list of articles over the intervening 8 years.

Then, in April 2025, I published a monthly article, ‘An A‑Z of Vintage Guitar Gear: in 150 Snippets’. This set out short summaries of well‑known guitar gear brand names in alphabetic order. That list was subsequently converted into a web page under the ‘Resources’ section of the website. The ‘A‑Z…’ was fine (if I say so myself), especially if one was looking for a specific reference but it didn’t really help with a question like, ‘what happened in the 1940s?’ This critical insight got me thinking. Again.

For completeness and convenience, here are the links to the ‘A‑Z…’ article and web page (each link opens in a new browser tab)…

Knowing how my feeble brainium’s mechanism operates, I guess that it was only a matter of time before the remaining marble figured that an appropriate complement to the ‘A‑Z…’ would be a summary timeline that a) condensed the descriptive ‘Potted History…’ into a much smaller and easier to digest format, and b) covered many of the same names featured in the ‘A‑Z…’

“Yes, we three were so happy, my wife, my guitar and me!” – Big Bill Broonzy (1893/1903‑1958)

The tabular format meant that I basically had to start from scratch, which resulted in a whole shedload of work. The noble intention will be, after it has been published as CRAVE Guitars’ Musings, to integrate both parts into a single page on the website under the ‘Resources’ menu, in the same way as the ‘A-Z…’. Making both the ‘A‑Z…’ and the ‘Timeline…’ pages available should, together, provide a useful resource and an important addition to the website (and perhaps even to human knowledge!!). I cannot claim that it will be comprehensive – that would require a LOT more effort. However, it should be more than enough for the casual visitor with an interest in the subject matter.

For accessibility in the here and now of CRAVE Guitars’ articledom, the ‘Timeline…’ has been split into two articles, again, to make the whole easier to digest. This first article carries all the necessary preamble and a timeline from the guitars’ earliest origins up until the end of the 19th Century. Part II will concentrate solely on the more recent history of the 20th and 21st Centuries (so far) as well as a conclusion.

“This machine kills fascists” – Woody Guthrie (1912‑1967)

The Basics – Definition of a Guitar

We all know what a guitar is. Right? Are you sure? Before we get into the history and evolution of the guitar, it kinda makes sense to know exactly what it is that we are talking about. We may be instinctively aware of what a guitar represents in 2026, simply because of our day‑to‑day familiarity with the instrument. However, there is possibly some benefit in defining what we mean by a guitar as a starting point.

There are many opinions about the etymology of the word ‘guitar’. Most point to it as simply deriving from the Greek word ‘kithara’, through the Roman ‘cithara’, the Arabic ‘qitara’, the Spanish ‘guitarra’, the French ‘guitare’ and the German ‘Gitarre’, becoming more familiar through its introduction across Europe and before finishing up with the current English word ‘guitar’. That, though, only tracks the evolution of the word, not how and why the word came about in the first place.

My own research indicates that the origin of the word ‘guitar’ is commonly constructed of 2 key components. The prefix likely refers to the number of strings that an instrument may have while the common suffix, ‘tar’, likely stems from ancient Sanskrit word meaning ‘string’. This results in a variety of alternatives, such as dotar (2), setar (3), chartar (4), panchtar (5), sattar (7), chitar (12) and so on. In 2026, we now have the guitar (generally, 6) culminating the instrument’s progression from Middle Eastern pre‑history, through Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome to the current day. I suspect that there may well be other examples that bear out this proposition. To me, this kinda makes sense. Whatever the truth, I hope you get the general idea of how the word ‘guitar’ originated, evolved and came to be part of the modern lexicon.

“Doesn’t matter what guitar you play, as long as you’ve got passion!” – Eric Johnson (1954‑)

So, where is the guitar positioned amongst the diversity of musical instruments? The widely accepted international system for categorising musical instruments is the Hornbostel‑Sachs Classification of Musical Instruments. The extensive work was undertaken by Austrian scholar, Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and German musicologist, Curt Sachs and was published as the seminal, ‘Systematik der Musikinstrumente (Hornbostel and Sachs 1914)’. The system is a complex hierarchical model.

There are five distinct groupings in the top‑level tier of the Hornbostel‑Sachs system:

  1. Idiophones – percussive instruments
  2. Membranophones – drums, timpani
  3. Chordophones – stringed instruments
  4. Aerophones – wind instruments
  5. Electrophones – electronic instruments

Hornbostel‑Sachs categorised guitars as part of a broader musical instrument classification of stringed instruments known as a chordophone (NB. Deriving from the words, ‘chorda’, Latin for string and ‘phone’, Greek for sound/voice). A chordophone is defined as “a musical instrument that makes sound by way of a vibrating string or strings stretched between two points”. Chordophones comprise simple and composite chordophones. The composite group includes 2 main sub‑groupings; lutes and harps. The guitar falls within the ‘necked box lutes’ class (321.322). For example…

The main division of chordophones into which the guitar falls are known as composite because they incorporate “a resonator that forms an integral part of the instrument”, i.e. with a sound chamber like an acoustic guitar’s hollow body. This characteristic differentiates the guitar from, say, a piano or harpsichord. A chordophone’s strings may be plucked, bowed, strummed or struck thereby creating a sound vibration.

String vibration results in rapid, local changes in air density that the human ear (an auditory sensor) picks up and which, via the auditory nerve, the brain interprets as sounds. The major part of the brain responsible for sound processing is the auditory cortex of the temporal lobe. In psychoacoustics (tonotopy), we generally hear a musical note as comprising pitch (frequency spectrum), intensity (volume), envelope (attack, sustain and decay), harmonics (related frequencies) and timbre (tone). The brain then links perceived sounds to other functions such as cognition, memory and emotion. That’s the much‑simplified explanation, folks!

The number of strings or courses of strings a chordophone may have can vary. NB. A course of strings comprises either a single string or multiple strings that are positioned closely together and which are typically played together. Multiple strings in a course are generally either tuned in unison – to the same pitch – or an octave apart. For instance, a typical modern 12‑string guitar has 6 courses of paired strings with the bass strings tuned an octave apart while the treble strings are tuned in unison.

The modern amplified electric guitar would initially appear to diverge from the Hornbostel‑Sachs original designation and definition, as the technology was not present when the system was devised. The electromagnetic pickup in a solid body electric guitar basically replaces the acoustic chordophone’s resonating sound chamber. In order to fit the electric guitar into a pre‑existing system, it is generally categorised as a ‘solid body electric chordophone’. A guitar is not an electrophone, as the pickups produce an electrical signal, not an electronic one.

“A guitar is a good thing to actually have in your hands and feel it and get the vibrations and feel the weight of it” – Jeff Beck (1944‑2023)

Some historical commentators assert that the guitar’s origins date from the 16th to 18th Centuries. Certainly, the main characteristics of guitars as we now know them began to be standardised during that period. Things are not that simple though. The guitar did not appear fully formed following the European Renaissance. Thousands of years of history have led us up to the current day. Some instruments along the way vary considerably from what we recognise as a guitar today. However, many of the guitar’s predecessors became, to a greater or lesser extent, influential in the evolution and development of today’s guitars. This article tries to unravel the direct, continuous as well as the indirect lineage over time, including some evolutionary dead‑ends.

While often grouped together, other related stringed instruments such as the mandolin, banjo, zither, hurdy‑gurdy and ukulele aren’t covered here, except in passing. Lyres and lutes come in and out of relevance while other chordophones such as violins, harps, pianos, harpsichords et al are definitely out of scope.

Today, while there is tremendous diversity to be found in guitar designs and models, fundamentally, they can all be broadly categorised into three important types. The following are highly generalised descriptions presented for convenience and simplicity (remember that ‘rules’ can be, and are, frequently broken):

  1. Classical guitars – Acoustic wood construction comprising a flat top supported by fan or ladder bracing, a large acoustic sound chamber with a round sound hole, 6 nylon strings, wider necks with a flatter fretted fingerboard and wider string spacing, the neck may not need a stabilising truss rod, the set neck joins the body at the 12th fret. A slotted headstock with rear facing metal and plastic tuners, strings knotted around the wooden bridge. Plucked or strummed by fingers. Classical guitars have a softer string feel and warmer sound used for playing classical and flamenco style music, can be amplified, generally using microphones. While classical guitars were the first to be used and its origins can be traced back to antiquity, the modern standards were laid down from the 1850s. Hornbostel‑Sachs Number: 321.322–5
  2. Acoustic guitars – Acoustic wood (or laminated composite) construction, flat top supported by X‑bracing (or similar) to cope with higher string tension and torque, a large acoustic sound chamber with a round sound hole, 4 (tenor), 6 or 12 metal strings, narrower necks with a slightly curved fretted fingerboard, fret marker inlays and narrower string spacing, set neck joins the body at the 12th or 14th fret, neck likely has a stabilising truss rod, flat headstock with modern metal tuners, bridge pins secure the strings, optional protective scratchplate. Played by fingers or plectrum. A louder, brighter and more strident sound used for folk, country, blues, jazz, rock and pop music, can be amplified using piezo or magnetic pickups and microphones. Acoustic guitars first appeared in the 1840s. Hornbostel‑Sachs Number: 321.322-6
  3. Electric guitars – Solid, semi‑hollow or hollow body usually but not exclusively made from tone woods, usually smaller and heavier, commonly with body cutaway(s), body contours, sound holes if present are normally f‑shaped, a variable number steel strings (usually 4-12) with narrower string spacing, set or bolt‑on necks with a stabilising truss rod, usually with a pronounced curved maple/rosewood/ebony fretted fingerboard, flat headstock with rear‑mounted metal tuners, fret marker inlays, clear lacquer or paint finished bodies/necks, one or more electromagnetic pickups, pickup selector switch(es), volume and tone controls, an output jack to feed the electrical signal to effects and amplifiers/PA systems/recording desks to produce varying sound pressure levels, optional vibrato systems to change pitch dynamically. Played by fingers or plectrum. A huge variety of tones is available due to manipulation of the electrical signal chain. Used predominantly for a wide range of rock and pop music as well as many other genres including blues, country, jazz and reggae. Includes electric bass guitars with 4‑6 strings. Electric guitars first appeared in the 1930s. Hornbostel‑Sachs Number: 321.322-6

There is no doubting that the guitar has had a profound impact on modern music, history, society and human culture. These fundamentals may help in understanding how guitar invention, ancestry and development occurred over the last 5,000+ years. In this first part of the story, electric guitars were not yet invented and made available to musicians. If your interest is solely in electric guitars, I’m afraid that you’ll have to wait for Part II.

“I just want to play my guitar, chug on a beer and be a rock star” – Zakk Wylde (1967‑)

Historical Documentation Issues

There have been many difficulties in completing this colossal endeavour, mainly corroborating information across not only existing CRAVE Guitars’ resources but also cross‑referencing the multitude of external sources. The timeline should therefore be regarded as indicative, rather than definitive.

Creating a timeline that makes sense with consistency and continuity was a real challenge, especially as various sources are often contradictory, incomplete, imprecise and confusing. Many sources conveniently ‘fudge’ over such crucial information such as people, dates and locations while others flagrantly plagiarise and simply re‑present the work of others. While nothing here is entirely new and it is impossible not to draw on the work of others to some degree, I have endeavoured to compose my own interpretation, starting with a clean sheet of paper and gradually (laboriously!) formulating the result piece‑by‑piece.

It can be difficult to determine what happened in history without original, conclusive documentation to support the ‘facts’. Such proof can prove impossible to find, centuries or even millennia after the time. In many cases, we just don’t know and we can only use best judgement deductions and assumptions to arrive at something that seems reasonable. In my experience, creating a cohesive model for documenting early guitar history is a bit (!) of a nightmare.

The history of stringed instruments that may or may not have led to the contemporary guitar is also extremely convoluted and doesn’t fit well with a simple linear evolutionary track. Civilisation is not a single entity. As cultures arose, migrated, warred, settled, traded, competed and died out, so did the instruments that those societies used. While it is not possible to create a single direct lineage, there does tend to be a common thread that helps to bind the ancient descendants to their modern counterparts. It is that tantalisingly tangled thread that I am attempting to unravel here, I hope with some relative success.

Many sources (even academic papers, which really should know better) refer vaguely to one or more extended timespans during which events took place. Convenient cop out! When reading the timeline, it sometimes looks like things may be out of order or lacking continuity. That is often down to ambiguous period definitions. Events are, of course (?), frequently interdependent, they can occur singularly, in parallel, they may overlap and gaps may be evident. Such is the complexity of real life. I have done my best to present events as a contiguous, internally consistent, story where possible.

“Guitars are meant to be played, and they’re happiest when they’re making music” – Rick Nielsen (1948‑)

I also realise that by adding my own informed interpretation to actual historic events, I may actually be contributing to the problem, rather than clarifying it. In my defence, I have tried very, very hard to be meticulous, methodical and thorough. However, I am sorry to say that the outcome may well be less than 100% robust and reliable. Despite best efforts, if I have made glaring errors or omissions, let me know and I will do my best to correct oversights. My advice and caveat, for what it is worth, is don’t believe all you read folks, including here.

Please also bear in mind that each of the ‘events’ summarised in the timeline represents only the proverbial ’tip of the iceberg’. For each specific ‘event’, there is a wealth of additional background information that had to be excluded for brevity (!). The ‘events’ shown can therefore be used as an introduction to more detailed investigation, should you wish to go down one or more bottomless rabbit holes. Please feel free to roam the hinterwebby thingummy in search of multitudinous further reading.

“The most important thing for me is the freedom to play my guitar and be myself” – Eric Clapton (1945‑)

A Timeline of Guitar History: Part I

As this is meant to be a linear timeline, there is little point in further prosaic narrative exposition, so let’s dive in and get this particular ball rolling from the beginning of humanity’s exploration with stringed musical instruments to the end of the 19th Century. Readers with little knowledge or interest in this period of history may find this introduction a bit heavy going, for which I apologise. However, the early development of the guitar is an essential element of the guitar’s perennially fabled (hi)story.

As mentioned above, this first part of the guitar’s long journey covers the period roughly 3500BCE to 1899CE (almost 5,400 years) in just 90 entries. For those with attention deficit, the infographic below is an even more abbreviated version, after which you are permitted to skip to the end. Off you go then…

3500BCEIndications are that the guitar’s earliest origins began with rudimentary stringed instruments in Mesopotamia, Sumeria and the ancient Near East/West Asia, dating back to the Uruk (protoliterate) period (c.4000‑3100 BCE)
3100BCEAncient Egyptians, Persians, Turks and Greeks were among the earliest pioneers to develop stringed instruments. The first instruments were possibly similar to bowl harps, with a fretless curved neck, a round back, an animal hide soundboard and a variable number of strings
3000BCEThe oldest pictorial record of a lute‑like stringed instrument dates back to the early Bronze Age Uruk period in Southern Mesopotamia (roughly modern‑day Iraq) on a cylinder seal currently held at the British Museum
2550-2450BCEThe ancient ‘lyres of Ur’ were excavated in Iraq in 1920 by archaeologist, Sir Leonard Woolley (1880‑1960). The group of four instruments – Golden Lyre, Queen’s Lyre, Silver Lyre and Bull‑Headed Lyre – are considered to be the world’s oldest surviving stringed instruments to be discovered to‑date. Today, one is in Iraq, two in England and one in the USA
2000BCEWhile the origins of the lute may date back another 1,000 years to c.3000BCE, lute‑type instruments were commonly used by the Hittites, Assyrians and Babylonians across the Middle East
1500BCEOne of the earliest documented records of a guitar‑like instrument derived from ancient Persia (modern‑day Iran), shows a long‑necked fretted instrument with 4 strings resembling the long lutes of ancient Egypt and Babylon
1400BCEThe Bronze Age Hittite civilization in north‑central Anatolia (modern‑day Turkey) also used guitar‑like stringed instruments. Archaeologists have discovered a relief of a Hittite musician playing a simple stringed instrument. The relief is held in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, Turkey
800BCEThe Greek kithara (a.k.a. kythara) was an ancient musical instrument belonging to the lute family. It was a 7‑stringed version of the 3‑4‑stringed lyre. The Greeks distributed stringed instruments widely across Mediterranean trade routes
600BCEThe origins of the tanbur (a.k.a. tambur), a pear‑shaped hollow instrument with a long neck and 2‑3 strings with around 14 frets first appeared in Persia (now Iran). Early recorded images of the tanbur were from ancient Babylon and Egypt
433BCEThe plucked 7‑string Chinese guqin may be an ancestor of the early zither group of instruments. The European/German word zither derives from the Greek kithara and Roman cithara, suggesting a shared lineage at some point. The zither is a discrete simple chordophone, as the strings do not extend beyond the integral resonator (sound box)
400BCEThe early origins of what would become the 16th Century Indian sitar may lie in a plucked lute‑type instrument, the chitar, with 12 stings, a long straight neck and a gourd‑shaped resonator. The chitar was possibly also related to another ancestor of the sitar, the 16‑stringed veena
300BCEThe pandura (a.k.a. pandoura) was an ancient Greek 3‑string, full‑range chromatic scale instrument similar to a lute and based on the earlier tanbur. The pandura’s descendants still exist and are in use today, such as the Greek tamboura and bouzouki
200BCEThe Chinese developed their own guitar‑like instrument, the 4‑string, 11‑fret qin‑pipa, based on an earlier instrument, the xiantao. The qin‑pipa later became known as the ruan, after the Chinese scholar and musician, Ruan Xian. It is related to the larger pipa, a popular 4-string ‘Chinese lute’ with 12‑31 frets
100BCEThe ancient Persian/Kurdish tanbur and its derivatives became popular in Egypt and parts of the Middle East
40CEThe Romans adopted the Greek kithara and re‑named it the cithara (a.k.a. chithara, chittara, chitarra, chitara, cythara, etc.) or ‘Latin guitar’. The Romans distributed the cithara via trade routes to the western Mediterranean, particularly into Portugal and Spain
400The Romans adopted the Persian tanbur via Greece and incorporated it into their culture, influencing other stringed instrument designs
500During the post‑Roman Middle Ages, crude guitar‑like instruments with 3, 4 and 5 strings were already in use across western Europe, often adapted to meet the needs of local musicians
711The Arabian origins of the oud date back some 3,500 years. Descended from the Persian barbat lute, the oud diverged from the lute by having a short fretless neck. After the Arabian Moors conquered the Iberian Peninsula, they adapted the Roman cithara into a 4‑stringed fretless instrument called the Arabic oud, similar to the medieval lute, thereby introducing it to western Europe via Spain and Portugal
1100The descendants of the Roman cithara became widely used in medieval Spain. The European guitarra Latina (Latin Guitar) used a single string course and was normally played with a pick (plectrum). Another plucked, lute‑like variant originated from North Africa also became common in Spain, known as the guitarra Morisca (Moorish Guitar). The guitarra Morisca (a.k.a. guiterre morische or the mandora medieval)
1200The European citole was a stringed instrument comprising a small body with a short straight neck and a fretted fingerboard. 2-3 courses of strings were plucked or strummed with a plectrum. The citole is thought to be a precursor to later instruments like the cittern. The only surviving citole is currently held in the British Museum
1265The first written description of a ‘guitar’ appeared in British historical records, although nowadays the reference is generally thought to denote early gitterns (see below) used by itinerant musicians and referred to as a ‘foreign’ instrument at the time
1300The small gittern (Renaissance guitar) was introduced to Europe, originating from Spain. It became one of the most popular instruments of its time in Spain, Italy and Germany during the European Renaissance (c.14th‑17th Centuries). The gittern resembled a small round‑backed lute, initially with a single course of gut strings, then with 4 courses of strings. There are only two surviving gitterns, one in Germany and the other in the USA
1330The poem, ‘The Book of Good Love’ (c.1330) by Spanish Castilian poet, Juan Ruiz (1283‑1350) describes the guitarra Latina and the guitarra Morisca, using the term ‘Spanish guitars’ to unite them
1349The English Duke of Normandy employed musicians playing the Latin and Moorish guitars, often depicted in religious iconography of the time. By 1400, the two variants converged and became known initially as Spanish guitars and, later, just as guitars
1448Portuguese sailors introduced early guitar‑like instruments such as the lute and the later vihuela to West Africa. Around the same time, the Arabic oud spread via African coastal trade routes into regions such as Mozambique. Africans incorporated imported stringed instruments into their cultures alongside native African instruments like the krar, kora, ngoni, xalam, Beganna and Litungu
1465The plucked Spanish vihuela (a.k.a. viola da mano) became a common guitar design. The alternative bowed viola da arco would become the viola. In its most popular form, the vihuela was guitar‑shaped with a flat back, a straight neck with 10 movable frets and 6 courses of paired strings. The first published music for the vihuela dates from 1536
1500The Turkish Saz (a.k.a. Bağlama) comprised a long neck, movable frets and 3 courses of strings also became popular in eastern Europe and west Asia. The tanbur‑lute‑like instrument became central to Turkish folk music at the time and was tuned to quarter tones
1500The European lute, which basically added frets to the Arabic oud, became widely popular across Europe and Asia
1519The first use of the vihuela in Latin America was documented in Hispaniola (the island of Haiti/Dominican Republic) in 1519 by Ortiz, who was said to have travelled with Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernan Cortes (1485‑1547) on his early conquests of the Americas
1520The plucked vihuela became the largest guitar‑like instrument of its time. It used 6 or 7 courses of gut strings, tuned like a lute and was played with a pick. The vihuela became popular for European chamber and court music
1581The earliest surviving guitar‑like vihuela was built by Belchior Dias (1540‑1619) in Lisbon, Portugal, now held at the Royal College of Music in London, England. The vihuela, along with lutes and citterns became known as early barber shop instruments in Elizabethan England and was used widely throughout the 16th and 17th Centuries
1600The cittern was a flat-backed, 4-course, metal-strung fretted instrument that first appeared in Western Europe as early as the 13th Century and was probably descended from the medieval citole. It was a relatively common instrument for all social classes from the c.15th‑18th Centuries. The cittern was sometimes referred to as the ‘English guitar’
1600Difficulties in tuning 12‑string guitars led to the adoption of the ornate Baroque guitar with 4 or 5 strings and movable gut frets. The popularity of the guitar began to rival that of the lute in Europe
1600Spanish conquistadors arrived in the Caribbean and mainland South America. The European conquerors defeated the native Aztec Empire and colonised much of what is present‑day Mexico. The Spanish victors dispersed the vihuela across Latin America
1600sThe Italian chitarra battente (‘strumming guitar’) became a popular folk instrument with its origins in Italian court music of the early Baroque period
1621What we know today as the banjo may have been introduced to North America and the Caribbean by enslaved people from West and Central Africa. The earliest documented description of a banjo‑like instrument was from Gambia, West Africa
1630The Spanish Baroque guitar design diverged significantly from the lute and other predecessors. Features associated with the modern guitar began to appear. Baroque guitar ornamentation became increasingly elaborate and highly decorative reflecting art of the Baroque period
1660Italian luthier, Antonio Stradivari (1644 1737) established a shop in Cremona, Italy primarily to make the violins for which he is most famous. He also made a limited number of guitars between 1680 and 1688
1672Dutch fine artist, Johannes Vermeer (1632‑1675), who specialised in domestic interior scenes of 17th Century middle‑class life, painted ‘The Guitar Player’, depicting a young woman strumming a guitar
1679Antonio Stradivari made the 5‑course ‘Sabionari’ guitar, named after Giovanni Sabionari, who bought the instrument from the Stradivari family
1725While its origins date back a lot further (to the Persian tanbur of c.600BCE), the Indian sitar was named and its current form became largely determined. The sitar was made famous by Indian musician Ravi Shankar (1920‑2012) and promoted in western popular music by bands like The Beatles in the 1960s
1744The mandolin is a member of the lute family. The first metal‑strung (3 brass, one gut) mandolins began to appear in Italy, evolving from the earlier mandola and the small mandolina. It would evolve into today’s familiar 4‑course (8‑string) mandolin
1750The modern Spanish Guitar became popular as an instrument played by the lower classes throughout Europe. Multiple courses of strings had been almost entirely replaced by single strings
1773The earliest known 6‑string guitar was made by Francois Lupot (1725‑1804) in Orleans, France, although it is no longer in existence
1773The first harp guitar was produced in Paris by French luthier and music trader, Jean‑Henri Naderman (1734‑1799). The instrument comprised 6 standard strings, a fretted neck and 6 open bass strings
1779The earliest known surviving 6‑string guitar was made by Italian violin and mandolin luthier Gaetano Vinaccia (1759‑1831) in Naples, Italy. The instrument is held at the Smithsonian Institution in the USA but is not on display
1780The now‑standard 6‑string guitar tuning (EADGBE) became the most popular tuning for guitars across Europe
1790Guitars started adopting the design of modern instruments and became known as the European romantic guitar. The invention of the 6‑string romantic guitar is credited to Gaetano Vinaccia. Construction used transverse bracing to support the soundboard. Fingerboards changed from tied gut frets to fixed metal frets and headstocks began to use mechanical tuning gears, rather than traditional violin pegs
1796Christian Frederick (C.F.) Martin Sr. (1796‑1867) was born in Markneukirchen, Electorate of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire (now in Germany). He would go on to found C.F. Martin & Company in 1833
1806German composer and pianist, Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770‑1827) declared that, “the guitar is an orchestra in itself”
1811At the age of 15, C.F. Martin Sr. started to work as an apprentice to renowned Austrian luthier Johann Georg Stauffer (1778‑1853) in Vienna, Austria
1825French luthier François René Lacote (1785‑1871) began developing the modern guitar. He used metal frets, fixed bridges with ivory saddles, bridge pins and tuners arranged in slotted headstocks. These design innovations enabled greater volume for public performance and elements of his work are still evident in today’s classical guitars
1827Austrian luthier, Johann Anton Stauffer (1805‑1871) – son of Johann Georg Stauffer – worked with guitar virtuoso Rinaldo Luigi Legnani (1790‑1877) in Vienna to develop milestone acoustic guitar designs, some of which remain familiar today
1833C.F. Martin Sr. emigrated from Germany due to bitter disputes between the Violinmakers’ Guild and unregulated cabinetmakers. Martin moved to America and founded C.F. Martin & Company in New York to build guitars
1834The earliest known Martin guitar was hand‑built in New York by founder C.F. Martin Sr. and is currently held in the American Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City
1839C.F. Martin Sr. relocated his family and his guitar manufacturing business from New York City to Nazareth, Pennsylvania, USA. A new Martin factory was built on the outskirts of the town and is still there today
1842C.F. Martin Sr. introduced X‑bracing (rather than fan, transverse or ladder bracing) on the Martin Size 1 guitar. X‑bracing strengthened the guitar tops making them better able to cope with the pressure and torque of steel strings (more than twice that of gut strings), first introduced in the 1850s and 1860s
1852Spanish luthier, Antonio de Torres Jurado (1817‑1892) experimented with enlarging the guitar’s body, refining the pattern of fan bracing and reducing the thickness of the soundboard used in classical Spanish ‘flamenco’ guitars. His innovations led to the formation of the Spanish School of Guitar Making. He started a business building classical guitars in Seville, Spain until he closed his shop in c.1870
1853The earliest known recording of a classical guitar played by Adolphe Giacomelli was captured on a phonautograph device invented by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville (1817‑1879) in 1857. The sound waves were recorded as a line traced on paper or glass blackened by smoke. The tracings were visual representations of sound that could not be replayed
1854C.F. Martin Sr. introduced the large ‘O’ (Concert) model guitar and the company began to regularise Martin’s ‘O’ body size classification. Previously, Martin guitars were named from 1 to 5 (largest to smallest)
1856Orville H. Gibson was born in Chateaugay, New York, USA. He would go on to found the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Company in 1902, predecessor of today’s Gibson Inc.
1857Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Co. was founded by clock maker Matthias Hohner (1833‑1902) in Trossingen, Baden‑Württemberg, Germany. The company is known simply as Hohner today
1871Spanish luthier, Antonio de Torres Jurado began his ‘2nd epoch’ of guitar making from 1871 until his death 1892, based in Almeria, Spain
1873The roots of Epiphone began in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire (now Izmir in Turkey) when the Stathopoulo family moved from Greece to Turkey and luthier Anastasios Stathopoulo (1863‑1915) started making fiddles (violins) and lutes
1875The Thomas Organ & Piano Company was founded by Edward Thomas in Woodstock, Ontario, Canada to make keyboards. Later, the company would become significant for importing VOX products into north America
1877C.F. Martin introduced the large ‘OO’ (Grand Concert) model guitar and the company continued to standardise the system for naming Martin’s body shapes/sizes (completed by 1898)
1877The first proper recording of a guitar was made using Thomas Edison’s (1847‑1931) newly invented phonograph cylinder equipment, the first device capable of both recording and replay
1879The ukulele, a member of the lute family, was first introduced from the Atlantic Portuguese island of Madeira to Honolulu, Hawaii by Portuguese immigrants. The ‘uke’ was an amalgamation of two other instruments of Portuguese origin, the machête and the rajão. The ukulele has been described as ‘the world’s happiest instrument’. C.F. Martin & Co. is the oldest surviving maker of ukuleles
1880The first Mexican Mariachi bands and music were documented. Mariachi bands used the 5‑string Spanish vihuela and the ‘guitarrón mexicano’ (a large acoustic fretless bass‑like guitar) as well as the acoustic guitar, harp, violin and trumpet
1881Musical instrument manufacturer, the Vega Company was established by Swedish immigrant brothers Julius and Carl Nelson in Boston, Massachusetts, USA
1883Washburn Guitars was founded by American businessmen George W. Lyon and Patrick J. Healy in Chicago, Illinois. Washburn initially focused on guitars, mandolins, banjos, ukuleles and zithers. Washburn was the most well‑known guitar subsidiary of harp makers, Lyon & Healy
1883German immigrant and businessman, Friedrich Wilhelm ‘Fritz’ Gretsch (1856‑1895) set up a shop in Brooklyn, New York City, USA to build banjos, drums and tambourines. The company, simply known as Gretsch, remains a family business as of 2026
1885Hawaiian-American musician Joseph Kekuku is credited with inventing the Hawaiian acoustic lap steel guitar in Oahu, Hawaii. He also invented the Hawaiian steel guitar playing style using a metal bar (slide),
1885Henri Selmer Paris was founded by Henri Selmer in Mantes‑la‑Ville near Paris, France to make clarinet reeds and mouthpieces. Selmer wouldn’t start making guitars until the 1930s
1887Karl Höfner GmbH & Co. was founded by German luthier Karl Höfner (1864‑1955) in Schönbach, Austria‑Hungary (now Luby in the Czech Republic). The business is now known simply as Höfner
1887The business that would become Yamaha was founded as Nippon Gakki Co. by Torakusu Yamaha (1851‑1916) in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan
1890Spanish luthier Antonio de Torres Jurado built an acoustic guitar that is widely regarded as the benchmark for the modern classical guitar. The majority of modern acoustic classical guitars adopted his designs
1890American luthier, Orville H. Gibson (1856‑1918) settled in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA and started making musical instruments by hand. His first instruments were a 10‑string mandolin‑guitar and the first archtop guitar
1890The first patent for an electric guitar, entitled, ‘Method of and apparatus for producing musical sounds by electricity’ was awarded to George Breed (1864‑1936). Breed was a naval officer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. The invention predated patents from the big guitar manufacturers by several decades
1892The Harmony Company was founded by German immigrant, Wilhelm ‘William’ Schultz in Chicago Illinois, USA, after he left the Chicago‑based harp manufacturing company, Lyon & Healy
1893Legendary Spanish classical guitarist, Andrés Segovia (1893‑1987) was born in the Andalusian village of Linares in southern Spain
1894Orville Gibson produced the earliest documented Gibson mandolin in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
1895After the death of C.F. Martin Jr. (‘Fritz’, the founder’s son) in 1888 at the age of 63, C.F. Martin & Company introduced its first bowl‑back mandolins
1896Orville Gibson filed his first and only patent for the construction of a mandolin with a carved top and back, and with sides that were cut from a solid piece of wood rather than being bent from thin strips. The patent was granted in 1898
1896The Regal Musical Instrument Manufacturing Company was founded by Emil Wulschner as a private company in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA to manufacture stringed instruments
1897The Japanese manufacturer, Nippon Gakki, which would later become the Yamaha Corporation, started making pianos and organs. Yamaha wouldn’t build guitars until the 1940s for the Japanese market and 1966 globally
1897The first full‑length recording of classical guitar music was played by Luis and Simon Ramirez in Madrid, Spain. Recording technology evolved rapidly in the early 20th Century, making such practices commonplace

“My guitar is not a thing. It is an extension of myself. It is who I am” – Joan Jett (1958‑)

Final Thoughts on ‘A Timeline of Guitar History: Part I’

Phew! And that is only the start, folks. There is a lot more to come in Part II. As this article represents an unfinished body of work, there is no fully‑fledged ‘Final Thoughts…’ section this month. That will be reserved for the end of Part II. Please come back for more in the second instalment in August 2026 ceteris paribus.

Just one final observation about pre‑20th Century guitar music before we move on. To me, sitting here in the modern‑day first world, one of the guitar’s major advantages over many other instruments is the player’s ability to bend notes. I don’t mean just subtle vibrato, I mean to really bend strings up one or more semitones and, more interestingly, to micro tones between the traditional fretted notes. Additionally, modern vibrato systems now let guitarists lower pitch, even enabling ‘dive bombing’ to zero string tension as well. In contrast, most, if not all classical and Spanish guitar music only uses the standard 12 notes and nothing in between. I know gut and nylon strings are not as pliable as metal strings in this respect but little or no attempt is made to exploit this wonderful versatility within classical guitar music. Ancient Middle and Far Eastern instruments were often fretless or had moveable frets to allow for micro and quarter tones, etc. Where would modern music be if we just used the limited conservative notes that Western music models provide? Just sayin’.

“That’s all I wanted to do as a kid. Play a guitar properly and jump around. But too many people got in the way” – Syd Barrett (1946‑2006)

CRAVE Guitars’ ‘Album of the Month’

My main interest in musicology focuses on contemporary popular music that rose to prominence in the early to mid‑1950s and continues to this day and will undoubtedly stretch well into mankind’s future (assuming it has one!), long after I am dust. As such, I am no expert on earlier music or recordings, and my experience is necessarily very limited. I am also not a great fan of classical music (I’m just not, OK?!). So, I am not really in a position to assert any reliable opinions about the subject. Having said that, I have gone for one particular album that I hope is indicative of early virtuoso guitar music and entirely appropriate to this article. This month’s accolade goes to…

Andrés Segovia – Guitar Recital: Recordings 1927-1939 (1988): There are many, many compilations and recordings of the Spanish maestro of the classical guitar, Señor Andrés Segovia (1893‑1987). It is sufficient to say that pretty much any of the relevant compilations can provide an insight into Segovia’s virtuosic mastery of the instrument. The guy was undoubtedly a fretboard genius. The pieces here were written by a variety of classical music composers and played solo by Segovia. This EMI Classics release is presented over 2 CDs comprising 35 tracks covering 120 minutes, all in glorious monaural sound. I intentionally picked an early recording to reflect both the narrative of this article’s period and of early classical guitar music.

Andres Segovia – Guitar Recital Recordings 1927-1939 (1988)

Given the age of the recordings, sound quality is pretty good, although the authentic tape hiss can become a bit wearing after a while. There are many other classical artists recording music by many composers over the last Century or so and there is no end to the number of albums both common and rare covering this material. I could equally have gone for something by popular classical guitarists such as Australian John Williams (1941‑), Spaniard Paco de Lucía (1947‑2014) or Englishman Julian Bream (1933‑2020). My knowledge about classical guitar music is, however, extremely superficial, so I will just shut up at this point before I proclaim my ignorance for all readers everywhere to ridicule with appropriate prejudice. Perhaps I should set myself some (more) musicology homework! To all classical music fans, I apologise but it just ain’t my thang.

BELIEVE IN MUSIC!

“The guitar is the easiest instrument to play and the hardest to play well” – Andrés Segovia (1893‑1987)

Tailpiece

Well, that is quite the start to this 2‑piece ‘meisterwerk’. I hope that there is something of interest in Part I and trust that it may whet your appetite for what is to come in Part II next month. Admittedly, the content of Part II is probably more familiar and therefore more relevant to many of us today. Unusually, for once, you also know what’s coming up next. As this is essentially work‑in‑progress, there is little point in dragging things out. So, I’ll say ta‑ta for now and I’ll hopefully ‘see’ you again in 1/12 of a year from now for the conclusion of this particular story. Finally, to end on a humorous note…

“I’ve had 3 wives and 3 guitars. I still play the guitars” – Andrés Segovia (1893‑1987)

Truth, peace, love, and guitar music be with you always. The CRAVEman, signing off for now. Until next time…

CRAVE Guitars’ ‘Quote of the Month’: “Words, however crafted are the vehicle used to convey imagination, thoughts and ideas. However inadequate words may be, they should be used wisely and not squandered”

© 2026 CRAVE Guitars – Love Vintage Guitars.

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28 May 2018

May 2018 – A Potted History Of The Guitar Part III

by | posted in: History, Introduction, Observations | 0

Here we are again with the 3rd in a series of articles telling the long story of the guitar. Part I (→ read here) started over 3,500 years ago, emerging in the Middle East and gradually developing before dispersing across continental Europe and Asia. Eventually, the embryonic guitar found a home in Europe during the early Renaissance where it began to exhibit the characteristics and features that we recognise today. Part II (→ read here) expanded on the humble beginnings and evolved the acoustic instrument into a (generally) standardised form that we are familiar with, as well as focusing on some key 19th Century innovations in acoustic guitar design. This instalment looks at key 20th Century developments that will ultimately lead to the widespread introduction of the electric guitar.

The story from c.1900 is not only reasonably well-documented elsewhere but also fairly involved, so the pace slows compared to previous parts and also becomes richer in content. I would encourage anyone with a serious interest in guitar heritage to explore the hinterwebby thing for further information, along with all the usual caveats about the accuracy and believability of what’s out there.

Modern Era (1900-present)

At the end of the 19th and during the early part of the 20th Century, before the introduction of the electric guitar, musicians sought ever‑louder instruments, leading to various creative adaptations to the basic construction of the acoustic guitar. While the acoustic guitar continued to be popular for classical and traditional folk music, many guitarists were struggling to be heard as the trend for ensemble, ‘big band’ or swing orchestras became popular at the time. The issue with volume in a group context meant that the guitar essentially became consigned to a rhythm, rather than lead role, especially when competing with percussion and horns. In order to adapt to demand, a radically new approach to guitar design was needed. Thus, the fundamental divergence from traditional nylon strung classical and steel-strung acoustic ‘folk’ guitars had begun.

Guitars at the beginning of the 20th Century were, though, still entirely acoustic instruments. However, two key innovations were about to take place in America that would bridge the gap from acoustic to amplified electric guitars, which would began to appear in the 1930s. The first development involved the emergence of the acoustic archtop guitar on the east coast while, on the west coast, the second invention to appear was that of the resonator guitar.

Guitars weren’t the only ubiquitous chordophones at the start of the 20th Century; far from it. The mandolin, banjo, harp and violin also had periods of great popularity and fashion. However, it was during the first quarter of the 1900s that the guitar started its elevation from just another part of a band or orchestra into being the pre‑eminent instrument it is today. Arguably, in addition to the standardisation of classical and steel strung acoustic guitars, it was the introduction of archtop and resonator guitars that contributed towards that success. As is often the case in these matters, the path to success was more complicated than it seems at first and it would be far from a smooth transition with many pitfalls along the way.

Acoustic Archtop Guitars

The acoustic archtop guitar incorporated some of the basic components of the steel string acoustic guitar with a body style that bore some design and construction similarities with classical orchestral stringed instruments. An archtop guitar may be defined as, a stringed musical instrument with a convex curved top, formed either by carving a solid piece of tone wood or by heating a sheet of laminated wood in order to  mould it into the curved shape.

Most flat top acoustic guitars up to the end of the 19th Century used a single integrated bridge/tailpiece mounted to the surface of the top soundboard, meaning that the strings exert not only significant horizontal pull but also lift because of torque. In order to prevent the bridge from lifting and/or twisting, particularly with the greater tension required by metal strings, the thin flat acoustic soundboard required strong internal bracing. Heavily braced tops had the effect of reducing resonant vibrations and inhibiting overall volume. One solution was to make guitars bigger, an approach used by C.F. Martin in the 1930s with the introduction of the company’s sizeable X-braced D-series dreadnoughts, as covered in the previous part of this series of articles. Archtop guitars took an entirely different approach.

Unlike acoustic guitars, most orchestral stringed instruments had a long history of using a carved arched top featuring a separate moveable bridge and fixed tailpiece. The main advantage of using separate structures is that they serve different functions. The non-adjustable tailpiece is used to anchor the strings at that end of the instrument and deals only with the longitudinal stresses caused by string tension. The separate ‘floating’ bridge (meaning that it was not fixed and could be repositioned if needed) supports the strings and is used only to control string height (action) and intonation. The solid carved top of the soundboard was arched upward, as on a violin or cello, in order to counteract the downward pressure that the strings exerted on the bridge, thus providing a stable and resonant structure. The major benefit of this type of design is that it needs less internal bracing which allows the instrument’s soundboard to vibrate more freely, thereby producing a noticeably louder sound.

It was therefore not really surprising that, at some point, enterprising guitar builders would seek to exploit some of the characteristics of other instruments and incorporate the best of these into guitar design. While there may have been numerous examples of experimentation before this time, the enduring convergence of classical stringed instrument construction and acoustic guitar design resulted in the advent of the acoustic archtop guitar from the beginning of the 20th Century.

The Rise of Gibson Guitars

Although not the only innovator in guitar design at the turn of the 19th Century, certainly one of the key pioneers that popularised early archtop guitars was American luthier Orville H. Gibson (1856-1918), who was born in Chateaugay, New York. Gibson started making mandolins in his home workshop in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1894 as ‘O.H. Gibson, Manufacturer, Musical Instruments’.

Gibson himself was, by all accounts, somewhat unconventional, being described as an obsessive, eccentric genius as well as an extreme perfectionist. He apparently held other, more traditional, instrument makers of the time in contempt and he was determined to do things differently and in his own way. Orville Gibson, the person, remains somewhat of an enigma and appears to have suffered from mental illness throughout his life, spending several periods in mental institutions before his death in a psychiatric asylum in New York.

Gibson started out by adapting European violin designs for use in mandolins and then, subsequently, guitars. By 1897, Gibson had made his first hollow archtop guitar with a relatively thick carved solid wood top, back and sides, cello style tailpiece, floating bridge and steel strings. His early designs retained the traditional acoustic guitar sound hole, although oval in shape. He used spruce wood for the top for its resonance and maple for back and sides for strength and density. Unlike traditional flat top acoustic guitars of the time, Gibson’s archtop guitars did not use internal bracing, as he felt this would hamper both volume and tone. When played hard, Gibson’s relatively un‑stressed design was more capable of projecting the loud, bright and ‘percussive’ acoustic volume that guitarists were seeking at the time.

Orville Gibson submitted his only patent application in 1895 for an archtop mandolin design (also applicable to the guitar), which was granted by the U.S. Patent Office in February 1898. The patent covered archtop construction comprising carved, tops and sides cut from solid wood, rather than the acoustic guitar’s braced flat top and bent wood sides. While earlier guitar/mandolin patents by James S. Back in 1893 and A.H. Merrill in 1896 may lay claim to the first archtop designs, it was Gibson that converted his own visionary concepts into a successful business enterprise.

On 11 October 1902, Orville Gibson, along with five local business partners founded the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Co. in Kalamazoo. The company soon started building archtop guitars using the techniques Gibson had patented for the mandolin. However, Gibson was paid a $2,500 lump sum and monthly income to step back from day-to-day business where his overt, pedantic idiosyncrasies tended to affect production.

While the Gibson F-2 mandolin was a major milestone in the instrument’s history and is now considered a classic landmark design, mandolins generally were beginning to lose favour with musicians. In addition, Gibson had initially followed the trend for tenor banjos in the late 1910s before guitars became the mainstay of the business. Gibson was also known to make complex but not widely used harp guitars, such as the Style U.

Gibson’s Style 0 archtop guitar design proved better suited to the jazz and swing orchestras of the time than the flat top acoustic guitar. As a result, Gibson guitars became very popular in the early part of the 20th Century up to the 1920s, particularly amongst the jazz fraternity. The Style 0 archtop, which retained the oval sound hole beneath the strings, is often referred to as the direct precursor to the archetypal jazz acoustic archtops that followed. The hand‑carved guitars were, however, very resource intensive to build, so supply fell short of demand and there was a growing need for an instrument that was quicker, easier and cheaper to build.

Orville Gibson finally left the company he founded in 1916 to live in upstate New York until his death in 1918 at the age of 62.

In the same year, 1918, composer, musician and engineer, Lloyd Loar (1886-1943) was hired by the Gibson company as acoustic consultant and advisor. After a break to entertain WWI troops in Europe, Loar re-joined Gibson in 1919. Loar went on to design many of the company’s new instruments in an attempt to turn around disappointing sales. While Loar wasn’t a luthier by trade, he led a design and construction revolution at the company during the 1920s, growing the company’s enviable reputation for building fine professional guitars, mandolins and other stringed-fretted instruments.

One of Loar’s first and best‑known guitar designs, released in 1923, was the Gibson L5 ‘Master Model’. The L5 is widely recognised as the first commercially produced ‘jazz’ guitar. In 1923, the L5 featured all the fundamental characteristics that we recognize in a ‘jazz’ guitar; a carved archtop fully hollow body, separate tailpiece and floating bridge, etc. It was also the first commercial archtop guitar to employ f‑holes that are now synonymous with the style of guitar. The L5’s neck incorporated other innovations, including an adjustable truss rod, designed to counteract string tension, and the body used an adjustable bridge to set the height of the strings above the fingerboard. These key improvements enabled guitars to become more streamlined and therefore easier to play. The L5 was a trendsetter and gained a strong following in the jazz community. Early adopters included the popular guitarist Eddie Lang, comedian/singer George Gobel, and jazz virtuoso guitarist Wes Montgomery.

The L5 is now considered to have been pivotal in acoustic archtop guitar design. As if to evidence its standing, the perennial L5 remains in production well into the 21st Century, proving the soundness of Loar’s original concept. Lloyd Loar did not stay long at Gibson, leaving in 1924. During the 1920s and 1930s, Gibson became the leading manufacturer of archtop guitars. The perennial Gibson L5 will resurface again later in the guitar’s story.

Gibson archtop guitars remain in production today, including some faithful reproductions and improvements on the classic designs that began in the 1920s.

The Competition

Gibson wasn’t alone in the market and its competitors included Stromberg, Epiphone, Gretsch and Hofner were also making high quality instruments. In addition, from 1932, American luthier John D’Angelico (1905-1964) started producing very fine archtop guitars from his workshop in New York City. In 1965, his apprentice of 12 years, Jimmy D’Aquisto (1935-1995) took over D’Angelico’s work and continued to produce fine acoustic archtop guitars after his master had passed away. Original examples of these guitars are seen by many to represent the pinnacle of the jazz guitar era.

In order to provide ever‑increasing demand for volume, the size of archtop guitar bodies increased from the 16” L5 up to 18” or even 19” measured across the lower bout. Gibson’s reaction to competition was to produce one of the brand’s most famous archtop guitars, the classic Super 400 in 1935.

Arguably, classic archtop guitar designs provided a strong link between traditional steel strung acoustic guitars, through hybrids (electric archtops) to the emergence of later solid body electric guitars. The introduction of electric archtop guitars in the mid‑1930s enabled the transition from acoustic to electric guitars and is covered later in the story.

With the widespread uptake of electric guitars allied to the massive growth of blues and rock ‘n’ roll music in the 1950s, the pure archtop guitar with its strong jazz association struggled to remain popular. Manufacture and sale of archtop guitars fell dramatically and suffered a nadir in the 1990s. However, in the 21st Century, many guitarists are rediscovering the aesthetic and sonic qualities of classic ‘jazz boxes’. Sales of new archtop guitars have picked up due to a new generation of musicians either seeking an alternative to mainstream instruments or wishing to recreate the sights and sounds of the past with a degree of authenticity.

Many current‑day archtop guitars incorporate pickups to make them more usable in contemporary situations. Modern manufacturing processes including CNC machines used to carve the tops also help to reduce cost and make archtop guitars relatively affordable. Alternatives to solid wood are also abundant today, including the use of formed laminates to create the curved tops.

Acoustic Resonator Guitars

While the concept of archtop guitars was one response to the need for louder instruments a discrete branch of guitar evolution was taking place on the west coast of the U.S.A. In the time before amplified guitars, manufacturers had to respond to the demand for greater acoustic volume during the golden ‘jazz age’ of the ‘roaring twenties’. This particular alternative to the archtop guitar is broadly categorised as the resophonic or resonator guitars. Hereafter they are called simply resonator guitars for brevity.

A resonator guitar in this context is still a hollow acoustic guitar. Resonator guitars differ from previous designs because of the way that mechanical string vibrations are transferred not to the guitar’s sound board but via the guitar’s bridge to one or more spun metal cones incorporated within the guitar’s body. It is these resonating metal cones that produce a louder sound than the traditional wooden sound boards of flat top or archtop acoustic guitars. Musicians also favoured the flexibility of resonator guitars over banjos, which were popular in the early part of the 20th Century.

The unique construction of resonator guitars also produced a very distinctive thin, bright, metallic sound with little sustain, very different from other acoustic guitars. The distinctive resonator sounds were adopted by blues, bluegrass and country guitarists of the time and have produced many of the characteristic sounds of rural American music over many decades, especially when played with a bottleneck slide. It should be noted that, while resonator guitars are widely associated with the blues, and particularly with Mississippi delta blues guitarists, they have been used in a diverse range of musical genres.

General resonator guitar designs tend to fall into two separate types: square-neck Hawaiian lap steel resonators tend to be played horizontally with a slide and round‑neck resonators that can be played either horizontally, lap-steel fashion, or conventionally. The height of the strings above the fingerboard varies considerably depending on whether the guitars are used for slide, hybrid or regular fingerstyle use. In addition to lap‑steel and Spanish‑style guitars, resonators have been used in many diverse instruments including, ukuleles, banjos, basses and mandolins. Resonator guitars remain popular today, principally for their unique sound and the musical styles they inspired. English guitarist, Mark Knopfler’s iconic 1937 National Style 0 resonator was famously featured on the sleeve of their classic studio album, ‘Brothers In Arms’ (1985).

Some famous guitarists are associated with resonator guitars, including Tampa Red, Son House, Bukka White, Bo Carter and Blind Boy Fuller.

The Rise of National and Dobro Guitars

Probably, the most significant contributor to the development of the resonator guitar was a Slovakian immigrant to the U.S., John Dopyera (1893–1988). The Dopyera family moved to California in 1908 and John followed in his father’s footsteps, starting a business in the 1920s making and repairing musical instruments.

The crucial catalyst in resonator progress was provided by a Texan Vaudeville performer and musical experimenter, George Beauchamp (1899-1941). Once Beauchamp (his surname was pronounced ‘Beechum’) had moved to California, he approached John Dopyera in 1925 to design a guitar loud enough for use in a dance orchestra. Beauchamp had seen examples of some sort of external megaphone‑style horn arrangement to project a guitar’s volume. Dopyera’s initial prototype, involving a stand‑mounted amplifying horn proved far too bulky and was considered a failure. Undaunted, Dopyera and Beauchamp’s creative solution was to invent the resonator guitar.

Recognising the potential of the new resonator guitar design, John Dopyera and George Beauchamp founded the National String Instrument Corporation in 1927, based in Los Angeles, California to manufacture resonator guitars and other instruments under the National brand.

National’s first major instrument was a metal‑bodied guitar using three inward‑pointing suspended spun aluminium cones connected by a metal T‑shaped bracket to the bridge. The arrangement was, perhaps unsurprisingly, called a ‘Tricone’. String vibrations were acoustically amplified by the cones, acting like passive loudspeakers, giving the guitar its distinctive resonator sound. Dopyera filed a patent application for the Tricone design in April 1927, granted in December 1929. The ground breaking early National Tricone resonator guitars from the late 1920s are now highly collectable. The first engraved metal bodies were made of copper and zinc alloy (often called ‘German silver’ or ‘white brass’) before changing to traditional brass which was cheaper and more plentiful, then finally to steel.

1939 National Tricone Resonator

John Dopyera was concerned about the manufacturing cost and retail price of the complicated tricone design and proposed a cheaper, simpler single cone alternative. When the new design was presented to National’s board, it was rejected. His new single-cone design comprised an arrangement where the strings passed over a bridge that sat on a small circular wooden mounting disc (called a ‘biscuit’) that was in turn attached to the apex of the inward‑pointing spun metal cone. Although it wasn’t taken up at the time, Beauchamp, through National, went on to patent Dopyera’s single cone ‘biscuit’ resonator design, filed in March 1929 and granted in June 1931.

John Dopyera, having become frustrated by National’s internal politics, left the company in 1928. Crucially, to keep his options open, Dopyera remained a major shareholder in National. Along with his four brothers (Rudy, Emile, Robert and Louis), John Dopyera founded the Dobro Manufacturing Company to compete with National. The Dobro name comprises the ‘Do’ from the family’s surname and ‘bro’ as a contraction of ‘brothers’. The term ‘dobro’ has over the years come to be used as a generic term in common parlance when talking about single resonator guitars. Conveniently, and perhaps intentionally, the word dobro also means ‘good’ in Slovakian, leading directly to the company’s early motto using a play on words, “Dobro means good in any language”.

As National owned the resonator patents to-date, early Dobro resonator guitars had to differ from the single cone design made by National. The new Dobro guitars used a wooden body and a single inverted (outward‑facing) resonator cone with guitar strings passing over a bridge attached to an 8-legged cast aluminium ‘spider’ (resembling a spider’s web) that in turn was attached to points around the edge of the spun metal cone. Unlike the National single cone design, the Dobro cone projects outwards, thereby increasing volume. Dobro filed a patent in February 1932 for Rudi Dopyera’s resonator design, which was granted in February 1933. National objected to Dobro’s resonator design, resulting in several contested law suits between National and Dobro, which lasted for several years.

The advantage for guitarists was that the Dobro was both louder and considerably cheaper than the complex and costly National Tricone design. In addition, Dobro cleverly licensed their designs to brands such as Regal to extend their reach into an eager customer base. National responded to competition from Dobro by introducing their lower cost resonators, the Triolian in 1928 and Duolian in 1930. Also in 1930, National released their nickel-plated, steel‑bodied, round necked Style 0 resonator guitars, which featured Hawaiian scenes sandblasted into the guitar’s finish and are now considered iconic. In an attempt to cover all bases, both companies also produced resonator mandolins.

In 1932, with National in financial difficulty, the Dopyera brothers secured a controlling interest in both National and Dobro companies. The companies subsequently merged in 1934 to form the National Dobro Corporation, thereby ending the feud and eliminating the fierce competition between the two. Beauchamp was fired by the new company for his involvement with newcomers, Rickenbacker, who were developing new ideas for electric guitars. The National Dobro Corporation moved operations to Chicago in 1936 where it manufactured resonator guitars until it ceased production in 1941, shortly after America entered World War II. Aluminium was needed to support America’s war effort, making the raw material for resonator cones scarce and the demand for tooling machinery high.

Post-War Resonator Guitars

The remnants of the pre‑WWII National Dobro Corporation were later reorganised to become Valco in 1942, which eventually reintroduced resonator guitars under the National brand in the early 1960s. American company Mosrite bought the Dobro brand in 1966 before going bankrupt themselves in 1969. A new company, National Reso‑Phonic Guitars was formed in 1989, based in California, to produce resonator guitars based on original pre‑war designs as well as some all-new designs, including electro-acoustic resonator guitars.

Taking a different direction altogether, Emile and Rudy Dopyera formed the Original Musical Instrument Company (OMI), based in California in 1967 to make resonator guitars using the brand name Hound Dog. In 1970, OMI secured the Dobro brand name from the bankrupt Mosrite, which meant the Dopyera family could once again manufacture Dobro guitars using their original name. OMI was subsequently acquired by The Gibson Guitar Corporation in 1993 and they currently produce Dobro branded resonators, including Dobro Hound Dog budget models through their Epiphone operation in China. In an attempt to secure the heritage, Gibson has stated that they will defend their exclusive right to use the Dobro name.

While many variations of resonator guitars have been manufactured by a large number of companies over the years, National and Dobro, along with Dobro-licensed Regal, are the names most associated with pre‑WWII resonator production. The influence and legacy of these brands is significant in historical terms and 21st Century popularity of resonator guitars suggests that they are here to stay with a bright future ahead. Many modern resonators now incorporate either electro‑magnetic or piezo‑electric pickups, enabling them to be amplified, just like other electric guitars, while retaining their distinctive acoustic tone. Given the reason why resonators were invented in the first place – to increase acoustic volume – the concept of electric resonators seems a touch ironic today.

End of Part III

I will stop at this juncture, just before the dawn of the electric guitar. In terms of the overall amount of material, Parts I-III cover about half the story I have to tell.

I must mention that this part of the story proved particularly convoluted and I apologise if it comes across confusingly. It was a major challenge to untangle the web of misinformation and distil a meaningful chronological narrative. I hope that you are able to make some sense of the various interweaving threads. The information for the next part proved even more tortuous and I’m still trying to simplify and condense it for the serial article format. As with previous parts, I am happy to amend any factual errors that may well have crept into the timeline thus far.

Before we get back to the next decisive milestones in the guitar’s long story, Part IV will be both a temporary and necessary diversion from the core subject matter. The next episode focuses on two key innovations upon which the electric guitar is entirely dependent. You will have to wait a while to see what unfolds. There is a great deal of background material to wade through, so it will be a challenge to cut down the full version in order to keep the story moving. However, once that contextual reference material is in place, the modern electric guitar in all its splendour can finally be unleashed, hopefully in Part V and thereafter.

Thank you or looking in. As interesting as the story may be, it’s now time for me to stop typing and get back to more important matters; playing (vintage) guitars. Until next time…

CRAVE Guitars ‘Quote of the Month’: “Dancing, even in silence, is literally the embodiment of music.”

© 2018 CRAVE Guitars – Love Vintage Guitars.

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