The Electric Guitar

For the A2 music technology exam you are going to need to know a lot of information about the history and development of various music technologies. Below is enough information to give you all 16 marks if a relevant question comes up on the development of the electric guitar but remember your response will need to be well written.
1920s – The first attempts at an amplified instrument came in the development of electrical amplification by the radio industry.
1924 – One of the earliest innovators was Lloyd Loar, an engineer at Gibson Guitar Company. Loar developed an electric pickup for the viola and the string bass.
1928 – The first commercially advertised electric guitar, made by the Stromberg-Voisinet company which utilized a similar pickup to Loar’s, with vibrations being picked up from the soundboard.
1932 – The first electromagnet pick up which registered string vibration from the strings themselves. The first commercially successful model, the so-called “Frying Pan,” was developed and marketed by George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacker.
1939 – The first artist to develop a playing style unique to the electric guitar was Charlie Christian
1950 – Les Paul, who was already a well-known acoustic guitarist, built a guitar on a four-by-four piece of pine and nicknamed it “The Log.”
1950 – Leo Fender, a former radio repairman, introduced a mass-produced solid-body electric guitar
1952 – Gibson introduced a model endorsed by Les Paul himself. The solid-body guitars didn’t have the feedback problems that characterized hollow-body electric guitars, and they had greater sustain.
1950’s and 1960’s – rock stars secured Gibson and Paul’s designs, as well as Fender’s famous Stratocaster, a permanent place in American culture.
1960’s and 1970’s – The introduction of effects and more powerful amplification.

• Jimi Hendrix
• Jimmy Paige
• The Edge