My Music And Song's

Posts Tagged ‘guitars’

The acoustic guitar came to America in the 1850s, thanks mainly to immigrants from Eastern Europe. Guitar maker Christian Friedrich (C. F.) Martin left his native Germany because of dissatisfaction with the restrictive guilds that oversaw all instrument making back home.Meanwhile, factories were built to turn out inexpensive guitars by the dozens, and mail order catalogs like Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward began selling five-dollar instruments.

In the nineteenth century the guitar was promoted as a parlor instrument for young ladies to play. In the time before phonographs and radio, music-making was a favorite amateur activity. Young women were especially encouraged to learn music as an important social skill. While the piano was large and ungainly, the guitar was small and sweet voiced  at the time, most guitars were far smaller than today’s jumbo models, and they were all strung with gut strings in the classical style. Because of this, the guitar was thought to be an ideal instrument for young ladies, and it soon became popular.

As stage performers began taking up the guitar in the early twentieth century, they clamored for louder instruments that could fill a concert hall. Guitar makers responded by making bigger guitars; others began experimenting with different shapes for the guitar’s body to improve bass response and volume. The Martin company made an important contribution in the teens with the introduction of their so-called D or Dreadnought guitar. With a wider lower bout (or half of the body), and with construction strong enough to withstand the newly introduced steel strings, the instrument was immediately popular for its loud bass volume and carrying power.

The practical differences between the two types of guitars is, in sum, that an electric guitar needs to plug in to an amp and have electricity to be heard,but it’s easier to play than an acoustic. An acoustic works with nothing but the fingers nature gave you, but its loudness is limited to a range of a few feet, and in a quiet environment — unless it has a mic, of course. Acoustics can’t sustain like electrics can, so their lead qualities are more restricted, too.

As you can see in the preceding section, though, the bodies are quite different, owing to the way each converts a plucked string into audible sound. In this section, I cover both methods, but take note that the fundamental principles for acoustic guitars, and the way their strings produce notes, apply to electrics as well — acoustic is that baby’s daddy, after all.

The first blues guitars were acoustic because blues was invented before electricity had lent its powers to music. Gut and steel-string acoustics were used as a means to accompany a singing voice or another melodic instrument, like the fiddle. Gradually the rhythms evolved into single-note figures (riffs), and then finally into a solo instrument, where the guitar would carry the melody.But blues played on the acoustic guitar is a viable style today, as evidenced by the work of Rory Block, Roy Book Binder, John Hammond, Keb’ Mo’, and Chris Thomas King. So the first step in playing the blues is to understand how acoustic guitars work, and why they’re so perfect for playing the blues.