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Customer satisfaction surveyBog'liq Listening transcripts 230531 122425Q32
was unsuitable for many other types of music.
Another way of Increasing the volume was thought of in the 1930s. The C. F. Martin Company became
known for its ‘Dreadnought‘,
a large flat-top acoustic guitar that used steel strings instead of the
traditional gut ones.
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It was widely imitated by other makers.
These mechanical fixes helped, but only up to a point. So guitarists began to look at the possibilities
offered by the new field of electronic amplification. What guitar players needed was a way to separate
the guitar’s sound and boost it in isolation from the rest of a band or the surroundings.
Guitar makers and players began experimenting with electrical pickups which are the main means of
amplification used today. The first successful one was invented in 1931 by George Beauchamp.
He
introduced to the market a guitar known as The Frying Pan’
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because the playing area consisted
of a small round disk. The guitar was hollow and was made of aluminium and steel.
He amplified the
sound by using a pair of horseshoe–shaped magnets.
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It was the first commercially successful
electric guitar.
So by the mid-1930s, an entirely new kind of sound was born. Yet along with its benefits, the new technology
brought problems. The traditional hollow body of a guitar caused distortion and feedback when combined
with electromagnetic pickups. Musicians and manufacturers realised that a new kind of guitar should be
designed from scratch with amplification in mind.
In 1935 Adolph Rickenbacker produced a guitar which took his name – ‘The Rickenbacker Electro Spanish’.
It was the first guitar produced in plastic,
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which, because of its weight, vibrated less readily than
wood. It eliminated the problems of earlier versions which were plagued by acoustic feedback. ‘The Electro
Spanish’ had its own problems, however, because it was very heavy, smaller than other guitars of the
period, and was quite awkward to play. Developments continued and in 1941 Les Paul made a guitar
which he called ‘The Log’, and true to its name,
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