GUITAR

Although stringed instruments like the guitar--the cithera, lute, mandolin etc--have been popular for thousands of years, we tend to think of the guitar as a 20th century invention because the electric guitar was patented by George Beauchamp in 1936. Beauchamp was an inventor of musical instruments--his patents include the single-cone dobro guitar, the electric lap steel guitar (nicknamed the frying pan), the electric guitar (called the electro Spanish guitar, which was a hollow-body electric guitar), and the electric violin--and he co-founded Rickenbacher, a legendary name in guitar history. Founded by Adolph Rickenbacher and George Beauchamp in 1931 to sell electric Hawaiian guitars, the brand name later changed to Rickenbacker.The explosion of Rock'n'roll meant that the guitar became the must have instrument for many aspiring musicians. Easily portable, it was used in both acoustic and electric form and its sound quickly took over from the piano as the sound of popular music.After an introduction covering the history of the guitar, the different types of guitar, pickups and accessories, Guitar uses its superlarge format to look closely at the main types of guitar: from the early Rickenbackers, Fenders and Voxs through to those created by more modern manufacturers. Large-format images are allied to information boxes covering guitar specifications; manufacturing companies; and famous guitarists--many with photographs in concert.