Arthur R Harmon - the first designer of knee levers

Ken Byng · From: Southampton, England

Forumite Michael Lee Allen recently very kindly sent me some photocopies of steel guitar articles and photographs of various steel guitars and players, including one of my mentor Kealoha Life.

Very interestingly, one article was from Guitar Player 1988. It was based around the origins of the pedal steel guitar, and featured an item on the Harmolin guitar, made by Arthur R Harmon. It was a regular 6 string square-neck guitar but with 3 levers, 2 operated by the knees. See below for link.

http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/album_fullsize.html?c_photo=104787742

The first patent for a pedal guitar type instrument appears to be in 1903 by E S Stevenson. In 1928, The Kaufman brothers invented a pitch changing device for guitars, attached to the headstock of a standard guitar with wood screws. This was by way of raising the nut.

It is well worth reading the article, as it dispels some of the common theories of who was first to bring out pedals and knee levers.

Darrell Urbien · From: Echo Park, California

Here are two on ebay:

Harmolins

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