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Follow up question (from Dobro question)
Posted: 11 Jul 2004 10:55 am
by Bill Byrd
Thanks everyone. Now that I know that the "Do" bros made resonator guitars I'm wondering just where it all began. I realize it can get real cloudy as to just where and when anything actually came into being. After all David (the giant killer) had a stringed instrument. But-- as this newbie see's it there are two basic categories of what we now call guitars: those requiring the string(s) to be pressed against a fret and those with strings suspended high above the frets. Is there any consensus as to which came first? Did David suppress 'em or did he just pick 'em?
Posted: 11 Jul 2004 11:16 am
by Steinar Gregertsen
I believe David (the Biblical one, not Lindley, right?
) played a harp, which has no fretboard of any kind, just strings being plucked.
The origin of steel guitar comes from Hawaii, where a young teen by the name of Joseph Kekulu (forgive me if my spelling is wrong) picked up a metal bolt one day he was walking along the railroad tracks, and got the wicked idea of sliding it up and down the strings of his guitar.
This was sometimes in the late 1800's (don't remember exactly, but I believe 1880's), and from there it just developed,- from regular guitars with raised nuts, to hollowneck guitars (now known as "Weissenborns"), to resonator guitars, to electric lap steels (with a growing number of strings attached), and finally to pedal steel guitars.....
At least that's how this Norski remembers the story.
Steinar
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www.gregertsen.com
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Steinar Gregertsen on 11 July 2004 at 12:17 PM.]</p></FONT>
Posted: 11 Jul 2004 11:22 am
by Russ Young
I'll agree with my Norwegian pal on this one ... guitarists were using frets long before they began using bolts, bars or slides.
The Joseph K.-and-his-bolt story seems to show up more often than any other explanation for "Hawaiian-style" playing. I've seen references to black guitarists in the American South using slides to play guitars that had necks so badly warped that they could no longer be fretted -- nor could their owners afford to replace them. That seems like a plausible reason ... although the history is pretty cloudy.
Posted: 11 Jul 2004 1:37 pm
by Ron Bednar
A folk instument, used long before steel guitar playing was invented but played the same way, is the Diddly Bo. The earliest I understand were made by stretching a piece of wire between two nails hammered into a wooden wall. Played by plucking it and sliding a knife blade or bottle along to change the notes. The walls of the cabins, slave shacks really, were board thin and most likely resonated adding volume. Moveable instruments were made by hammering the nails into a board. Many blues greats still on the scene today started by playing a Diddly Bo. One of my all time favorite rockers took his name from the instrument he started with...Ellis McDanials (Bo Diddly).
Posted: 12 Jul 2004 2:29 am
by Andy Volk