George D. Beauchamp
George Delmetia Beauchamp (born March 18, 1899 in Coleman County in Texas , † March 30, 1941 in Los Angeles ; English pronunciation of the surname: "Beechum" or "Beecham") was an American musician, musical instrument maker and inventor and co-founder the musical instrument makers National Stringed Instrument Corporation and Rickenbacker . Beauchamp was one of the pioneers in the development of electrical amplification for plucked instruments , particularly in the development of the electric guitar .
life and work
In the 1920s, Beauchamp experimented with amplifying the acoustic volume of plucked and string instruments . One of his experiments was to mount a forward-facing bell on the body of a violin . In addition, from 1925 he was involved in the development of the resonator guitar with the Dopyera brothers (who later founded the guitar making company Dobro ) . In 1929, Beauchamp received a US patent for the construction principle of a resonator guitar with only one instead of three horns (English: single-cone ).
As early as 1925, Beauchamp had started at National, initially as an autodidact, with experiments to electrically amplify the vibrations of strings . After leaving the company, he continued his private research and took evening classes in electrical engineering . After many unsuccessful attempts, Beauchamp invented the first mass-produced electromagnetic pickup for guitars in 1931 . This consisted of a coil of copper wire around six pole heads as well as two horseshoe magnets facing each other on edge , between which the steel strings of a lap steel guitar ran on the bridge. For the pickup, called Horseshoe Pickup ("horseshoe pickup") due to its design , Beauchamp applied for a US patent in June 1934, which was granted to him on August 10, 1937. Also in 1931, Beauchamp and his colleague Adolph Rickenbacher founded the company Ro-Pat-In , which was renamed Electro String shortly afterwards . The company marketed the first electrically amplifiable Hawaiian guitar that was developed in collaboration with Rickenbacker and the guitar maker Paul Barth and carried Beauchamp's pickups - the guitar model that later became known as the Rickenbacker Frying Pan ("frying pan").
George D. Beauchamp died on March 30, 1941 at the age of 42 of a heart attack while deep sea fishing .
literature
- Tony Bacon: Guitar classics - all models and manufacturers . Premio Verlag 2007. ISBN 978-3-86706-050-9
- Manfred Nabinger: Frying pan & Hawaii shirt - Rickenbacker Frying Pan & Gibson EH-150, in: Stromgitarren , special issue of the magazine Guitar & Bass on the history of the electric guitar, p. 122 ff. MM-Musik-Media-Verlag, Ulm 2004 . ISSN 0934-7674
- Hannes Fricke: The guitar myth: history, performers, great moments. Reclam, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-15-020279-1 , pp. 27-29 and 134.
Web links
- Article The Earliest Days of the Electric Guitar on the Rickenbacker website
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Early History of Rickenbacker on rickenbacker.com
- ↑ Bacon: Guitar Classics, p. 55
- ↑ See illustration of the patent drawing in the article
- ^ Nabinger: Frying pan & Hawaii shirt in: Stromgitarren, p. 123
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Beauchamp, George D. |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Beauchamp, George Delmetia (full name) |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American musician, inventor and entrepreneur (Rickenbacker Guitars) |
DATE OF BIRTH | March 18, 1899 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Coleman (Texas) |
DATE OF DEATH | March 30, 1941 |
Place of death | los Angeles |