George D. Beauchamp

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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

US patent drawing for the frying pan guitar with the pickup developed by George Beauchamp

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Early History of Rickenbacker on rickenbacker.com
  2. ↑ Bacon: Guitar Classics, p. 55
  3. ↑ See illustration of the patent drawing in the article
  4. ^ 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