Resonator guitar

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A tricone resonator guitar with a metal body ( national type). The T-shaped metal bracket on the body serves as a cover for the underlying (also T-shaped) bridge made of light metal casting, which connects the three resonators

The resonator guitar is a plucked instrument from the guitar family . The construction of the instrument is based on the principle of a mechanical loudspeaker , the resonator . With resonator guitars, a single ( English : single cone ) or three resonators ( tricones ) are built into the interior of the instrument body under the ceiling . They have the shape of flat funnels and are made of sheet aluminum . When playing resonator guitars, the guitar strings cause the resonators to vibrate, which amplify the tone of the strings like a membrane . Therefore, resonator guitars can be played at a greater volume than other types of acoustic guitars .

The resonator guitar was developed in the United States in the 1920s to match the volume of guitars with the volume of other instruments, especially brass . In the Hawaiian music , which was very popular at the time , the guitar was played across the player lying on his thighs ( Hawaiian guitar ). Therefore, the first resonator guitars had instrument necks with a square cross-section ( squareneck guitars). Only later did instruments of the type with a semicircular neck profile that are played like acoustic guitars come onto the market.

history

The stroviol violin , mechanically strengthened by means of a metal resonator and horns, influenced the development of the resonator guitar

In 1925, the American musician and designer George Beauchamp commissioned the Los Angeles- based, Slovakian- born banjo manufacturer John Dopyera to build a Hawaiian guitar. Beauchamp's requirement was for the instrument to be built to be as loud as possible. Beauchamp and Dopyera developed a guitar with a body and neck made of sheet metal; the neck of the instrument, like the body, was hollow. Instead of a wooden ceiling, the design had three funnels made of sheet aluminum as resonators to generate the resonance, which mechanically amplified the sound of the guitar. The design with metal resonators was based on the invention of the London-based violin maker Johann August Stroh. Stroh had held a patent for the use of a metal resonator in string instruments and plucked instruments since 1900 and had been producing them in series since 1901. Especially the violins brand Stroviol were often used since the beginning of the twentieth century in recorded music in the US recording studios.

With support from the millionaire Ted Klein Meyer as an investor and the entrepreneur Adolph Rickenbacker , in the deep drawing press the metal parts were produced, Beauchamp founded with John Dopyera and his brothers Rudy and Emil the company National Stringed Instrument Corporation (Shortcut: National ). The resonator guitar went into series production and became an economic success. Beauchamp and the Dopyeras broke up shortly afterwards in a dispute, and the Dopyera brothers founded their own company called Dobro ( "Do pyera Bro thers"), which produced resonator guitars with a wooden body. Beauchamp and Rickenbacher continued to sell guitars with a sheet metal body, from the late 1920s onwards they also devoted themselves to the development of electrically amplified stringed instruments and founded the Rickenbacker instrument building company , which in 1932 presented the first electrified lap steel , the famous Rickenbacker Frying Pan .

Because of the pioneering role of the two companies Dobro and National, their names are often used colloquially as synonyms for resonator guitars, even if the instruments come from other manufacturers - Dobro as a name for resonator guitars with a body made of wood, and National for guitars with one body Metal.

Construction forms

The aluminum cone and the spider metal bridge are located under the circular metal plate of a single cone (photo on the right) . At the left edge of the picture the tailpiece of the guitar
A single- cone resonator guitar with a wooden body ( Dobro type). The large circular metal plate is the cover of the individual resonator; the two circular wire screens above cover the sound holes

The Resonator can be divided by the number of resonators in two groups: Singlecones ( "single-hopper" instruments with a single large cavity) and Tricones ( "triple funnel" instruments with three smaller resonators with each other by means of a metal web in T-shape are connected). The tricone version represents the original concept, the single- cone version was later developed as an inexpensive alternative. The single -cone guitars form two subgroups, depending on the shape of the resonator: those with biscuit cone ("cake funnel" or kitchen funnel; the resonator points upwards) and spider-cone ("spider funnel"; the resonator is "inverted") in the guitar, the string vibrations are transmitted by means of a metal bridge, the spider ). The biscuit variant is the original, the spider-cone was invented after the separation of the Dopyeras and George Beauchamp from John Dopyera due to patent disputes. After Dopyera left the company that manufactured the instruments he developed, he also lost all patent rights to them. Since Dopyera could not afford the equipment necessary to build instruments with a metal body, he made the body of the instruments out of wood. Therefore, as a rule, only instruments with a wooden body are referred to as Dobro , as the first models of this type were actually manufactured exclusively by the Dopyera brothers themselves. The name National for sheet metal instruments is derived from the name National String Instrument Company , the company that originally made these instruments. All three types of resonator guitars differ significantly in sound.

While the resonator is always made of aluminum, different body materials are traditionally used. The original version of the tricone consists of nickel silver , today one mainly encounters brass (bell brass) . Single cones can have a housing made of wood, brass, nickel silver or steel . Dobros with Spider-Cone are made of wood. The housing material is also noticeable in the timbre. In addition to acoustic resonator guitars, such instruments are also made with electromagnetic pickups , the sound of which can be transmitted via a guitar amplifier .

Style of play

Playing with bottleneck (on the ring finger of the left hand)
Lapsteel - Playing with Steel (in the player's left hand)

Today, resonator guitars are mainly used in blues and bluegrass . The strings are usually plucked with plates that are placed on the fingertips of the beating hand ( finger picks ) .

In the blues the strings are sometimes fingered like an ordinary guitar. In the blues, however, playing as a slide guitar with a bottleneck or slide ("glider" or "slider") is more common. This refers to a glass or brass tube placed on a finger of the gripping hand, whereby the strings can still be gripped with the other fingers. The resonator guitars are often retuned to an open mood .

In country music (especially in traditional styles such as bluegrass, for example by Bashful Brother Oswald with Roy Acuff and Jerry Douglas with Alison Krauss ), the lapsteel style of playing, derived from the Hawaiian guitar, is common. The guitar is played with the top of the body facing upwards; the instrument depends on a belt in front of the upper body or transversely (English: on the lap lap ) added. Instead of a patch on a finger slides is a massive metal bars, the bar , used to shorten the strings. This way of playing later went over to the pedal steel guitar, which was designed as a table instrument . For the lap style , resonator guitars of the squareneck design with a square neck and a large distance between the strings and the fingerboard and with an open tuning are used.

Discography

Street musician with resonator guitar

Trivia

The cover photo of the album Brothers in Arms by the British rock band Dire Straits shows a 1937 National Style O resonator guitar .

literature

  • Manfred Nabinger: Got to the funnel - How the resonator guitar came about . In: Guitar & Bass - The Musicians' Magazine, Issue 12/2011, pp. 88–92, MM-Musik-Media-Verlag, Ulm, ISSN  0934-7674 ; about the early history of the instrument

Web links

Commons : Resonator guitars  - collection of images, videos and audio files

There are currently four regular festivals in Europe that deal extensively with this instrument:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Conny Restle , Christopher Li (Ed.): Fascination Guitar, p. 102. Catalog of the exhibition Fascination Guitar at the SIMPK Musical Instrument Museum, Berlin. Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin 2010. ISBN 978-3-89479-637-2
  2. ↑ a b Nabinger: Got to the funnel - How the resonator guitar came about . In: Guitar & Bass , issue 12/2011, pp. 88–92
  3. ↑ Tony Bacon, Dave Hunter: Totally Guitar - the definitive Guide (Guitar Encyclopedia, English), pp. 550 f. Backbeat Books, London 2004, ISBN 1-871547-81-4
  4. ↑ Mark Knopfler on probation . In: Berliner Zeitung , November 25, 2006
  5. ^ Mark Knopfler website ( Memento from April 16, 2012 on WebCite )
  6. ↑ Information on the National Resonator Guitar on jessedeanfreeman.com