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The Melobar Guitar was invented by Walt Smith. Patented in the late 1960s, it was a combination of a steel guitar and a standard guitar using a standard guitar body and twisting the neck of the guitar up at a 45-degree angle so a player could play over the top of the neck in the traditional steel guitar method.
Tuned to open Chords, Smith endeavored to bring steel guitar up to the level of his classical piano teaching and purchased the first mechanical pitch changing patent but was cheated out of the design the next year. Giving up on mechanical devices he then spent the rest of his life trying to accomplish a tuning that would give a player the ability to do major/9ths/7ths/4ths/6ths and minor chords with a flat pick. His intent was to make it easier for beginners to play guitar without the difficult left hand manipulations but the idea did not catch on.
Professionals, however, such as Rusty Young with Poco, David Lindley, Arlen Roth, Steve Fishel, Roy Clark, Troy Klontz with Brooks and Dunn, Jeff Peterson with Clint Black, Howard Leesea of Heart, Brian Jones with the early Rolling Stones (later Rolling Stones videos as well), Patrick Arbuthnot of British country rockers The Rockingbirds, Jimmy Page and many many others used the Melobar as an open tuning lead instrument putting it on stage for the last thirty years.
Walt had five sons; four of whom were involved in the business. John Selby Smith who was able to get Melobars built for Walt by Semi Mosley of Mosrite some early exposure with Pat Boone and Rusty Young, Steven Sherman Smith who was involved with the Rosac and Metal body models, Doug Smith a player and musician. Ted Smith the fifth son took over Melobar at Walt's death and started Smith Family Music taking the Melobar concept back to its roots with Lap Steel Guitars and the Melobro (Resonator Dobro type instrument made of fiberglass with internal wood baffles). Walt's grandson Marc Smith worked with Ted in construction for several years taking the company to the third generation.
Ted managed the company for 12 years before retiring to follow other interest and Black Canyon Guitars tried to continue the building but full production was never reached again.
The Melobar Company history is available in books by Tom Wheeler American Guitars and several national guitar magazine articles The Melobar Story March Guitar Player magazine and a tribute at the time of Walt's death Melobar's Basement Genius Guitar Player Magazine Sept. 1991 and the book Lap Steel Guitars.
An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes. Unlike a standard acoustic guitar. it uses one or more pickups to convert the vibration of its strings into electrical signals, which ultimately are reproduced as sound by loudspeakers. The sound is sometimes shaped or electronically altered to achieve different timbres or tonal qualities from that of an acoustic guitar via amplifier settings or knobs on the guitar. Often, this is done through the use of effects such as reverb, distortion and "overdrive"; the latter is considered to be a key element of electric blues guitar music and jazz, rock and heavy-metal guitar-playing. Designs also exist combining attributes of the electric and acoustic guitars: the semi-acoustic and acoustic-electric guitars.
The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted and typically has six or twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A guitar pick may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant hollow chamber on the guitar, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier.
Rickenbacker International Corporation is a string instrument manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California. The company is credited as the first known maker of electric guitars – a steel guitar in 1932 – and today produces a range of electric guitars and basses.
Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos that reflect characteristics of the human singing voice. It typically involves playing the guitar in the traditional position with the use of a slide fitted on one of the guitarist's fingers. The slide may be a metal or glass tube, such as the neck of a bottle, giving rise to the term bottleneck guitar to describe this type of playing. The strings are typically plucked while the slide is moved over the strings to change the pitch. The guitar may also be placed on the player's lap and played with a hand-held bar.
A steel guitar is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conventional guitar in that it is played without using frets; conceptually, it is somewhat akin to playing a guitar with one finger. Known for its portamento capabilities, gliding smoothly over every pitch between notes, the instrument can produce a sinuous crying sound and deep vibrato emulating the human singing voice. Typically, the strings are plucked by the fingers of the dominant hand, while the steel tone bar is pressed lightly against the strings and moved by the opposite hand.
A capo is a device a musician uses on the neck of a stringed instrument to transpose and shorten the playable length of the strings—hence raising the pitch. It is a common tool for players of guitars, mandolins, mandolas, banjos, ukuleles and bouzoukis. The word derives from the Italian capotasto, which means the nut of a stringed instrument. The earliest known use of capotasto is by Giovanni Battista Doni who, in his Annotazioni of 1640, uses it to describe the nut of a viola da gamba. The first patented capo was designed by James Ashborn of Wolcottville, Connecticut year 1850.
Clarence Leonidas Fender was an American inventor and founder of the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation.
The Appalachian dulcimer is a fretted string instrument of the zither family, typically with three or four strings, originally played in the Appalachian region of the United States. The body extends the length of the fingerboard, and its fretting is generally diatonic.
The pedal steel guitar is a console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than other steel guitar designs. Like all steel guitars, it can play unlimited glissandi and deep vibrati—characteristics it shares with the human voice. Pedal steel is most commonly associated with Country music and Hawaiian music.
The lap steel guitar, also known as a Hawaiian guitar, is a type of steel guitar without pedals that is typically played with the instrument in a horizontal position across the performer's lap. Unlike the usual manner of playing a traditional acoustic guitar, in which the performer's fingertips press the strings against frets, the pitch of a steel guitar is changed by pressing a polished steel bar against plucked strings. Though the instrument does not have frets, it displays markers that resemble them. Lap steels may differ markedly from one another in external appearance, depending on whether they are acoustic or electric, but in either case, do not have pedals, distinguishing them from pedal steel guitars.
The Russian guitar (sometimes referred to as a "Gypsy guitar") is an acoustic seven-string guitar that was developed in Russia toward the end of the 18th century: it shares most of its organological features with the Spanish guitar, although some historians insist on English guitar descent. It is known in Russian as the semistrunnaya gitara (семиструнная гитара), or affectionately as the semistrunka (семиструнка), which translates to "seven-stringer". These guitars are most commonly tuned to an open G chord as follows: D2 G2 B2 D3 G3 B3 D4. In classical literature, the lowest string (D) occasionally is tuned down to the C.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to guitars:
A B-Bender is a guitar accessory that enables a player to fluidly alter the pitch of a guitar's B-string. This works by mechanically bending the B-string through the use of a series of levers and/or pulleys attached to an external lever that is controlled by the player.
The console steel guitar is any type of electric steel guitar that is built in a frame supported by legs. It may be a lap steel or a pedal steel. Console steel guitars are typically heavier instruments that have multiple necks and/or more than six strings per neck and are therefore not manageable on the player's lap. This type of instrument was created when players in the late 1940s needed to play in different keys and with different chords than the lap steel afforded. To do this, they added additional necks to a lap steel. The player could then easily switch to a different neck on the same instrument, but this made the instrument so heavy and cumbersome that it could not be easily held on the lap. Trying to solve the problem with multiple necks led to the invention of the pedal steel guitar in the 1950s.
A resonator guitar or resophonic guitar is an acoustic guitar that produces sound by conducting string vibrations through the bridge to one or more spun metal cones (resonators), instead of to the guitar's sounding board (top). Resonator guitars were originally designed to be louder than regular acoustic guitars, which were overwhelmed by horns and percussion instruments in dance orchestras. They became prized for their distinctive tone, and found life with bluegrass music and the blues well after electric amplification solved the problem of inadequate volume.
Electric guitar design is a type of industrial design where the looks and efficiency of the shape as well as the acoustical aspects of the guitar are important factors. In the past many guitars have been designed with various odd shapes as well as very practical and convenient solutions to improve the usability of the object.
The lap steel ukulele is a type of and method of playing the ukulele
The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele, is an electric guitar produced by Fender. Together with its sister model the Esquire, it was the world's first mass-produced, commercially successful solid-body electric guitar. Its simple yet effective design and revolutionary sound broke ground and set trends in electric guitar manufacturing and popular music. Many prominent rock musicians have been associated with the Telecaster for use in studio recording and live performances, most notably Bruce Springsteen, Luis Alberto Spinetta, Keith Richards and George Harrison.
Noel Edwin Boggs was an American musician who was a virtuoso on the lap steel guitar and a member of the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame. He was one of the pioneers in electric steel guitar who helped popularize the instrument beyond its native Hawaiian music into other genres of American popular music, specifically Western Swing. Boggs played and recorded with almost every major artist in the genre including Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys (1944-1945) and Spade Cooley's Dance Band. Bob Wills' band helped define the guitar's role in western swing; Wills discovered and coached innovative guitarists who deeply influenced country, rock and jazz music. Boggs appeared on some 2000 recordings as a soloist and his playing was prominent on several of Wills' hits that became Western swing standards, including "Roly Poly" and "Stay a Little Longer".
Zane Beverly Beck (1927–1985) was an American steel guitarist and builder of pedal steel guitars. He is best known for his 1952 innovation of adding knee levers to the pedal steel guitar to alter the pitch of certain strings, a feature which has become a standard on all modern-day instruments. Other inventors had patented crude knee-operated devices as far back as 1933, but none were successful. Beck revolutionized the concept into a durable and reliable mechanism and was the first to put knee levers on production guitars. He became a member of the International Steel Guitar Hall of Fame (1991). As a musician, he performed on the Grand Ole Opry and Shreveport's Louisiana Hayride. Beck formed the ZB Music Company which manufactures steel guitars, later called BMI.