My Dad, who was born in 1922 in The Netherlands, was a huge Hawaiian music fan in pre and post war Holland. The Kilima Islanders were the big group there. He also had his own trio. He played Hawaiian steel guitar on an acoustic tuned to C, I think, on his lap with a microphone in it. Thanks for helping bring back those memories.
Fun fact: From a per capita perspective, Hawaiian music was more popular for far longer than Rock and Roll has ever been. It's influence is still present in modern country music. It's strange that modern culture doesn't recognize it at all. Most people have no idea. What a sad state of affairs.
Since I live in Spain, I've been in a couple of music museums. If you're ever in Almeria go to the guitar museum. Torres laid the foundation for the classic guitar as we know it in this little town in Andalusia. I saw some of his works from the 1800s and they look pretty much like student classic guitars from the present that you can buy in every guitar store for 50 bucks. I also recommend the music museum in Barcelona where you can find some of his master pieces, too.
The Baroque guitar that was in the painting was definitely an ancestor of the modern guitar. It has 9 stings tuned from bottom to top A D G B and E. The bottom 4 strings are doubled and the top E string is by itself and is called the Chanterelle or the singing string. The only thing this guitar needs is a low E string and it would pretty much be a Spanish guitar.
There was gradual , overlapping , parallel transition from Baroque Guitar to Romantic Guitar , in different Western Regions . English Guitar was used as what we would regognize " as a guitar " , but had 5 courses of doubled strings , tuned in open C . Russian Guitar we would recognize as a guitar , but had 7 single strings , tuned in open G . Then came the Spanish Guitar , which solidified the concept of 6 strings .
The earliest music for an instrument called “Guitar” was published in Seville by Alonzo Mudarra around 1565. It had four courses of strings. Documentation suggests gg’-c’c’-e’e’-a tuning and a scale length of around 19”. In other words, a baritone Uke strung for Low G. Christopher Page’s excellent book and video series “The Guitar in Tudor England” which cites the earliest known instance in English of a guy claiming the ladies dug it when he played guitar….
I have to offer a compliment. I think JHS works hard to address multiple audiences and commend the company for doing so. That said given my particular interests and planetary tenure these Monday talk sessions are the best thing I have found in a long time. More learning and thinking than trying to be entertaining or funny. Nothing wrong with those things but like many of us time is limited and I look for the greatest return on my time and these sessions are superlative. Josh you have my thanks
You are a FANTASTIC teacher, Josh! I'm a guitar nerd and I already knew a lot of this stuff, but some things were a huge surprise to me. I could listen to you talking about this (as well as other music related subjects) for HOURS! Thanks!!! 😊❤️👍
I studied ancient musical instruments as a guitar-obsessed Archaeology major, and I can confirm that the origin of stringed instruments built roughly like a guitar - body with some sort of bridge, neck, headstock - goes back to at least the bronze age, so even farther back than 500 BCE. I made a type of instrument from the Indus Valley called a dotar. Halved, gutted and dried a large gourd, stretched hide over it and stitched it on with gut. The neck was carved out of soft wood and went straight through the body, the bridge and nut were of the same wood, three gut strings, carved wood tuning pegs. From there, time and your adjacent possibles eventually led to the good old Spanish guitar. The different versions on the way there can get pretty wild, it's a really fun topic. Loved this episode.
Josh - I'm so happy you are in this culture and community. We are all richer for it. I'm fascinated by one major question: Why was so much work put into evolving the guitar when for so long it was such a "side-piece" of musical performance? What made people decide guitar was worth evolving and putting effort into it? (I'm glad it happened...no doubt.)
The humbleness that Josh shows in his way of learning and teaching what he has learned so far is what we need in this world. Deep dives, small steps towards learning how we are here. If we go wrong, we go back, we learn more and we correct the mistakes. Not deny it. You can't just make 15 second snippets to "the one absolute truth" of the birth and the way of the electric guitar. There isn't one cause it required many paths. I really like these episodes you are doing and hope you never stop. Hope you also find a way to fund the research and the trips that you and your supporters feel comfortable with.
Hey Josh. With regard to the Rickenbacker pickup, the metal that surrounds the strings is actually two horseshoe magnets, where the North Pole is on the back (in your lap) and the South Pole is on the top. I confirmed this after watching your video with my 40s Rick and a compass. When you talk about solid bodies next week, make sure you mention the Rickenbacker Bakelite models (they made both lap steel and Spanish style bakelites in the 40s). THANK YOU FOR THIS AWESOME PIECE OF HISTORY!
Can't speak from much expertise on the matter but in college, I played in the Colligium Musicum, the Medieval music ensemble. My professor enticed me to play the viola de gamba (viola of the thighs) by telling me it was an interesting crossroad between cello and guitar (my main 2 instruments at the time. He was also absolutely right. I was in it all 8 semesters). It had 6 strings tuned A D G B E A low-to-high, 7 frets on the upper portion of the neck, and then bowed similarly to a cello. The tuning can vary as there are bass, tenor, alto, and soprano viola de gambas. All of them used sheep gut strings and tuning was a nightmare. During out concerts, we'd have to take at least 3 tuning breaks between songs. My professor who ran it would alternate between his viola de gamba, a 12 string lute, and a period 5 string guitar that he said was tuned like a guitar in D Standard without the low D. I always found it interesting how closely related the tunings were and the evolution from one to the other. Especially as a musician who started as a cellist and then discovered non-5th-based instruments, the overlap and almost logical progression of tuning systems being codified and standardized as you move from Medieval into Renaissance into Baroque and Classical and then into more contemporary forms of music and how the instruments are being utilized and therefore necessitating some form of evolution, prompting people to seize the adjacent possible and reconceptualize their instruments is really fascinating. Hope I didn't ramble too much there, just wanted to share what little I knew about old instruments I've been loving your talks about the fundamental ideas being where these things that we love so much come from (especially this one) and how did we get there and your love and passion for history and the preservation of it. Keep it up, man, this was awesome!! I'm looking forward to the next one
great look at the history, Josh. one thing though, nylon strings were not invented until 1947, so prior to the introduction of steel strings, guitar strings were 'catgut' - actually made from sheep and cattle intestines. the first wound steel strings used silk as a core
The Ultimate Guitar Book by Tony Bacon starts with luscious pics from the 16th century with the masters and the oddballs from all over the world. A must have for guitar lovers. BTW, Oud is pronounced "Ood".
yes yes yes, more more more next week please. Thank you for everything you've done to spread knowledge. And if you're reading this Josh, your jams, which appear to be improvised, are always on point. Love the band, your playing and comedy. I just picked up the 73 London Bender I've been wanting since released. The pedal history play too... just everything man. Thank you so much for your time and effort. It is greatly appreciated and you should have no reason to question your awesomeness... just keep doing you. Love, Milkfoot / Anywhere Studios.
Hey. I just wanted to say that I enjoy your vids. You have good presence and are well spoken. The few other guys that I have seen doing this sort of stuff don't carry it well. They also can't do all the crazy jams!! Thank you. Stay humble sir.
Nylon was invented in 1939, so early Spanish style guitars must have had gut strings. Other instruments, such as drums, used animal tissue in their construction. That would actually be an interesting "adjacent possible" to examine - the invention of engineered materials, mostly polymers, and what they have brought to the guitar.
I watched this whole thing live and it was great. you don't get this combination of qualities in a lot of people, knows a LOT about pedals, is fun to listen to and can really play. really starting to like this channel. you should do a synth jam with florian from "bad gear". I would watch the fuck out of that.
I really enjoy content like this. Keep it up! Suggestion for a future topic: History of Amplifiers. But not just guitar/bass amplification, but the evolution of the stage/musical performance amplifications systems. The guitar amp is only a part of the interconnected instrument/vocal, sound reinforcement, stage PA system. There are a lot of adjacent innovations from the big band era, through early rock n' roll, through Woodstock and the arena rock era.
My Grandfather and his brothers bought guitars and banjos from the Sears catalog in the 1920's for their vaudeville act. Sadly, the instruments got lost when the brothers moved on to serious careers during the Depression.
I got to play an 1850 C.F. Martin parlor sized guitar. Crazy when I held it due to the context of Lincoln not having been elected President. That exact model you show. Guitar is still located in St. Louis if you want to check it out Josh.
Hi Josh! I come from Almeria, Spain (The city where Antonio de Torres was born too). Happy to see that you got this information because most common people in my city they don't even know about Torres existence and his relaction with Guitar history. Btw, He also created the Flamenco guitar as we know it today (which is almost the same but with lower string action).
Such a nice video. I recently aquired a 7 course Lute, and besides playing my synths I study "Partimento" on piano and I hope a harpsichord someday. Only since 2007 do we have a grasp on the history of "Western" harmonic music, thanks to Gjerdingen, Sanguietti, and Baragwanath, and other scholars. The most influential place in the great revival of "historical practice" in music is the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. With respect, I think you may learn there is a huge heritage of Voice, Guitar (Lute) and Keyboard which was "disrupted" right around the time the first modern guitar appeared, though the transition was more nuanced in Latin America, where the Vihuela lived on and morphed into so many variations. Your points about volume are well taken, though I think we have lost alot of acoustic richness in the pursuit of dancehall volume. The Lute really drops my jaw. Hendrix would have loved it. The 12-strings of the Beatles, Smiths and Petty are directly tied to chordophones so central to our harmonic heritage, the many Lutes and Therobos in Europe from 1100 to about 1820. A vast literature of tablature survives, far exceeding what is available for keyboards in the same period. These are the grandparents of the Guitar, and their players were far more educated and sophisticated than most imagine. There is considerable politics in the near loss of the family album and history, from 1850 to today, which is a shame, since there is so much to learn and apply to how we pluck today. Nikhil Hogan's Channel, starting around episode 60 has long interviews with the leading scholars and professors of historical practice today, and the "lute channel" has some fantastic interviews with heavy hitters on the Lute, who all started on Guitars, and remain great fans. Thanks for all your insights on pedals, which has cost me a grand or so lately, but saved a fortune ;)
BMG was 10 for the price of 1 CD. Columbia was 10 CD's for 1 penny. I always ordered BMG. My first rock & roll CD's were from BMG. Like 4 GnR, Snow(Informer), Ahmad, Celly Cel, and a couple of other rap CD's. all sorts of stuff lol. BMG started my fascination with music.
One of the best Monday talks yet! Can't wait for part 2. The "cover" of those old pickups is an interesting topic among slide players: there is a lot of mojo ascribed to them because the magnetic field is affected from above as well as below, but I tend to agree with Josh here that it's impact probably isn't as dramatic as we'd like to think old string-through pickups would be. Curious if anyone can explain the physics of why this would have such a supposedly significant impact on the sound of the pickup
LOVE THIS! Long before (like 30 years ago) I ever went down the pedal rabbit hole, I wanted to know all about how we got to what we know as the guitar. Fascinating! I've played the Middle Eastern tar, the oldest guitar thing I've personally played - 3 maybe 4 strings across a floating bridge with movable frets on basically a flat side broom handle attached to a fancy wood bowl. Played ouds and lutes and a lot of other stringed weirdness in between - Cuban Tres or Puerto Rican quatro anyone? Of all of those unique guitar relatives I still have a charango in my collection that's the Inca take on what we would come to know as the guitar - the vihiuela ( I think that is what is in the 16th century painting you show that the girl is playing) which came at the dawn of colonialism in S America, its an instrument of revolution and resistance. The spanish forbade the inca from playing their instruments so this was the inca take on those instruments 🤘 ... anyway, just 100% cool, Josh. Thank you for being the absolute awesome history Nerd that you are!
Josh, a long time ago I played in an early English music ensemble. The cello player played a 15th century Viola da Gamba which was fretted, 6 strings and had a Keith Richard’s style open d tuning. Looked like a six string fretted cello.
I absolutely love this stuff! 🤓 Great video Josh, thank you! 🙏 Another RUclipsr who I’ve enjoyed is Brandon Acker, although you’re probably already familiar with him, but he’s done some great work on the history of the guitar too!
Great history, thanks :D Couple of ideas for the future of this series: 1. Use split screen instead of the picture overlay 2. Since we're talking about guitars and sound, maybe it would be nice to demo some of the different sounds!
The first circuit is a tough one, I did some research and Luigi Galvani in 1780 discovered he could make a frog's leg twitch by running electricity through it and he did this by connecting a piece of iron to a piece of copper and when the frog's leg completed the circuit it would twitch. He knew it was electricity (calling it "animal electricity") doing this. The idea of a circuit I don't think had been conceived yet but he was making a complete circuit as apposed to just running electricity to ground like Ben Franklin and others who experimented with static electricity. Galvani's work inspired Volta who invented the battery in 1799 and was part of the inspiration for Mary Shelly's book Frankenstein.
Some of the first circuits were the vacuum tube oscillator in 1912, constant current modulator in 1913 and the Flip Flop in 1919 (one of my personal favs). Harold A. Wheeler designed the Automatic Volume Control for AM radios in 1926 and that circuit used a "diode detector." H. Yagi and S. Uda of Tohoku University were the first to use wave interference to obtain gain and directivity from wire aerials. The first negative feedback amp circuit was 1927, discovered by H.S. Black at Bell Labs. 🤓
Be aware, the horned instrument likely did not just have a horn but a horn over a diaphragm. So the strings likely used a bridge to vibrate the diaphragm amplified by the horn. In many ways similar in concept to the resonator, but the resonator was more like playing a speaker, and this was not like playing a loudspeaker.
I highly recommend the book Deep Blues, by Robert Palmer (not that Robert Palmer) which -- IIRC -- goes into some of this history, with the goal of explaining how the guitar ended up in the hands of players like Charlie Patton, Son House, and so many other musicians that played the diverse range of regional folk styles that we now just call "blues."
Josh, please read all you can about PAUL BARTH, he is one of the forgotten founding fathers of the electric guitar. His contributions are vastly underestimated, mainly because he was a quite unassuming man who never sort the limelight. Beauchamp and Barth created the horseshoe pickup on Paul Barth’s mothers (Irma Dopyera) kitchen table. They created this Together. Beauchamp eventually raised the patent in his name. Barth raised a patent for a detachable horseshoe pickup, that could be retrofitted to Spanish guitar, it had to be strapped on. Beauchamp and Barth were great buddies, while in partnership with the Dopyera brothers the resonator was created, Beauchamp still wanted more volume, hence he worked with Barth and the Rickenbacker frying Pan came about. Barth was the consistent thread from the early days, he was a founding member of the National String Instrument Corporation, with Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacher, with the first board meeting on 29 February 1928. Barth remained with the Rickenbacker company until 1957. Les Paul was a regular dinner guest at the Barth family home and was influenced by Barth. Barth replaced Paul Bigsby at Magnatone. He is also credited with helping Leo Fender set up the original semi-automated assembly line in Santa Ana in the early ‘50s, when the Stratocaster was first being built. Paul built many of the woodworking jigs that were used to shape necks and bodies for the very first Jazzmaster, Jaguar, and Stratocaster guitars. He also built all the jigs Paul Barth’s fingerprints and influence are all over the iconic guitars we still know today. Electro String National Rickenbacker Fender Bartell Barth Acoustic Corp Hohner Magnatone Mosrite Natural Music Guild The book Finding Fretless is the best source of information about Barth. www.findingfretless.com By the way, his guitars were played by, The Beatles, Hendrix, Zappa, Chuck Berry and more…..
My dad used to hang around the Stromberg factory in Boston when he was a kid. Stromberg made my grandfather’s drum set and percussion instruments. My dad always wanted to get a Stromberg archtop... but by the time he could afford one, the company was sold off and the factory closed.
Looking forward to the next episode. Hope you talk about junior barnard's epiphone emperor that was modded by leo fender (which side note: looks like what inspired the cooder caster)
Interesting note to add: Lloyd Loar that designed the L-5 also tinkered with early mandolin and viola/violin pickup designs. Another example of that "adjacent possible"
One of the most interesting and esoteric questions about the development design of the modern guitar is the design of the pick guard…meaning that there’s a pick (plectrum) to increase the volume. It shows up first in the episode on the pics of the CF Martin guitar; but it moves on from there. But not for everyone-Gibson doesn’t have them until later. But the plectrum-not using human hands to strike the strings-is the most critical volume producer prior to the electrified instruments.
Q: After all the history of evolution of this totally awesome instrument, do you think there will ever be another as cool to Revolutionize music the way the Guitar has? Seriously ever... Thanks for all your videos 🎸
“Nylon,” as we know, is strictly post-WWII. I don’t think the first nylon products were available until 1948 or so. So before that, gut was everything, just like with tennis racquets.
I heard from a guy who was and alter-Lansing collector/authority that Jim Lansing and the Doprea brothers (dobro) were both located in Long Beach CA in the same what we would call industrial strip. If you compare a Lansing basket and a Dobro cone they are very similar. Perhaps a few shared lunchtime conversations happened?
Great stuff! Loved the 1890 patent thing, was not aware of that at all. Nor DeForest. Learning is fun! Your overall theme of the need for louder makes a lot of sense and is an easy way to grasp modern guitar evolution. I'm still unclear as to when steel strings a) became available at all, and b) became prevalent, or at least commonplace. From what I've gathered over the years, steel strings were still an anomaly, a special use-case kind of thing, until well into the 20th century, say somewhere in the teens? And banjos didn't have steel strings until later either, at least that was my understanding. The Hawaiian music craze that had its roots in the late 1800's plays a big role in all this, as you mention, but when could you go to the general store and buy steel guitar strings? Who made those first steel strings? I love topics like this because there's a lot to know but still many unanswered questions, and a lot of it is open to interpretation and varying definitions. It's like the "what was the first rock and roll record?" thing - great food for thought but impossible to answer without being annoyingly long winded about it.
Lee de Forest didn't just make amplification possible with his triode vacuum tube. He made the broadcast of voice and music over radio possible as he discovered that if he fed the grid of the triode with it's own signal, it would create a self-regenerating oscillation, which when fed to an antenna made a much more practical radio transmitter than earlier devices that were suitable for telegraph communications but not much more. At the receiving end, de Forrest's triodes both amplified the weak radio signal into something usable and then amplified the audio signal derived from that.
In the early 60's, before there were light gauge strings, my guitar teacher had me buy a regular set of strings and a Hawaiian guitar G string. I'd use the Hawaiian G to replace the high E, move all the other strings up and eliminate the low E string from the set. That's how I made my first sets of bendable strings.
Have many parallel threads to the adjacent that I'd like to offer up. Had a Jazz guitar teacher that championed the guitar as a saxophone and piano that you could hold on your knee... portable. Music culture is diverse and spreads like a virus (in a good way not a covid way) like with Appalachian fiddle playing you can hear the drones of the Scottish bagpipes.... some musicologists attribute the mandolin as coming from Italian railroad workers back in the day (this is very much a potted history lacking rigor). My ears pricked up with the mention of the Hawaiian influence on American culture during the depression, happy stuff!! The lap steel and the pick up seem like a natural fit. I purchased a Japanese Teisco guitar recently which had weird yellow fake tortoise shell that I found emulated Oahu guitars. Working backwards from the Japanese perspective seems to suggest another interest with the Spanish guitar origin perhaps the brand name Ibanez and its origin in 1935 from a company founded in 1903 specifically catering to a Japanese interest. The Jack White idea of improvising an electric guitar works just as well when thinking about African American history and portable improvised making of instruments... It might get loud but much music has happened adjacent to the human voice. The vacuum tube has also functioned beyond amplification to 'broadcast' i.e. casting out audio visual stuff via radio and television [interesting non guitar side note is the tubes influence in the synthesizer with the Theremin around 1910 as well as it's use in the telecommunication code and decode device during WW2 which is now known as a vocoder]........ Stop me as I'm starting to rant... Absolutely love your stuff Josh and thank you so much for the generosity with which you share your knowledge! So very much appreciated.
Perhaps the tuning eadgbe is another guitar definition, for what we consider a guitar today, in terms of the family of features that makes it what it is? The Spanish guitars are the pioneers of using standard tuning? The Lute is played with six strings but the equivalent guitar b string is tuned 1 fret different, from what I remember. A reason for talking about the tuning is because it informs the musical vocabulary and techniques. Perhaps an adjacent in the evolution is the music and tuning.
Worth mentioning if anyone hasn’t that the oud is still a very popular instrument the world over, particularly in various middle eastern traditions where it originates. Also, I’ve only ever heard it pronounced with a double-o sound as in food or dude, as opposed to an ou sound like loud.
Banjo is actually really cool. The story of the banjo is an incredible and truly American story. I don't want to give details in a comment but if you did a little research, you'd probably want to tell that story on your channel. Plus, the banjo is responsible for a lot of what has become the American sound. Everyone had to tune to the banjo or play in the banjo's key. It's the heart of the American string band.
And the hunting bow is an evolution of the spear. Which is an evolution of the knife. Which is an evolution of teeth. Teeth. The guitar is an evolution of teeth? 😲 We've busted this wide open...
Hawaiian music has never totally gone away to this day . But Leo Fender , who didn't play , was heavily into the Western Swing scene , and already sucuessfully selling steel guitars .
Yes. It's a period instrument. Likely a renaissance guitar or some might call it a baroque guitar given the date. Trumpets and violins and clarinets were also different then. So I'd say yes. That's not just a guitar like instrument. It's a guitar. But maybe I'm wrong.
Interesting topic. I have spent numerous hours researching this topic. I honestly can not find a definitive answer. Loads of speculation still exists. Hopefully, you will continue your research.
Google says "The first electric circuit was invented by Alessandro Volta (1745-1847) in 1800. He discovered he could produce a steady flow of electricity using bowls of salt solution connected by metal strips."
Josh, you are a great educator and teacher (same thing I guess). I just wanted to say that I love when you delve into the history or inner workings of instruments/technology. You'll find me entranced by any video that involves history or how technology works. Thanks for the great content.
I think when we talk about modern electric guitars - being 50s tech still, it’s just a classic case of “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it” in the 80s they came up with synth guitar and all sorts of weird and wonderful “modern” ideas - but let’s be honest, they’re gimmicky junk, you can’t beat the natural tone of an electro magnet producing a signal to amp. It’s all you need.
5:25 Is a Baroque guitar, not even the earliest incarnation. It has 10 strings in 5 courses, made from about 13,000 pieces of wood. My grandfather made a copy of it, which was loaned to a museum, now back in my family's possession. Lute evolved at the same time as guitar, out of the oud, which is gourd shaped with a flat top. Guitar was always basically rectangular. Guitar was largely considered a peasants instrument in its early days, which is why you don't see many pics of them before the Baroque era.
The Persian Tar looks a lot like a guitar, including the number of strings. I am not sure, though if it predates the early guitars or not. It also has a strong linguistic link. BTW the setar, which is etymologically related to the sitar, had three strings (se, being persian for three). I have always just assumed that some Persians in Al Andalus got together with some Arabs or other mustali in Al Andalus and mashed their instruments together.
I know I'm the odd duck out, but I play a multi-scale 7-strings these days. They're just much more comfortable than standard fretted instruments for me since I don't have to have elbow shoved into my rip cage to play above the 12 fret. I don't play a lot of heavier music either, but the seventh string is more beneficial than a lot of players realize, even w/the blues/rock.
My Dad, who was born in 1922 in The Netherlands, was a huge Hawaiian music fan in pre and post war Holland. The Kilima Islanders were the big group there. He also had his own trio. He played Hawaiian steel guitar on an acoustic tuned to C, I think, on his lap with a microphone in it. Thanks for helping bring back those memories.
That's also how Jeff Healey played guitar. He was blind, and still one of the best blues guitar players ever.
Fun fact: From a per capita perspective, Hawaiian music was more popular for far longer than Rock and Roll has ever been. It's influence is still present in modern country music. It's strange that modern culture doesn't recognize it at all. Most people have no idea. What a sad state of affairs.
Since I live in Spain, I've been in a couple of music museums. If you're ever in Almeria go to the guitar museum. Torres laid the foundation for the classic guitar as we know it in this little town in Andalusia. I saw some of his works from the 1800s and they look pretty much like student classic guitars from the present that you can buy in every guitar store for 50 bucks. I also recommend the music museum in Barcelona where you can find some of his master pieces, too.
That painting you show was in the cover of most of my classical guitar books.
The Baroque guitar that was in the painting was definitely an ancestor of the modern guitar. It has 9 stings tuned from bottom to top A D G B and E. The bottom 4 strings are doubled and the top E string is by itself and is called the Chanterelle or the singing string. The only thing this guitar needs is a low E string and it would pretty much be a Spanish guitar.
Baroque guitar gang!
Made me think of tom hanks in the lady killers lol.
There was gradual , overlapping , parallel transition from Baroque Guitar to Romantic Guitar , in different Western Regions .
English Guitar was used as what we would regognize " as a guitar " , but had 5 courses of doubled strings , tuned in open C .
Russian Guitar we would recognize as a guitar , but had 7 single strings , tuned in open G .
Then came the Spanish Guitar , which solidified the concept of 6 strings .
So, Baroque Djent
The earliest music for an instrument called “Guitar” was published in Seville by Alonzo Mudarra around 1565. It had four courses of strings. Documentation suggests gg’-c’c’-e’e’-a tuning and a scale length of around 19”. In other words, a baritone Uke strung for Low G. Christopher Page’s excellent book and video series “The Guitar in Tudor England” which cites the earliest known instance in English of a guy claiming the ladies dug it when he played guitar….
I have to offer a compliment. I think JHS works hard to address multiple audiences and commend the company for doing so. That said given my particular interests and planetary tenure these Monday talk sessions are the best thing I have found in a long time. More learning and thinking than trying to be entertaining or funny. Nothing wrong with those things but like many of us time is limited and I look for the greatest return on my time and these sessions are superlative. Josh you have my thanks
You are a FANTASTIC teacher, Josh! I'm a guitar nerd and I already knew a lot of this stuff, but some things were a huge surprise to me. I could listen to you talking about this (as well as other music related subjects) for HOURS!
Thanks!!! 😊❤️👍
I studied ancient musical instruments as a guitar-obsessed Archaeology major, and I can confirm that the origin of stringed instruments built roughly like a guitar - body with some sort of bridge, neck, headstock - goes back to at least the bronze age, so even farther back than 500 BCE. I made a type of instrument from the Indus Valley called a dotar. Halved, gutted and dried a large gourd, stretched hide over it and stitched it on with gut. The neck was carved out of soft wood and went straight through the body, the bridge and nut were of the same wood, three gut strings, carved wood tuning pegs. From there, time and your adjacent possibles eventually led to the good old Spanish guitar. The different versions on the way there can get pretty wild, it's a really fun topic. Loved this episode.
History of the Guitar .... first there was ... the black ... frozen void ...
ruclips.net/video/TOSDrT_eDhk/видео.html
Mel Brooks has entered the comments.
@@mykhedelic6471 😄
THE FACE LOOKED OVER
THEN THERE WAS NOISE
Josh - I'm so happy you are in this culture and community. We are all richer for it. I'm fascinated by one major question: Why was so much work put into evolving the guitar when for so long it was such a "side-piece" of musical performance? What made people decide guitar was worth evolving and putting effort into it? (I'm glad it happened...no doubt.)
Your Monday monologs have been must watch for me. Another excellent show, thank you so much!
The humbleness that Josh shows in his way of learning and teaching what he has learned so far is what we need in this world. Deep dives, small steps towards learning how we are here. If we go wrong, we go back, we learn more and we correct the mistakes. Not deny it. You can't just make 15 second snippets to "the one absolute truth" of the birth and the way of the electric guitar. There isn't one cause it required many paths.
I really like these episodes you are doing and hope you never stop. Hope you also find a way to fund the research and the trips that you and your supporters feel comfortable with.
Hey Josh. With regard to the Rickenbacker pickup, the metal that surrounds the strings is actually two horseshoe magnets, where the North Pole is on the back (in your lap) and the South Pole is on the top. I confirmed this after watching your video with my 40s Rick and a compass. When you talk about solid bodies next week, make sure you mention the Rickenbacker Bakelite models (they made both lap steel and Spanish style bakelites in the 40s). THANK YOU FOR THIS AWESOME PIECE OF HISTORY!
One of the coolest videos on RUclips hands down. Thanks for doing this man.. im excited for part two!
Just wanted to pop by and say thank you. This is amazing and greatly appreciated!
Can't speak from much expertise on the matter but in college, I played in the Colligium Musicum, the Medieval music ensemble. My professor enticed me to play the viola de gamba (viola of the thighs) by telling me it was an interesting crossroad between cello and guitar (my main 2 instruments at the time. He was also absolutely right. I was in it all 8 semesters). It had 6 strings tuned A D G B E A low-to-high, 7 frets on the upper portion of the neck, and then bowed similarly to a cello. The tuning can vary as there are bass, tenor, alto, and soprano viola de gambas. All of them used sheep gut strings and tuning was a nightmare. During out concerts, we'd have to take at least 3 tuning breaks between songs. My professor who ran it would alternate between his viola de gamba, a 12 string lute, and a period 5 string guitar that he said was tuned like a guitar in D Standard without the low D. I always found it interesting how closely related the tunings were and the evolution from one to the other. Especially as a musician who started as a cellist and then discovered non-5th-based instruments, the overlap and almost logical progression of tuning systems being codified and standardized as you move from Medieval into Renaissance into Baroque and Classical and then into more contemporary forms of music and how the instruments are being utilized and therefore necessitating some form of evolution, prompting people to seize the adjacent possible and reconceptualize their instruments is really fascinating. Hope I didn't ramble too much there, just wanted to share what little I knew about old instruments
I've been loving your talks about the fundamental ideas being where these things that we love so much come from (especially this one) and how did we get there and your love and passion for history and the preservation of it. Keep it up, man, this was awesome!! I'm looking forward to the next one
great look at the history, Josh. one thing though, nylon strings were not invented until 1947, so prior to the introduction of steel strings, guitar strings were 'catgut' - actually made from sheep and cattle intestines. the first wound steel strings used silk as a core
I have been loving these so much! Can’t wait for the next one.
The Ultimate Guitar Book by Tony Bacon starts with luscious pics from the 16th century with the masters and the oddballs from all over the world. A must have for guitar lovers. BTW, Oud is pronounced "Ood".
Yep. And yep.
Very nice video, Josh. I knew a lot of it already as singular facts but it's nice to see things compiled into one easy to understand and follow video.
This is a terrific episode. Really like the format.
yes yes yes, more more more next week please. Thank you for everything you've done to spread knowledge. And if you're reading this Josh, your jams, which appear to be improvised, are always on point. Love the band, your playing and comedy. I just picked up the 73 London Bender I've been wanting since released. The pedal history play too... just everything man. Thank you so much for your time and effort. It is greatly appreciated and you should have no reason to question your awesomeness... just keep doing you. Love, Milkfoot / Anywhere Studios.
Hey Josh, another great Monday episode.
I am doing a belated catch on the Monday series.
Great history lesson! I would write more but my JHS Harmonic Trem just arrived, happy days! See ya next Monday….
Love this series. Worthy of the History channel.
Hey. I just wanted to say that I enjoy your vids. You have good presence and are well spoken. The few other guys that I have seen doing this sort of stuff don't carry it well. They also can't do all the crazy jams!! Thank you. Stay humble sir.
Nylon was invented in 1939, so early Spanish style guitars must have had gut strings. Other instruments, such as drums, used animal tissue in their construction. That would actually be an interesting "adjacent possible" to examine - the invention of engineered materials, mostly polymers, and what they have brought to the guitar.
Thanks Josh. Really enjoy your work..
appreciate you sharing the knowledge Josh! 🙌🙏✌☺
Also on standby for the history of the "TS-Jack-Cable"... We all just take it for normal nowadays!
😉
I watched this whole thing live and it was great. you don't get this combination of qualities in a lot of people, knows a LOT about pedals, is fun to listen to and can really play. really starting to like this channel. you should do a synth jam with florian from "bad gear". I would watch the fuck out of that.
@ghost mall he's always using pedals in his setups
One of my guitar players used to bring a cuatro to jam with which is very similar to a lute.
I really enjoy content like this. Keep it up! Suggestion for a future topic: History of Amplifiers. But not just guitar/bass amplification, but the evolution of the stage/musical performance amplifications systems. The guitar amp is only a part of the interconnected instrument/vocal, sound reinforcement, stage PA system. There are a lot of adjacent innovations from the big band era, through early rock n' roll, through Woodstock and the arena rock era.
Wow. I was vaguely aware of this but details count, right? Thanks for this, looking forward to the next episode.
3:52 is where it all _begins_ ... ❤
Monday with Josh, mark your calendar!
My Grandfather and his brothers bought guitars and banjos from the Sears catalog in the 1920's for their vaudeville act. Sadly, the instruments got lost when the brothers moved on to serious careers during the Depression.
Thanks for this video Josh on the evolution of the guitar.
I got to play an 1850 C.F. Martin parlor sized guitar. Crazy when I held it due to the context of Lincoln not having been elected President. That exact model you show. Guitar is still located in St. Louis if you want to check it out Josh.
Josh. Please come to Arizona and visit the MIM. Musical Instrument Museum. Largest museum in the world for instruments. It needs some JHS pedals.
Hi Josh! I come from Almeria, Spain (The city where Antonio de Torres was born too). Happy to see that you got this information because most common people in my city they don't even know about Torres existence and his relaction with Guitar history. Btw, He also created the Flamenco guitar as we know it today (which is almost the same but with lower string action).
Such a nice video. I recently aquired a 7 course Lute, and besides playing my synths I study "Partimento" on piano and I hope a harpsichord someday. Only since 2007 do we have a grasp on the history of "Western" harmonic music, thanks to Gjerdingen, Sanguietti, and Baragwanath, and other scholars. The most influential place in the great revival of "historical practice" in music is the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. With respect, I think you may learn there is a huge heritage of Voice, Guitar (Lute) and Keyboard which was "disrupted" right around the time the first modern guitar appeared, though the transition was more nuanced in Latin America, where the Vihuela lived on and morphed into so many variations. Your points about volume are well taken, though I think we have lost alot of acoustic richness in the pursuit of dancehall volume. The Lute really drops my jaw. Hendrix would have loved it. The 12-strings of the Beatles, Smiths and Petty are directly tied to chordophones so central to our harmonic heritage, the many Lutes and Therobos in Europe from 1100 to about 1820. A vast literature of tablature survives, far exceeding what is available for keyboards in the same period. These are the grandparents of the Guitar, and their players were far more educated and sophisticated than most imagine. There is considerable politics in the near loss of the family album and history, from 1850 to today, which is a shame, since there is so much to learn and apply to how we pluck today. Nikhil Hogan's Channel, starting around episode 60 has long interviews with the leading scholars and professors of historical practice today, and the "lute channel" has some fantastic interviews with heavy hitters on the Lute, who all started on Guitars, and remain great fans. Thanks for all your insights on pedals, which has cost me a grand or so lately, but saved a fortune ;)
BMG was 10 for the price of 1 CD. Columbia was 10 CD's for 1 penny.
I always ordered BMG. My first rock & roll CD's were from BMG. Like 4 GnR, Snow(Informer), Ahmad, Celly Cel, and a couple of other rap CD's. all sorts of stuff lol. BMG started my fascination with music.
One of the best Monday talks yet! Can't wait for part 2. The "cover" of those old pickups is an interesting topic among slide players: there is a lot of mojo ascribed to them because the magnetic field is affected from above as well as below, but I tend to agree with Josh here that it's impact probably isn't as dramatic as we'd like to think old string-through pickups would be. Curious if anyone can explain the physics of why this would have such a supposedly significant impact on the sound of the pickup
LOVE THIS!
Long before (like 30 years ago) I ever went down the pedal rabbit hole, I wanted to know all about how we got to what we know as the guitar. Fascinating!
I've played the Middle Eastern tar, the oldest guitar thing I've personally played - 3 maybe 4 strings across a floating bridge with movable frets on basically a flat side broom handle attached to a fancy wood bowl. Played ouds and lutes and a lot of other stringed weirdness in between - Cuban Tres or Puerto Rican quatro anyone?
Of all of those unique guitar relatives I still have a charango in my collection that's the Inca take on what we would come to know as the guitar - the vihiuela ( I think that is what is in the 16th century painting you show that the girl is playing) which came at the dawn of colonialism in S America, its an instrument of revolution and resistance. The spanish forbade the inca from playing their instruments so this was the inca take on those instruments 🤘 ...
anyway, just 100% cool, Josh. Thank you for being the absolute awesome history Nerd that you are!
We have a Stroh violin. Looks wild but is nice and loud and has a unique metallic tone.
Josh, a long time ago I played in an early English music ensemble. The cello player played a 15th century Viola da Gamba which was fretted, 6 strings and had a Keith Richard’s style open d tuning. Looked like a six string fretted cello.
St colombe rox
I absolutely love this stuff! 🤓 Great video Josh, thank you! 🙏 Another RUclipsr who I’ve enjoyed is Brandon Acker, although you’re probably already familiar with him, but he’s done some great work on the history of the guitar too!
Great history, thanks :D
Couple of ideas for the future of this series:
1. Use split screen instead of the picture overlay
2. Since we're talking about guitars and sound, maybe it would be nice to demo some of the different sounds!
The first circuit is a tough one, I did some research and Luigi Galvani in 1780 discovered he could make a frog's leg twitch by running electricity through it and he did this by connecting a piece of iron to a piece of copper and when the frog's leg completed the circuit it would twitch. He knew it was electricity (calling it "animal electricity") doing this. The idea of a circuit I don't think had been conceived yet but he was making a complete circuit as apposed to just running electricity to ground like Ben Franklin and others who experimented with static electricity. Galvani's work inspired Volta who invented the battery in 1799 and was part of the inspiration for Mary Shelly's book Frankenstein.
Some of the first circuits were the vacuum tube oscillator in 1912, constant current modulator in 1913 and the Flip Flop in 1919 (one of my personal favs). Harold A. Wheeler designed the Automatic Volume Control for AM radios in 1926 and that circuit used a "diode detector." H. Yagi and S. Uda of Tohoku University were the first to use wave interference to obtain gain and directivity from wire aerials. The first negative feedback amp circuit was 1927, discovered by H.S. Black at Bell Labs. 🤓
Be aware, the horned instrument likely did not just have a horn but a horn over a diaphragm. So the strings likely used a bridge to vibrate the diaphragm amplified by the horn. In many ways similar in concept to the resonator, but the resonator was more like playing a speaker, and this was not like playing a loudspeaker.
I highly recommend the book Deep Blues, by Robert Palmer (not that Robert Palmer) which -- IIRC -- goes into some of this history, with the goal of explaining how the guitar ended up in the hands of players like Charlie Patton, Son House, and so many other musicians that played the diverse range of regional folk styles that we now just call "blues."
That's in my stack!
I am starting to like the Monday show more that the normal show. Imagine Jeff Healey playing the frying pan in its day.
Great video i like this kind of ted talk like format feels closer to the audience imo
I saw some street musicians in Edinburgh last summer playing Strohviols, they sounded amazing :)
Josh, please read all you can about PAUL BARTH, he is one of the forgotten founding fathers of the electric guitar. His contributions are vastly underestimated, mainly because he was a quite unassuming man who never sort the limelight.
Beauchamp and Barth created the horseshoe pickup on Paul Barth’s mothers (Irma Dopyera) kitchen table. They created this Together.
Beauchamp eventually raised the patent in his name. Barth raised a patent for a detachable horseshoe pickup, that could be retrofitted to Spanish guitar, it had to be strapped on.
Beauchamp and Barth were great buddies, while in partnership with the Dopyera brothers the resonator was created, Beauchamp still wanted more volume, hence he worked with Barth and the Rickenbacker frying Pan came about.
Barth was the consistent thread from the early days, he was a founding member of the National String Instrument Corporation, with Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacher, with the first board meeting on 29 February 1928.
Barth remained with the Rickenbacker company until 1957. Les Paul was a regular dinner guest at the Barth family home and was influenced by Barth. Barth replaced Paul Bigsby at Magnatone.
He is also credited with helping Leo Fender set up the original semi-automated assembly line in Santa Ana in the early ‘50s, when the Stratocaster was first being built. Paul built many of the woodworking jigs that were used to shape necks and bodies for the very first Jazzmaster, Jaguar, and Stratocaster guitars. He also built all the jigs
Paul Barth’s fingerprints and influence are all over the iconic guitars we still know today.
Electro String
National
Rickenbacker
Fender
Bartell
Barth
Acoustic Corp
Hohner
Magnatone
Mosrite
Natural Music Guild
The book Finding Fretless is the best source of information about Barth. www.findingfretless.com
By the way, his guitars were played by, The Beatles, Hendrix, Zappa, Chuck Berry and more…..
Definitely check out the Selmer-Macaferri’s. Some of the early ones had a resonator in the sound hole.
There’s a big skip at like 35:10. Cut from Stromberg to frying pan lap steel
John Ambrose Fleming, would like a mention. We think of it as a "rectifier tube", which was needed for Lee de Forest's triode.
My dad used to hang around the Stromberg factory in Boston when he was a kid.
Stromberg made my grandfather’s drum set and percussion instruments.
My dad always wanted to get a Stromberg archtop... but by the time he could afford one, the company was sold off and the factory closed.
Looking forward to the next episode. Hope you talk about junior barnard's epiphone emperor that was modded by leo fender (which side note: looks like what inspired the cooder caster)
Finally someone who knows that the log was far from the first
Awesome video 🎉
Interesting note to add: Lloyd Loar that designed the L-5 also tinkered with early mandolin and viola/violin pickup designs. Another example of that "adjacent possible"
One of the most interesting and esoteric questions about the development design of the modern guitar is the design of the pick guard…meaning that there’s a pick (plectrum) to increase the volume. It shows up first in the episode on the pics of the CF Martin guitar; but it moves on from there. But not for everyone-Gibson doesn’t have them until later. But the plectrum-not using human hands to strike the strings-is the most critical volume producer prior to the electrified instruments.
I’m curious when the 1/4” jack became the standard for guitars and amps.
Great episode
Q: After all the history of evolution of this totally awesome instrument, do you think there will ever be another as cool to Revolutionize music the way the Guitar has? Seriously ever... Thanks for all your videos 🎸
The best way to learn is to teach
“Nylon,” as we know, is strictly post-WWII. I don’t think the first nylon products were available until 1948 or so. So before that, gut was everything, just like with tennis racquets.
This was awesome.
I heard from a guy who was and alter-Lansing collector/authority that Jim Lansing and the Doprea brothers (dobro) were both located in Long Beach CA in the same what we would call industrial strip. If you compare a Lansing basket and a Dobro cone they are very similar. Perhaps a few shared lunchtime conversations happened?
Great stuff! Loved the 1890 patent thing, was not aware of that at all. Nor DeForest. Learning is fun! Your overall theme of the need for louder makes a lot of sense and is an easy way to grasp modern guitar evolution.
I'm still unclear as to when steel strings a) became available at all, and b) became prevalent, or at least commonplace. From what I've gathered over the years, steel strings were still an anomaly, a special use-case kind of thing, until well into the 20th century, say somewhere in the teens? And banjos didn't have steel strings until later either, at least that was my understanding. The Hawaiian music craze that had its roots in the late 1800's plays a big role in all this, as you mention, but when could you go to the general store and buy steel guitar strings? Who made those first steel strings?
I love topics like this because there's a lot to know but still many unanswered questions, and a lot of it is open to interpretation and varying definitions. It's like the "what was the first rock and roll record?" thing - great food for thought but impossible to answer without being annoyingly long winded about it.
Lee de Forest didn't just make amplification possible with his triode vacuum tube. He made the broadcast of voice and music over radio possible as he discovered that if he fed the grid of the triode with it's own signal, it would create a self-regenerating oscillation, which when fed to an antenna made a much more practical radio transmitter than earlier devices that were suitable for telegraph communications but not much more. At the receiving end, de Forrest's triodes both amplified the weak radio signal into something usable and then amplified the audio signal derived from that.
I love it that you have a backlit microwave. Just an off-topic. Thanks for this series. #nerdsunite
In the early 60's, before there were light gauge strings, my guitar teacher had me buy a regular set of strings and a Hawaiian guitar G string. I'd use the Hawaiian G to replace the high E, move all the other strings up and eliminate the low E string from the set. That's how I made my first sets of bendable strings.
Your speech tempo is perfect for 1.5 mode! I mean that as a compliment! By the way I used to work at BMG...so you're that guy!
Have many parallel threads to the adjacent that I'd like to offer up. Had a Jazz guitar teacher that championed the guitar as a saxophone and piano that you could hold on your knee... portable. Music culture is diverse and spreads like a virus (in a good way not a covid way) like with Appalachian fiddle playing you can hear the drones of the Scottish bagpipes.... some musicologists attribute the mandolin as coming from Italian railroad workers back in the day (this is very much a potted history lacking rigor). My ears pricked up with the mention of the Hawaiian influence on American culture during the depression, happy stuff!! The lap steel and the pick up seem like a natural fit. I purchased a Japanese Teisco guitar recently which had weird yellow fake tortoise shell that I found emulated Oahu guitars. Working backwards from the Japanese perspective seems to suggest another interest with the Spanish guitar origin perhaps the brand name Ibanez and its origin in 1935 from a company founded in 1903 specifically catering to a Japanese interest. The Jack White idea of improvising an electric guitar works just as well when thinking about African American history and portable improvised making of instruments... It might get loud but much music has happened adjacent to the human voice. The vacuum tube has also functioned beyond amplification to 'broadcast' i.e. casting out audio visual stuff via radio and television [interesting non guitar side note is the tubes influence in the synthesizer with the Theremin around 1910 as well as it's use in the telecommunication code and decode device during WW2 which is now known as a vocoder]........ Stop me as I'm starting to rant... Absolutely love your stuff Josh and thank you so much for the generosity with which you share your knowledge! So very much appreciated.
Fascinating series, if you love guitar- I think it’s a given - we want to know about it’s origins!
Perhaps the tuning eadgbe is another guitar definition, for what we consider a guitar today, in terms of the family of features that makes it what it is? The Spanish guitars are the pioneers of using standard tuning? The Lute is played with six strings but the equivalent guitar b string is tuned 1 fret different, from what I remember. A reason for talking about the tuning is because it informs the musical vocabulary and techniques. Perhaps an adjacent in the evolution is the music and tuning.
The Colt 1911 is still in use and practically unchanged since
The quest for loud possibly started with introducing the soundpost to the violin. Most instruments was not very loud up to that point.
You should go and see the American Banjo Museum in Oklahoma City. Whammy bars. Elaborate fretboard inlays. Really great collection of history
I like history with Josh.
Worth mentioning if anyone hasn’t that the oud is still a very popular instrument the world over, particularly in various middle eastern traditions where it originates. Also, I’ve only ever heard it pronounced with a double-o sound as in food or dude, as opposed to an ou sound like loud.
Banjo is actually really cool. The story of the banjo is an incredible and truly American story. I don't want to give details in a comment but if you did a little research, you'd probably want to tell that story on your channel. Plus, the banjo is responsible for a lot of what has become the American sound. Everyone had to tune to the banjo or play in the banjo's key. It's the heart of the American string band.
The guitar is a direct ancestor of the hunting bow.
And the hunting bow is an evolution of the spear. Which is an evolution of the knife. Which is an evolution of teeth.
Teeth.
The guitar is an evolution of teeth? 😲
We've busted this wide open...
Hawaiian music has never totally gone away to this day .
But Leo Fender , who didn't play , was heavily into the Western Swing scene , and already sucuessfully selling steel guitars .
great!
Brandon Ackers vid on this subject is pretty dang good too!
Yes. It's a period instrument. Likely a renaissance guitar or some might call it a baroque guitar given the date. Trumpets and violins and clarinets were also different then. So I'd say yes. That's not just a guitar like instrument. It's a guitar. But maybe I'm wrong.
Interesting topic. I have spent numerous hours researching this topic. I honestly can not find a definitive answer. Loads of speculation still exists. Hopefully, you will continue your research.
Google says "The first electric circuit was invented by Alessandro Volta (1745-1847) in 1800. He discovered he could produce a steady flow of electricity using bowls of salt solution connected by metal strips."
Josh, you are a great educator and teacher (same thing I guess). I just wanted to say that I love when you delve into the history or inner workings of instruments/technology. You'll find me entranced by any video that involves history or how technology works. Thanks for the great content.
Thank you!
I think when we talk about modern electric guitars - being 50s tech still, it’s just a classic case of “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it” in the 80s they came up with synth guitar and all sorts of weird and wonderful “modern” ideas - but let’s be honest, they’re gimmicky junk, you can’t beat the natural tone of an electro magnet producing a signal to amp. It’s all you need.
5:25 Is a Baroque guitar, not even the earliest incarnation. It has 10 strings in 5 courses, made from about 13,000 pieces of wood. My grandfather made a copy of it, which was loaned to a museum, now back in my family's possession. Lute evolved at the same time as guitar, out of the oud, which is gourd shaped with a flat top. Guitar was always basically rectangular. Guitar was largely considered a peasants instrument in its early days, which is why you don't see many pics of them before the Baroque era.
If you haven’t read “the concise history of the classical guitar”, its a great read with a wealth of knowledge.
The Persian Tar looks a lot like a guitar, including the number of strings. I am not sure, though if it predates the early guitars or not. It also has a strong linguistic link. BTW the setar, which is etymologically related to the sitar, had three strings (se, being persian for three). I have always just assumed that some Persians in Al Andalus got together with some Arabs or other mustali in Al Andalus and mashed their instruments together.
I know I'm the odd duck out, but I play a multi-scale 7-strings these days. They're just much more comfortable than standard fretted instruments for me since I don't have to have elbow shoved into my rip cage to play above the 12 fret. I don't play a lot of heavier music either, but the seventh string is more beneficial than a lot of players realize, even w/the blues/rock.