- Solid body
A solid body electric instrument is a
string instrument such as a guitar, bass orviolin built without its normalsound box and relying on its electric pickup system to directly receive the vibrations of the strings.Solid body instruments are preferred in situations where
acoustic feedback may otherwise be a problem, and are inherently both cheaper to build and more rugged thanacoustic electric instruments.Instruments
Solid body instruments
* Some
electric guitar s.
* Mostbass guitar s.
*Electric upright bass .
* A fewelectric mandolin s.
* Mostelectric violin s.
* Mostelectric sitar s
*Electric cello .Solid body instruments do not include:
*
Semi-acoustic instruments.
*Electric piano s, even those with strings such as theelectric grand piano .
*Pedal steel guitar .Electric
lap steel guitar s without sounding boards are considered to be solid body instruments by some authorities, and not by others. This has a major effect on some claims of historical priority, as they predate the first models of solid bodyelectric guitar , which may otherwise be claimed to be the first commercially successful solid body instruments. While noting this, it will be assumed that electric lap steels without sounding boards are solid body instruments for the purposes of this article.History
Early prototypes
A solid body
electric violin was proposed byThomas Edison Fact|date=December 2007.Commercial models
The first commercially successful solid body instrument was the
Rickenbacker "frying pan"lap steel guitar , produced from from 1931 to 1939.The first commercially successful solid body
electric guitar was theFender Telecaster (The early Telecaster models had no model name on the head stock and are now referred to as 'No Casters") in 1950. It was followed by theGibson Les Paul in 1952.Impact on musical styles
Solid body instruments have particularly influenced
heavy rock andsurf music . Without solid body guitars, neither of these genres could have developed as they did.Fact|date=December 2007ee also
*
Semi-acoustic guitar .
* 3rd bridge guitarExternal links
* [http://www.history-of-rock.com/guitarstwo.htm The History of the Electric Solid Body Guitar] .
* [http://invention.smithsonian.org/centerpieces/electricguitar/index.htm From Frying Pan to Flying V: The Rise of the Electric Guitar] at theSmithsonian Institution's Lemelson Center site.
* [http://www.gibson.com/products/gibson/Stories/LesPaul.html The Les Paul Story] at theGibson Guitar Corporation site.
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