1.
Dobro
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The word Dobro is, in popular usage, the generic term for a wood-bodied, single cone resonator guitar. It is also an American brand of guitar, currently owned by the Gibson Guitar Corporation. The Dobro was originally made by the Dopyera brothers when they formed the Dobro Manufacturing Company and their design, with a single inverted resonator, was introduced in competition to the patented Tricone and biscuit designs produced by the National String Instrument Corporation. The Dobro name appeared on other instruments, notably electric lap steel guitars and solid body electric guitars, Gibson Guitar Corporation acquired the Dobro trademark in 1994. Although the name Dobro is generically associated with the single-inverted-cone design, the name originated in 1928 when the Dopyera brothers, John and Emil, formed the Dobro Manufacturing Company. Dobro is both a contraction of Dopyera brothers and a word meaning goodness or goodwill in their native Slovak, an early company motto was Dobro means good in any language. The Dobro was the third resonator guitar design by John Dopyera, the inventor of the resonator guitar, unlike his earlier tricone design, the Dobro had a single resonator cone and it was inverted, with its concave surface facing up. The Dobro company described this as a bowl shaped resonator, the Dobro was louder than the tricone and cheaper to produce. In Dopyeras opinion, the cost of manufacture had priced the resonator guitar beyond the reach of many players and his failure to convince his fellow directors at the National String Instrument Corporation to produce a single-cone version was part of his motivation for leaving. Since National had applied for a patent on the single cone, in the following years both Dobro and National built a wide variety of metal- and wood-bodied single-cone guitars, while National also continued with the Tricone for a time. Both companies sourced many components from National director Adolph Rickenbacher, by 1934, the Dopyera brothers had gained control of both National and Dobro, and they merged the companies to form the National-Dobro Corporation. From the outset, wooden bodies had been sourced from existing guitar manufacturers, Dobro had granted Regal a license to manufacture resonator instruments. By 1937, it was the manufacturer, and the license was officially made exclusive. Regal continued to manufacture and sell resonator instruments under many names, including Regal, Dobro, Old Kraftsman, however, they ceased all resonator guitar production following the United States entry into World War II in 1941. Emil Dopyera manufactured Dobros from 1959 under the brand name Doperas Original before selling the company, Moseley merged it with his Mosrite guitar company and manufactured Dobros for a time. Meanwhile, in 1967, Rudy and Emil Dopyera formed the Original Musical Instrument Company to manufacture resonator guitars, however, in 1970, they again acquired the Dobro name—Mosrite having gone into temporary liquidation. The Gibson Guitar Corporation acquired OMI in 1993, along with the Dobro name and they renamed the company Original Acoustic Instruments and moved production to Nashville. Gibson now uses the name Dobro only for models with the design that the original Dobro Manufacturing Company used
2.
Fender Musical Instruments Corporation
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Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, commonly referred to simply as Fender, is an American manufacturer of stringed instruments and amplifiers. It is known for its electric guitars and bass guitars, such as the Stratocaster, Telecaster, Precision Bass. Its headquarters are in Scottsdale, Arizona, the company, previously named the Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company, was founded in Fullerton, California, by Clarence Leonidas Leo Fender in 1946. The company is a privately held corporation with Andy Mooney serving as the Chief Executive Officer, the company filed for an initial public offering in March 2012, but this was withdrawn five months later. In addition to its Scottsdale headquarters, Fender has manufacturing facilities in Corona, California and Ensenada, Baja California. The company also makes and / or distributes acoustic guitars, electric basses, mandolins, banjos, and electric violins, as well as amplifiers, bass amplifiers. Other Fender brands include Squier, Jackson, Charvel, EVH guitars and amplifiers in collaboration with Eddie Van Halen, in 1950, Fender introduced the first mass-produced solid-body Spanish-style electric guitar, the Telecaster. Following its success, Fender created the first mass-produced electric bass, in 1954, Fender unveiled the Stratocaster guitar. With the Telecaster and Precision Bass on the market for some time, the Strats comfortable contoured edges and in-built vibrato system led to its soaring popularity. The solid wood bodies of Fenders instruments allowed for minimal feedback with high-gain amplification, the Fender guitars were popular with musicians in a variety of genres and are now revered for their build quality and tonal excellence. The company began as Fenders Radio Service in late 1938 in Fullerton and it got its name from the surname of its founder Leo Fender. All designs were based on research developed and released to the domain by Western Electric in the 1930s. The business also sidelined in carrying records for sale and the in rental of company-designed PA systems, Leo became intrigued by design flaws in contemporary musical instrument amplifiers and began building amplifiers based on his own designs or modifications to designs. Production began in 1945 with Hawaiian lap steel guitars and amplifiers sold as sets, by the end of the year Fender became convinced that manufacturing was more profitable than repair and he decided to concentrate on that business instead. Kauffman remained, however, unconvinced and he and Fender amicably parted ways by early 1946, at that point Leo renamed the company the Fender Electric Instrument Company. The service shop remained open until 1951, although Leo Fender did not personally supervise it after 1947, a custom lap steel guitar made in 1946 for his friend Noel Boggs was probably the very first product of the new company, already sporting the familiar Big F logo. In the late 1940s, Leo Fender began to experiment with more conventional guitar designs, as early as 1949, the familiar shape of the Telecaster can be made out in some of Fenders prototypes. Early Telecasters were plagued with issues, Leo Fender boasted the strength of the Telecasters one-piece pine neck while early adopters lamented its tendency to bow in humid weather
3.
Acoustic guitar
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An acoustic guitar is a guitar that produces sound acoustically—by transmitting the vibration of the strings to the air—as opposed to relying on electronic amplification. The sound waves from the strings of an acoustic guitar resonate through the guitars body and this typically involves the use of a sound board and a sound box to strengthen the vibrations of the strings. The main source of sound in a guitar is the string. The string vibrates at a frequency and also creates many harmonics at various different frequencies. The frequencies produced can depend on string length, mass, gitterns, a small plucked guitar were the first small guitar-like instruments created during the Middle Ages with a round back like that of a lute. Modern guitar shaped instruments were not seen until the Renaissance era where the body, the earliest string instruments that related to the guitar and its structure where broadly known as the vihuelas within Spanish musical culture. Vihuelas where string instruments that were seen in the 16th century during the Renaissance. Later, Spanish writers distinguished these instruments into 2 categories of vihuelas, the vihuela de arco was an instrument that mimicked the violin, and the vihuela de penola was played with a plectrum or by hand. When it was played by hand it was known as the vihuela de mano, vihuela de mano shared extreme similarities with the Renaissance guitar as it used hand movement at the sound hole or sound chamber of the instrument to create music. The real production of guitars kicked off in France where the popularity, the production became so large that early famous creators such as Gaspard Duyffooprucgars instruments were being sold as copies by other guitar makers in Lyon. Benoist Lejeune, a maker, offered and sold guitar copies of Duyffoprucgars instruments and was later imprisoned for using his mark and work. During this time, the production was increasing tremendously but it was not until Robert and Claude Denis appeared overproducing the early Renaissance guitar in Paris, as father and son, Robert and Claude produced hundreds of guitars that increased the popularity of the instrument greatly. Because of them and the great many guitar inventors of this time, by 1790 only six-course vihuela guitars were being created and had become the main type and model of guitar used in Spain. Most of the older 5-course guitars where still in use but were also being modified to a six-coursed acoustical guitar, by the 19th century, coursed strings where evolved into 6 single-stringed instruments much like that of the guitar today. It had evolved into the modern look except for size, retaining a smaller frame, the acoustic guitars soundboard, or top, also has a strong effect on the loudness of the guitar. No amplification actually occurs in this process, because no energy is added to increase the loudness of the sound. All the energy is provided by the plucking of the string, but without a soundboard, the string would just cut through the air without actually moving it much. The soundboard increases the surface of the area in a process called mechanical impedance matching
4.
Bridge (instrument)
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Most stringed instruments produce their sound through the application of energy to the strings, which sets them into vibratory motion. The strings alone, however, produce only a faint sound because they displace only a volume of air as they vibrate. Consequently, the sound of the strings alone requires impedance matching to the air by transmitting their vibrations to a larger surface area capable of displacing larger volumes of air. This calls for an arrangement that allows for the strings to vibrate freely, a bridge is the customary means by which this is accomplished. Typically, the bridge is perpendicular to the strings and larger surface with the tension of the strings pressing down on the bridge and thus on the larger surface beneath it. That larger, more acoustically responsive surface may be coupled to a sound chamber—an enclosure such as the body of a guitar or violin—that provides resonance that helps amplify the sound, alternatively, a bridge may consist of multiple parts. One common form is a bridge that incorporates a separate bearing surface on which the strings rest and this is often of a material harder than the bridge itself, such as bone, ivory, high-density plastic, or metal. A classical guitar saddle sits loosely in the bridge and is kept there by string tension. The saddle has shallow grooves in it, at least for the treble strings, yet another type of multi-part bridge is common on instruments whose sound plate is curved rather than flat. Instruments of this type, such as guitars and mandolins, often have a bridge with a base. On classical and flat-top guitars the bridge is glued to the top, a bridge held on to the top by string tension, as in archtop guitars, is known as a floating bridge, and requires a separate tailpiece to anchor the strings. The bridge must transfer vibration to the board or other amplifying surface. As the strings are set in motion, it does this by bending to and this causes the sounding board to vibrate at the same frequency as the string producing a wave-like motion and an audible sound. Bridges are designed to hold the strings at a height above the fingerboard of the instrument. Bridge height may be fixed or alterable, in addition to supporting the strings and transmitting their vibrations, the bridge also controls the spacing between strings with shallow grooves cut in the bridge or its saddle. The strings sit in grooves, thus are held in their proper lateral position. The nut, at the end of the instrument from the bridge or tailpiece. Bridges for electric guitars can be divided into two groups, vibrato and non-vibrato
5.
Resonator
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The oscillations in a resonator can be either electromagnetic or mechanical. Resonators are used to generate waves of specific frequencies or to select specific frequencies from a signal. Musical instruments use acoustic resonators that produce sound waves of specific tones, another example is quartz crystals used in electronic devices such as radio transmitters and quartz watches to produce oscillations of very precise frequency. A cavity resonator is one in which waves exist in a space inside the device. Acoustic cavity resonators, in sound is produced by air vibrating in a cavity with one opening, are known as Helmholtz resonators. A physical system can have as many resonant frequencies as it has degrees of freedom, systems with one degree of freedom, such as a mass on a spring, pendulums, balance wheels, and LC tuned circuits have one resonant frequency. Systems with two degrees of freedom, such as coupled pendulums and resonant transformers can have two resonant frequencies, a crystal lattice composed of N atoms bound together can have N resonant frequencies. As the number of coupled harmonic oscillators grows, the time it takes to transfer energy from one to the next becomes significant, the vibrations in them begin to travel through the coupled harmonic oscillators in waves, from one oscillator to the next. The term resonator is most often used for an object in which vibrations travel as waves, at an approximately constant velocity, bouncing back. The material of the resonator, through which the waves flow, therefore, they can have millions of resonant frequencies, although only a few may be used in practical resonators. The oppositely moving waves interfere with other, and at its resonant frequencies reinforce each other to create a pattern of standing waves in the resonator. If the distance between the sides is d, the length of a trip is 2 d. To cause resonance, the phase of a sinusoidal wave after a round trip must be equal to the initial phase so the waves self-reinforce. The above analysis assumes the medium inside the resonator is homogeneous, so the waves travel at a constant speed, and they are then called overtones instead of harmonics. There may be several such series of resonant frequencies in a single resonator, an electrical circuit composed of discrete components can act as a resonator when both an inductor and capacitor are included. Oscillations are limited by the inclusion of resistance, either via a specific resistor component, such resonant circuits are also called RLC circuits after the circuit symbols for the components. A distributed-parameter resonator has capacitance, inductance, and resistance that cannot be isolated into separate lumped capacitors, inductors, an example of this, much used in filtering, is the helical resonator. A single layer coil that is used as a secondary or tertiary winding in a Tesla coil or magnifying transmitter is also a distributed resonator
6.
Sound board (music)
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A sound board, or soundboard, is the surface of a string instrument that the strings vibrate against, usually via some sort of bridge. Pianos, guitars, banjos, and many other stringed instruments incorporate soundboards, the resonant properties of the sound board and the interior of the instrument greatly increase the loudness of the vibrating strings. The sound board operates by the principle of forced vibration, the string gently vibrates the board, and despite their differences in size and composition, makes the board vibrate at exactly the same frequency. This produces the sound as the string alone, differing only in timbre. The string would produce the amount of energy without the board present, but the greater surface area of the sound board moves a greater volume of air. Sound boards are made of wood, though other materials are used. Wooden sound boards typically have one or more sound holes of various shapes, round, oval, or F-holes appear on many plucked instruments, such as guitars and mandolins. F-holes are usual in violin family instruments, the upper surface of the sound board, depending on the instrument, is called a top plate, table, sound-table, or belly. It is usually made of a softwood, often spruce, the rear part, known as the back, typically does not contain sound holes and is made of a hardwood such as maple or pear. In a grand piano, the board is part of the case. In an upright piano, the board is a large vertical plate at the back of the instrument. The harp has a sound board below the strings, more generally, any hard surface can act as a sound board. An example is when someone strikes a tuning fork and holds it against a top to amplify its sound. Ernst Chladni Harpsichord Piano Piano acoustics Soundboard Wood Preparation
7.
Bluegrass music
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Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a related genre of country music. Settlers from Britain and Ireland arrived in Appalachia during the 18th century and these traditions consisted primarily of English and Scottish ballads—which were essentially unaccompanied narrative—and dance music, such as Irish reels, which were accompanied by a fiddle. Many older bluegrass songs come directly from the British Isles, several Appalachian bluegrass ballads, such as Pretty Saro, Barbara Allen, Cuckoo Bird and House Carpenter, come from England and preserve the English ballad tradition both melodically and lyrically. Others, such as The Two Sisters, also come from England, however, some bluegrass fiddle songs popular in Appalachia, such as Leather Britches, and Pretty Polly, have Scottish roots. The dance tune Cumberland Gap may be derived from the tune that accompanies the Scottish ballad Bonnie George Campbell and this is in contrast to old-time music, in which all instruments play the melody together or one instrument carries the lead throughout while the others provide accompaniment. Breakdowns are often characterized by rapid tempos and unusual instrumental dexterity, there are three major subgenres of bluegrass and one unofficial subgenre. Traditional bluegrass has musicians playing folk songs, tunes with traditional chord progressions, progressive bluegrass groups may use electric instruments and import songs from other genres, particularly rock & roll. Examples include Cadillac Sky and Bearfoot, another subgenre, Bluegrass gospel uses Christian lyrics, soulful three- or four-part harmony singing, and sometimes the playing of instrumentals. Bluegrass music has attracted a following worldwide. Bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe characterized the genre as, Scottish bagpipes and its Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. Its blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound, unlike mainstream country music, bluegrass is traditionally played on acoustic stringed instruments. The fiddle, five-string banjo, guitar, mandolin, and upright bass are often joined by the resonator guitar and this instrumentation originated in rural dance bands and is the basis on which the earliest bluegrass bands were formed. The guitar is now most commonly played with a style referred to as flatpicking, unlike the style of bluegrass guitarists such as Lester Flatt. Banjo players often use the three-finger picking style made popular by such as Don Reno. Fiddlers frequently play in thirds and fifths, producing a sound that is characteristic to the bluegrass style, bassists almost always play pizzicato, occasionally adopting the slap-style to accentuate the beat. A bluegrass bass line is generally a rhythmic alternation between the tonic and dominant of each chord, with walking bass excursions. Instrumentation has been a topic of debate. Traditional bluegrass performers believe the correct instrumentation is used by Bill Monroes band
8.
Blues
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Blues is a genre and musical form originated by African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the end of the 19th century. The genre developed from roots in African musical traditions, African-American work songs, spirituals, Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. Blue notes, usually thirds or fifths flattened in pitch, are also a part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove, Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times, Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the troubles experienced in African-American society. Many elements, such as the format and the use of blue notes. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery and, later and it is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century, the first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues, World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a form called blues rock evolved. The term blues may have come from blue devils, meaning melancholy and sadness, the phrase blue devils may also have been derived from Britain in the 1600s, when the term referred to the intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal. As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils, by the 1800s in the United States, the term blues was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase blue law, which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, in lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. The lyrics of traditional blues verses probably often consisted of a single line repeated four times. Two of the first published songs, Dallas Blues and Saint Louis Blues, were 12-bar blues with the AAB lyric structure. Handy wrote that he adopted this convention to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times, the lines are often sung following a pattern closer to rhythmic talk than to a melody
9.
Lap steel guitar
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The lap steel guitar is a type of steel guitar, an instrument derived from and similar to the guitar. The player changes pitch by pressing a metal or glass bar against the strings instead of by pressing strings against the fretboard, there are three main types of lap steel guitar, Lap steel guitars, the first developed, which use a similar sound box to a Spanish guitar. Resonator guitars, particularly those with square necks, but also round neck versions with a raised nut, Electric lap steel guitars, which include the first commercially successful solid body instruments. These were originally marketed as electric Hawaiian guitars, in addition to the lap-played model, a closely related version called a console steel guitar is supported on legs. Electric lap steels typically have six or 8 and up to ten strings, Lap steel and resonator guitars may also be fitted with pickups, but do not depend on electrical amplification to produce sound. A lap steel guitars strings are raised at both the nut and bridge ends of the fingerboard, typically to about half an inch. The strings are too high to contact the surface of the neck, so frets, some lap steel guitars can be converted between lap and fretted playing, or are modified versions of conventional guitars—the only difference is usually string height. Round-necked resonator guitars set up for steel playing fall into this category, instruments designed exclusively as lap steel guitars typically have modified necks that make fretted playing impossible. The hollow neck acoustic lap steel, developed by Chris Knutsen and popularized by Weissenborn, the square-necked resonator guitar has a strengthened square profile neck, allowing heavier string gauges and/or higher tunings that would normally be considered impossible on a conventional guitar. The electric lap steel guitar typically incorporates the entire neck into the body of the guitar, again providing extra strength to allow a greater variety of string gauges. The lap steel guitar is typically placed on the players lap and this method of playing greatly restricts the number of chords available, so lap steel music often features melodies, a restricted set of harmonies, or another single part. This allows the player greater control when picking sets of notes on non-adjacent strings, on the other hand, a minority of Blues players, and many Rock players, use a conventional flatpick. Tut Taylor is one of the few Dobro players that use a flatpick and it is widely reported that the lap steel guitar was invented by a man named Joseph Kekuku in 1885. It is said that, at the age of 7, Kekuku was walking along a track and picked up a metal bolt. He taught himself to using this method with the back of a knife blade. Various other people have also credited with the innovation. The instrument became a fad in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. The instrument became popular in Hawaii, as musicians played in tent-rep shows
10.
Steel guitar
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Steel guitar is a type of guitar or the method of playing the instrument. The term steel guitar is often used to describe any metal body resophonic guitar. Steel guitar can describe, The slide technique of playing guitar is generally by using a steel bar. Dobro is also a name of one of the leading manufacturers of resonator guitars. A specialized instrument built for playing in steel guitar fashion and these are of several types, Lap steel guitar, which may be, Lap slide guitar, with a conventional wooden guitar box. The square-necked variety of resonator guitar, the technique was invented and popularized in Hawaii. Thus, the lap steel guitar is known as the Hawaiian guitar, particularly in documents from the early 20th century. Steel guitar tunings tend to feature close intervals whereas slack key tunings more often contain 4ths and 5ths, dobro is a brand of resonator guitars, but the word is most often used to describe bluegrass instruments of several different brands. Bottleneck guitar may have developed from Steel guitar technique. The slide is almost never slanted, common bottleneck tunings are open D and E chords. A steel guitar is one designed to be played in steel-guitar fashion, historically, these have been of many types, but two dominate, Resonator guitars, particularly the square-necked variety which can be played only in steel guitar fashion. Electric instruments, starting with electric lap steel guitars and developing through the steel guitar to the pedal steel guitar. The lap steel guitar typically has 6 strings and may have various tunings, originally the standard EBGDAE tuning was changed to allow open i. e. major chord tunings to accommodate using the straight steel bar and not require changing string gauges. Hawaiian tunings evolved from A Major and E Major to E7, C sharp Minor, C sharp Minor 9th, F sharp Minor 9th, B11th and the popular E 13th. Jerry Byrd is credibly the originator of the C6+A7 tuning ECAGEC sharp which allows a wider ranging of chording for Hawaiian and it differs from a conventional or Spanish guitar in having a higher action and often a neck that is square in cross section. The frets, unused in steel style playing, may be replaced by markers, there are three main types, Lap slide guitars, which are acoustic instruments but may have electric pickups for amplification in addition. Resonator guitars, which are acoustic instruments but may have pickups for amplification in addition. Electric lap steel guitars, which are solid body
11.
National String Instrument Corporation
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The National String Instrument Corporation was a guitar company that formed to manufacture the first resonator guitars. National also produced resonator ukuleles and mandolins, in 1927, National produced the first resonator instruments and sold under their National brand. They had metal bodies and a resonator system, with three aluminium cones joined by a T-shaped aluminium spider. Wooden-bodied models soon followed, based on inexpensive plywood student guitar bodies supplied by Kay, Harmony, in 1928, Dopyera left National, and with four of his brothers formed the Dobro Manufacturing Company to produce a competing single resonator design, with the resonator cone inverted. John Dopyera continued to stock in National. The Dobro design was cheaper to produce and louder than the tricone. National soon introduced their own single resonator design, the biscuit, National also continued to produce tricone designs, which some players preferred. In their 1930 catalog, National list eight key associates, including Adolph Rickenbacker, George Beauchamp, Harry Watson, Paul Barth, in 1932, the Dopyera brothers secured a controlling interest in both National and Dobro, and merged the companies to form the National Dobro Corporation. In 1989 a new company in California named National Reso-Phonic Guitars began manufacturing reproductions of resonator instruments based on designs originated by John Dopyera
12.
Brand
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A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or other feature that distinguishes one seller’s product from those of others. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising, however, the term has been extended to mean a strategic personality for a product or company, so that ‘brand’ now suggests the values and promises that a consumer may perceive and buy into. Branding is a set of marketing and communication methods that help to distinguish a company from competitors, the key components that form a brands toolbox include a brand’s identity, brand communication, brand awareness, brand loyalty, and various branding strategies. Brand equity is the totality of a brands worth and is validated by assessing the effectiveness of these branding components. To reach such an invaluable brand prestige requires a commitment to a way of doing business. A corporation who exhibits a strong brand culture is dedicated on producing intangible outputs such as customer satisfaction, reduced price sensitivity and customer loyalty. A brand is in essence a promise to its customers that they can expect long-term security, when a customer is familiar with a brand or favours it incomparably to its competitors, this is when a corporation has reached a high level of brand equity. Many companies are beginning to understand there is often little to differentiate between products in the 21st century. Branding remains the last bastion for differentiation, in accounting, a brand defined as an intangible asset is often the most valuable asset on a corporation’s balance sheet. The word ‘brand’ is often used as a referring to the company that is strongly identified with a brand. Marque or make are often used to denote a brand of motor vehicle, a concept brand is a brand that is associated with an abstract concept, like breast cancer awareness or environmentalism, rather than a specific product, service, or business. A commodity brand is a associated with a commodity. The word, brand, derives from Dutch brand meaning to burn and this product was developed at Dhosi Hill, an extinct volcano in northern India. Roman glassmakers branded their works, with Ennion being the most prominent, the Italians used brands in the form of watermarks on paper in the 13th century. Blind Stamps, hallmarks, and silver-makers marks are all types of brand, industrialization moved the production of many household items, such as soap, from local communities to centralized factories. When shipping their items, the factories would literally brand their logo or insignia on the barrels used, Bass & Company, the British brewery, claims their red-triangle brand as the worlds first trademark. Another example comes from Antiche Fornaci Giorgi in Italy, which has stamped or carved its bricks with the same proto-logo since 1731, cattle-branding has been used since Ancient Egypt. The term, maverick, originally meaning an un-branded calf, came from a Texas pioneer rancher, Sam Maverick, use of the word maverick spread among cowboys and came to apply to unbranded calves found wandering alone
13.
Sound hole
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A sound hole is an opening in the upper sound board of a stringed musical instrument. Bowed lyras have D-holes and mandolins may have F-holes, round or oval holes, a round or oval hole is usually a single one, under the strings. F-holes and D-holes are usually made in pairs placed symmetrically on both sides of the strings, most hollowbody and semi-hollow electric guitars also have F-holes. Though the purpose of sound holes is to help acoustic instruments project their sound more efficiently, in 2015 researchers at MIT published an analysis charting the evolution and improvements in effectiveness of violin F-hole design over time. Tacoma Guitars has developed a unique paisley soundhole placed on the side of the upper bout of their Wing Series guitars. This is a relatively low-stress area that requires less bracing to support the hole, a few hollowbody or semi-hollow electric guitars, such as the Fender Telecaster Thinline and the Gibson ES-120T, have one f-hole instead of two, usually on the bass side. Stringworks U - brief explanation of the effects of sound holes, with a closeup diagram of an F-shaped soundhole
14.
Los Angeles
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Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L. A. is the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. With a census-estimated 2015 population of 3,971,883, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the United States. The citys inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos, historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was founded on September 4,1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence, in 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4,1850, the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, nicknamed the City of Angels, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, and sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles also has an economy in culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index, the city is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. The Los Angeles combined statistical area has a gross metropolitan product of $831 billion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. The city has hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984 and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and thus become the second city after London to have hosted the Games three times. The Los Angeles area also hosted the 1994 FIFA mens World Cup final match as well as the 1999 FIFA womens World Cup final match, the mens event was watched on television by over 700 million people worldwide. The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva, a Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning poison oak place. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2,1769, in 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of the Virgin Mary, two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small town for decades, but by 1820. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, during Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta Californias regional capital
15.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
16.
Semie Moseley
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Semie Moseley was a luthier, and the founder of Mosrite He was born in Durant, Oklahoma in 1935. His family migrated to California along a similar to many Bakersfield Okies, first moving to Chandler, Arizona in 1938. Semie’s mother worked in a dry cleaner’s shop, his father with the Southern Pacific Railroad, in Bakersfield, Moseley started playing guitar in an evangelical group at age 13. Semie and his brother Andy experimented with guitars since teen-age years, refinishing instruments, in 1954 Semie built a triple-neck guitar in his garage. He presented a double-neck to Joe Maphis, a Los Angeles-area TV performer, by 1956, with an investment from Reverend Ray Boatright, a local Los Angeles minister, Semie and Andy started their company, Mosrite of California. Semie, who built guitars for the L. A. -based Rickenbacker company, said to his co-workers that he was making his own product, and he was fired by Rickenbacker. When they began, their production was all custom, handmade guitars, built in garages, tin storage sheds, wherever the Moseleys could put equipment. In 1959, Andy moved to Nashville, Tennessee for a year to popularize the Mosrite name and sold a few to Grand Ole Opry entertainers, people, Andy said, And that’s how we kept the factory going at the time, custom guitars. He and Andy also got into the business by establishing Mosrite Records. They signed Barbara Mandrell, a daughter of Irby Mandrell. They also signed guitarist Ronny Sessions and others, Mosrite of California went bankrupt in late 1968 after they contracted with a competitor to market their guitars. After this, they tried to deal directly with stores, and they sold 280 guitars in 1969 before they came to the one day. Two years after his bankruptcy, Semie was able to get back the Mosrite name, and in 1970 he started making guitars again in Pumpkin Center near Bakersfield. He moved his factory three times in the next 20 years, to Oklahoma City in the mid-70s, to the township of Jonas Ridge, in Burke County, North Carolina in 1981, and to Booneville, Arkansas in 1991. Six months after moving to Arkansas, Semie Moseley became ill with cancer and six weeks later, in August 1992. Semies daughter, Dana, is also a luthier and continues to build Mosrite guitars and she also helps kick off the monthly Mosrite Jam in Bakersfield. Landers, Rick, Brennan, Tim, The Story of Mosrite Guitars, modern Guitars magazine, January 18,2005 The Mosrite Gospel guitar, North American Instruments,2000. With some personal notes on its builder
17.
Mosrite
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Mosrite is an American guitar manufacturing company, based in Bakersfield, California, from the late 1950s to the early 1990s. Founded by Semie Moseley, Mosrite guitars were played by rock and roll. Mosrite guitars were known for design, high-quality engineering, very thin, low-fretted and narrow necks. Moseleys design for The Ventures, known as the Ventures Model, was considered to be the flagship of the line. In Bakersfield, Semie Moseley started playing guitar in a group at age 13. Semie and his brother Andy experimented with guitars from their years, refinishing instruments. Semie Moseley began building guitars in the Los Angeles area around 1952 or 1953, One of the most recognizable features on most Mosrite guitars is the German Carve on the top that Moseley learned from Rossmeisl. In 1954 Semie built a guitar in his garage. He presented a double-neck to Joe Maphis, a Los Angeles-area TV performer, by 1956, with an investment from Ray Boatwright, a local Los Angeles minister, Semie and Andy started their company, Mosrite of California. Semie, who built guitars for the L. A. -based Rickenbacker company, said to his co-workers that he was making his own product, and he was fired by Rickenbacker. When they began, their production was all custom, handmade guitars, built in garages, tin storage sheds, wherever the Moseleys could put equipment. In 1959, Andy moved to Nashville, Tennessee, for a year to popularize the Mosrite name and sold a few, including to Grand Ole Opry entertainers, Andy said, And that’s how we kept the factory going at the time, custom guitars. Moseley made guitars in Los Angeles until 1959, when he moved to Oildale, California, just north of Bakersfield. In 1962 he moved his shop to Panama Lane where he designed and produced the first Joe Maphis model guitars, one model of which would evolve into the Ventures model guitar. At this time, Mosrite made everything in-house, except for the tuners, the full The Ventures line consisted of the Mark I, Mark II, Mark V, Mark X and Mark XII. The Ventures line started in 1963 and ran through 1967, when the agreement with The Ventures ended. At the peak of production, in 1968, Mosrite was making around 600 guitars per month, Mosrite of California went bankrupt in late 1968 after they contracted with a competitor to market their guitars. After this, they tried to deal directly with stores, and they sold 280 guitars in 1969 before they came to the one day
18.
Original Musical Instrument Company
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Original is an American brand currently owned by the Gibson Guitar Corporation. The company uses the brand to produce and commercialize resonator guitars, the company was formed in 1967 by two of the original John Dopyera brothers, Rudy and Emile, to manufacture resonator guitars. They produced their first instruments under the brand Hound Dog, in 1970 the company reacquired the Dobro name that had been sold in 1966 to Semie Mosely of Mosrite, although it carried on using the Hound Dog name for a time. In 1993 the Gibson Corporation acquired Original, and subsequently changed the name to Original Acoustic Instruments, moving the operation to its headquarters in Nashville. Gibson Corporation still produces Dobro resonator guitars through its subsidiary company, Dobro Resonator guitar Dobro Hound Dog resonator guitars at Epiphone website
19.
Gibson
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Gibson Brands, Inc. is an American manufacturer of guitars and other instruments, now based in Nashville, Tennessee. The company was known as Gibson Guitar Corp. and renamed Gibson Brands. Orville Gibson founded the company in 1902 as The Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co. Ltd. in Kalamazoo, Gibson invented archtop guitars by constructing the same type of carved, arched tops used on violins. By the 1930s, the company was also making flattop acoustic guitars, as well as one of the first commercially available hollow-body electric guitars, Gibson sells guitars under a variety of brand names and builds one of the worlds most iconic guitars, the Gibson Les Paul. Many Gibson instruments are highly collectible, Gibson was at the forefront of innovation in acoustic guitars, especially in the big band era of the 1930s, the Gibson Super 400 was widely imitated. In 1952, Gibson introduced its first solid-body electric guitar, the Les Paul which became its most popular guitar to date— designed by Ted McCarty, Gibson was owned by the Norlin corporation from 1969 to 1986. In 1986, the company was acquired by its present owners, Gibson is a privately held corporation owned by its chief executive officer Henry Juszkiewicz and its president David H. Berryman. Orville Gibson patented a single-piece mandolin design in 1898 that was more durable than other mandolins, Orville Gibson began to sell his instruments in 1894 out of a one-room workshop in Kalamazoo Michigan. In 1902 Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co, Ltd. was incorporated to market the instruments, initially, the company produced only Orville Gibsons original designs. Orville died in 1918 of endocarditis, the following year the company hired designer Lloyd Loar to create newer instruments. Loar designed the flagship L-5 archtop guitar and the Gibson F5 mandolin that was introduced in 1922, in 1936 Gibson introduced their first Electric Spanish model, the ES-150 followed by other electric instruments like steel guitars, banjos and mandolins. During World War II, instrument manufacturing at Gibson slowed due to shortages of wood and metal, between 1942-1945, Gibson employed women to manufacture guitars. Women produced nearly 25,000 guitars during World War II yet Gibson denied ever building instruments over this period, Gibson folklore has also claimed its guitars were made by seasoned craftsmen who were too old for war. In 1944 Gibson was purchased by Chicago Musical Instruments, the ES-175 was introduced in 1949. Gibson hired Ted McCarty in 1948, who became President in 1950, the Les Paul was offered in Custom, Standard, Special, and Junior models. In the mid-50s, the Thinline series was produced, which included a line of thinner guitars like the Byrdland, the first Byrdlands were slim, custom built, L-5 models for guitarists Billy Byrd and Hank Garland. Later, a neck was added. Other models such as the ES-350T and the ES-225T were introduced as less costly alternatives, in 1958, Gibson introduced the ES-335T model
20.
Epiphone
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Epiphone is an American musical instrument manufacturer founded by Anastasios Stathopoulos, currently based in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1957 Epiphone, Inc. of New York was purchased by CMI and given the name Epiphone, Inc. of Kalamazoo, CMI took great measures to keep Gibson and Epiphone separate in different buildings each with its own management team. Epiphone is owned by Gibson Guitar Corporation and was Gibsons main rival in the market prior to its acquisition in 1957. Their professional archtops, including the Emperor, Deluxe, Broadway and Triumph, aside from guitars, Epiphone also made upright basses, banjos, and other stringed instruments. However, the weakness in the aftermath of World War II allowed Gibsons parent, CMI. The name Epiphone is a combination of proprietor Epaminondas Stathopoulos nickname Epi, Epiphone began in 1873, in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire, where Greek founder Anastasios Stathopoulos made his own fiddles and lutes. Stathopoulo moved to the United States in 1903 and continued to make his original instruments, as well as mandolins, from Long Island City in Queens, Anastasios died in 1915, and his son, Epaminondas, took over. After two years, the became known as The House Of Stathopoulo. Just after the end of World War I, the company started to make banjos, the company produced its recording line of banjos in 1924 and, four years later, took on the name of the Epiphone Banjo Company. It produced its first guitars in 1928, after Epi died in 1943, control of the company went to his brothers, Orphie and Frixo. In 1951, a four-month-long strike forced a relocation of Epiphone from New York City to Philadelphia, in 1957 the company was acquired by CMI who also owned Gibson, Lowrey, Selmer and others, Gibson. After Epiphone became a subsidiary of Norlin, many of its instruments were later patterned after the more expensive Gibson versions, however, Epiphone also maintains its own line of archtop guitars and basses. As of January,2013, Epiphone makes the following guitars and this outfit was an amplifier, case and lap steel guitar stand all rolled into one unit and was supplied by a suitcase manufacturer of the time. Gibson produced Epiphone amplifiers in the 1960s and these were basically copies or variations of Gibson and Fender amplifiers. They used a design, and some had reverb and tremolo. Gibson decided to launch a new line of Epiphone amplifiers in 2005 with many different models, including the So Cal, Blues Custom, the Valve Hot Rod and Valve Senior were released in 2009. The Valve Hot Rod is a 5 watt amp like the Valve Junior, the Valve Senior offers 20 watts of power, with a full equalizer, gain, volume, reverb, and presence control. As of 2012, Epiphone has ceased production of their line of amplifiers with the exception of the Player and Performance Pack practice amplifiers and these Amplifiers are under the Epiphone Electar moniker
21.
Valco
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Valco was an American manufacturer of guitars, guitar amplifiers, and other musical instruments from the 1940s through 1968. In the 1930s, Valco was formed by three partners and former owners of the National Dobro Company, Victor Smith, Al Frost. They also made amplifiers under contract for other companies such as Gretsch, Harmony. In the 1950s they began producing solid body electric guitars, Valco merged with Kay Musical Instrument Company in 1967, however the merged company quickly went out of business in 1968 because of financial difficulties. Since Valcos demise, a number of manufacturers have reissued several different reissues or derivatives of Valco instrument, eastwood Guitars currently produces a variety of reissue Airline guitars, as well as at least one Supro model. Several of Valcos earlier amplifier models are currently reissued by Vintage47 Amps of Mesquite and these amps are somewhat unusual in modern times because they implement octal preamp tubes, whereas later amplifiers leading right up to present times use miniature noval preamp tubes. In late 2013, it was announced that Absara Audio of Port Jefferson Station, Zinky himself had used the Supro name for a series of amps beginning in 2005 from his company, Zinky Electronics. Absara announced in January 2014 that a series of new Supro amps would debut at the Winter 2014 NAMM Show in Anaheim, the new Supro amps are cosmetically reminiscent of their progenitors from the 1960s. National Dobro Corporation Airline Kay Musical Instrument Company Wright, Michael, Supro Guitars and Amplifiers Part I - Supro Part 1. Article about Valcos Supro brand Wright, Michael, article about Supros resonator guitars ADMIN. National Westwood and Glennwood - 60s Alt-materials Make Short run, article about Nationals map guitars Ray, Will. Resurrecting a 1957 Supro Dual Tone
22.
Fiberglass
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Fiberglass is a type of fiber-reinforced plastic where the reinforcement fiber is specifically glass fiber. The glass fiber may be arranged, flattened into a sheet. The plastic matrix may be a polymer matrix – most often based on thermosetting polymers such as epoxy, polyester resin. The glass fibers are made of various types of glass depending upon the fiberglass use and these glasses all contain silica or silicate, with varying amounts of oxides of calcium, magnesium, and sometimes boron. To be used in fiberglass, glass fibers have to be made very low levels of defects. Fiberglass is a lightweight material and is used for many products. Although it is not as strong and stiff as composites based on fiber, it is less brittle. Its bulk strength and weight are also better than many metals, other common names for fiberglass are glass-reinforced plastic, glass-fiber reinforced plastic or GFK. Because glass fiber itself is referred to as fiberglass, the composite is also called fiberglass reinforced plastic. This article will adopt the convention that fiberglass refers to the glass fiber reinforced composite material. A patent for this method of producing glass wool was first applied for in 1933, Owens joined with the Corning company in 1935 and the method was adapted by Owens Corning to produce its patented fibreglas in 1936. Originally, fibreglas was a wool with fibers entrapping a great deal of gas, making it useful as an insulator. A suitable resin for combining the fibreglass with a plastic to produce a material was developed in 1936 by du Pont. The first ancestor of modern polyester resins is Cyanamids resin of 1942, peroxide curing systems were used by then. With the combination of fiberglass and resin the gas content of the material was replaced by plastic and this reduced the insulation properties to values typical of the plastic, but now for the first time the composite showed great strength and promise as a structural and building material. Confusingly, many glass fiber composites continued to be called fiberglass, ray Greene of Owens Corning is credited with producing the first composite boat in 1937, but did not proceed further at the time due to the brittle nature of the plastic used. In 1939 Russia was reported to have constructed a boat of plastic materials. The first car to have a body was a 1946 prototype of the Stout Scarab
23.
National Reso-Phonic Guitars
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National Reso-Phonic Guitars is a manufacturer of resonator guitars and other resonator instruments including mandolins, ukuleles and 12 string guitars. The company was formed in 1989 by Don Young and McGregor Gaines, since 1990, the factory has been located in San Luis Obispo, California. Their current production is over 1000 instruments per annum, representing more than 50 different models, in addition to manufacturing new instruments, they offer a repair service capable of restoring almost any vintage National guitar to original condition. In 2008 Don Young and Eric Smith, an employee of the company since 1991, in 2012 Eric Smith became a 50% owner of National Reso-Phonic Guitars, Inc. then again in 2014 Eric Smith became sole owner after purchasing Dons remaining interest in the company. On Wednesday June 15,2016 Don Young died in San Luis Obispo, National Reso-Phonic Guitars model range includes not only the tricone and biscuit mechanisms used on the original National instruments, but also the inverted cone design used on the Dobro. Official website National Resonator Guitars - An American Tradition at the Bob Brozman official website
24.
Ukulele
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The ukulele, sometimes abbreviated to uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments, it generally employs four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings. Some strings may be paired in courses, giving the instrument a total of six or eight strings and it gained great popularity elsewhere in the United States during the early 20th century and from there spread internationally. The tone and volume of the instrument vary with size and construction, ukuleles commonly come in four sizes, soprano, concert, tenor, and baritone. The ukulele is commonly associated with music from Hawaii where the name translates as jumping flea. Legend attributes it to the nickname of the Englishman Edward William Purvis, one of King Kalākauas officers, because of his size, fidgety manner. According to Queen Liliʻuokalani, the last Hawaiian monarch, the means the gift that came here, from the Hawaiian words uku. Three immigrants in particular, Madeiran cabinet makers Manuel Nunes, José do Espírito Santo, one of the most important factors in establishing the ukulele in Hawaiian music and culture was the ardent support and promotion of the instrument by King Kalākaua. A patron of the arts, he incorporated it into performances at royal gatherings,50,000 schoolchildren and adults learned ukulele through the Doane program at its peak. Today, a program created by James Hill and J. Chalmers Doane continues to be a staple of music education in Canada. The ukulele came to Japan in 1929 after Hawaiian-born Yukihiko Haida returned to the country upon his fathers death, Haida and his brother Katsuhiko formed the Moana Glee Club, enjoying rapid success in an environment of growing enthusiasm for Western popular music, particularly Hawaiian and jazz. During World War II, authorities banned most Western music, but fans and players kept it alive in secret, in 1959, Haida founded the Nihon Ukulele Association. Today, Japan is considered a home for Hawaiian musicians. Demand surged in the new century because of its simplicity and portability. The ukulele was popularized for an audience during the Panama Pacific International Exposition. The Hawaiian Pavilion featured a guitar and ukulele ensemble, George E. K. Awai and his Royal Hawaiian Quartet, the popularity of the ensemble with visitors launched a fad for Hawaiian-themed songs among Tin Pan Alley songwriters. The ensemble also introduced both the lap steel guitar and the ukulele into U. S. mainland popular music, where it was taken up by vaudeville performers such as Roy Smeck and Cliff Ukulele Ike Edwards. On April 15,1923 at the Rivoli Theater in New York City, Smeck appeared, playing the ukulele, in Stringed Harmony, a short film made in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process. On August 6,1926, Smeck appeared playing the ukulele in a short film His Pastimes, made in the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process, the ukulele soon became an icon of the Jazz Age
25.
Mandolin
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A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family and is usually plucked with a plectrum or pick. It commonly has four courses of doubled metal strings tuned in unison, although five, the courses are normally tuned in a succession of perfect fifths. It is the member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello. There are many styles of mandolin, but three are common, the Neapolitan or round-backed mandolin, the mandolin and the flat-backed mandolin. The round-back has a bottom, constructed of strips of wood. The carved-top or arch-top mandolin has a shallower, arched back. The flat-backed mandolin uses thin sheets of wood for the body, each style of instrument has its own sound quality and is associated with particular forms of music. Neapolitan mandolins feature prominently in European classical music and traditional music, carved-top instruments are common in American folk music and bluegrass music. Flat-backed instruments are used in Irish, British and Brazilian folk music. Some modern Brazilian instruments feature a fifth course tuned a fifth lower than the standard fourth course. There has also been a type and an instrument with sixteen-strings. Much of mandolin development revolved around the soundboard, pre-mandolin instruments were quiet instruments, strung with as many as six courses of gut strings, and were plucked with the fingers or with a quill. However, modern instruments are louder—using four courses of metal strings, the modern soundboard is designed to withstand the pressure of metal strings that would break earlier instruments. The soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections, there is usually one or more sound holes in the soundboard, either round, oval, or shaped like a calligraphic f. A round or oval sound hole may be covered or bordered with decorative rosettes or purfling, Mandolins evolved from the lute family in Italy during the 17th and 18th centuries, and the deep bowled mandolin, produced particularly in Naples, became common in the 19th century. Dating to around c.13,000 BC, a painting in the Trois Frères cave in France depicts what some believe is a musical bow. From the musical bow, families of stringed instruments developed, since each string played a note, adding strings added new notes, creating bow harps, harps. In turn, this led to being able to play dyads and chords, another innovation occurred when the bow harp was straightened out and a bridge used to lift the strings off the stick-neck, creating the lute
26.
Regal Musical Instrument Company
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The Regal Musical Instrument Company was established in 1908 in Chicago. By the 1930s, they were one of the largest manufacturers of musical instruments in the world, Regal specialised in, Hi-End student instruments, sold under the Regal name through major Dealers. Custom-built instruments, produced for professional musicians in the Regal custom shop, the bodies of their Laminated bellied guitars were particularly suited to resonator conversion. Production of resonator guitars ceased in 1941, and of all fretted instruments in 1954, however, in 1965, Fender distributed five models of banjo under the Regal name, as the exclusive distributors. In 1987 the Regal name and trademark reappeared as a brand of Saga Musical Instruments, most notable for their 4-string bass resonator guitars, Emil Wulschner & Son, Indianapolis, used the Regal brand name c. 1884-1901. The new owners of Emil Wulschner & Son renamed the company the Regal Musical instrument Manufacturing Company in 1901, lyon & Healy bought the rights to the Regal name in 1905 and used it until 1908. Http, //www. mugwumps. com/faq. htm Banjo FAQ. http, http, //invention. smithsonian. org/centerpieces/electricguitar/pop-ups/01-07. htm Metal-bodied Regal Dobro,1940, with historical background
27.
Recording King
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Recording King is a musical instrument brand of the professional grade acoustic guitar, banjo, resonator and lap steel guitar, based in Hayward, California. Their guitars are designed in the US and sold worldwide, the current owner of a brand is The Music Link Corporation based in Hayward, which also produces other musical instrument lines. Recording King started as a brand for Montgomery Ward in the 1930s. Legendary guitarist John Fahey played a 1939 model, the original guitar was similar to the Gibson Advanced Jumbo, discontinued in 1939. The brand was revived in 2007, with Johnson Guitars taking the Recording King label, current Recording King products use vintage designs and replicas of pre-World War II parts
28.
Slide guitar
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Slide guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. Instead of altering the pitch of the strings in the manner, an object called a slide is placed upon the string to vary its vibrating length. This slide can then be moved along the string without lifting, creating smooth transitions in pitch and allowing wide, Slide guitar is most often played, With the guitar in the normal position, using a slide on one of the fingers of the left hand. This same technique is used to play steel guitar and the Dobro resonator guitar used in Bluegrass music. The technique of using a slide on a string has been traced to one-stringed African instruments similar to a Diddley bow, the technique was made popular by African American blues artists. The first musician recorded using the style was Sylvester Weaver, who recorded two solo pieces Guitar Blues and Guitar Rag in 1923, Blues legend Muddy Waters was also very influential, particularly in developing the electric Chicago blues slide guitar from the acoustic Mississippi Delta slide guitar. Texas blues musician Johnny Winter developed his style through years of touring with Waters. Slide player Roy Rogers honed his skills by touring with blues artist John Lee Hooker. John Lees cousin Earl Hooker may have been the first to use wah-wah, the sound has since become commonplace in country and Hawaiian music. The Rolling Stones featured a guitar as early as their 1963 recording of the John Lennon/Paul McCartney song I Wanna Be Your Man. Guitarist Brian Jones played slide in a very blues-oriented style, Jones was also one of the first English guitarists to play slide and during the bands early years, he was considered one of the best slide guitarists in the music world. His successors Mick Taylor and Ronnie Wood also displayed their own slide guitar skills while with the band, the album Let It Bleed features Keith Richards on slide guitar for the majority of the album, since the band were in-between guitarists during the making of the album. Rolling Stones vocalist Mick Jagger has also played guitar on occasion. Canned Heats Alan Wilson also helped bring slide guitar to music in the late 1960s. George Harrison experimented with slide guitar during the half of The Beatles career, first using the technique on an early outtake recording of Strawberry Fields Forever. The 1965 songs Drive My Car, and Run For Your Life have slide guitar, Harrison later used slide extensively in his solo career, on songs such as My Sweet Lord, Give Me Love, This Is Love, and Cheer Down. He played slide in the Traveling Wilburys as well as on The Beatles 1995 and 1996 reunion singles Free as a Bird, slides may be used on any guitar, but slides generally and steels in particular are often used on instruments specifically made to play in this manner. Often, the strings are raised a little higher off the fingerboard than they would be for conventional guitar playing—especially if the player isnt going to use the fingers for fretting
29.
Guitar tunings
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Guitar tunings assign pitches to the open strings of guitars, including acoustic guitars, electric guitars and classical guitars, among others. Tunings can be described by the pitches that are denoted by notes in Western music. By convention, the notes are ordered from lowest-pitched string to the highest-pitched, Tuning is described in how-to manuals for guitarists. Standard tuning defines the pitches as E, A, D, G, B. Standard tuning is used by most guitarists, and frequently used tunings can be understood as variations on standard tuning, “Nonstandard” tunings are also called “alternative” or “alternate”. Some tunings are used for songs by professional musicians. There are hundreds of such tunings, which are minor variants of established tunings. Communities of guitarists who share a tradition often use the same or similar tunings. The hundreds of alternative tunings have been classified into a number of categories, “open”. Modal, dropped, and many other tunings are mentioned in the supplementary list of guitar tunings, Standard tuning is the tuning most frequently used on a 6-string guitar and musicians assume this tuning by default if a specific alternate or scordatura is not mentioned. It consists of the notes, E2-A2-D3-G3-B3-E4. The letter gives the name of each note, and the number indicates in which octave the pitch lies. The fifth string is tuned to 110 Hz, exactly two octaves below the standard reference pitch of 440 Hz. Tuning forks and electronic tuners that match these frequencies are commonly available, Tuning forks which provide the pitch of the high E string are also common. The guitar is conventionally an equal-tempered instrument, the frets are positioned logarithmically, creating equally-tempered pitches along each string. However, guitarists who tune by ear will typically tune “clean” so that dissonant beating between particular strings is minimized, in this way, open intervals can be more consonant. This is known as just intonation, which is at variance with equal temperament, when the guitar is tuned in this way, open tunings theoretically allow for certain chords to be more consonant. Standard tuning provides reasonably simple fingering for playing standard scales and basic chords in all major and minor keys, the open notes of the second and third strings are separated by a four-semitone interval
30.
Earl Scruggs
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Earl Eugene Scruggs was an American musician noted for popularizing a three-finger banjo picking style now called Scruggs style that is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. His three-finger style of playing was different from the ways the five-string banjo had been historically played. He popularized the instrument in genres of music and elevated the banjo from its role as a background rhythm instrument or a comedians prop into featured solo status. Scruggs career began at age 21 when he was hired to play in a group called Bill Monroe, the name bluegrass stuck and eventually became the eponym for this entire genre of county music. Another band member, Lester Flatt resigned as well, and later the two men paired up again in a new group they called Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys. The song won two Grammy Awards and in 2005 was selected for the Library of Congress National Recording Registry of works of unusual merit, Flatt and Scruggs brought bluegrass music into mainstream popularity in the early 1960s with their country hit, The Ballad of Jed Clampett. This song was the music for the successful network television sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies and was the first bluegrass recording to reach number one on the Billboard charts. Over their 20-year association, Flatt and Scruggs recorded over 50 albums and 75 single records, each of them formed a new band that matched his own vision, but neither man ever regained the success they had reached as a team. Scruggs received four Grammy awards, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, Scruggs was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship given by the National Endowment for the Arts, the highest honor in the folk and traditional arts in the US. Four works by Scruggs have been placed in the Grammy Hall of Fame, after Scruggs death in 2012 at age 88, the Earl Scruggs Center near his birthplace in Shelby, North Carolina was founded with the aid of a federal grant and corporate donors. The center is a $5.5 million facility which features the contributions of Scruggs and serves as an educational center providing classes. Scruggs was born January 6,1924 just outside of Boiling Springs, North Carolina, in a community called Flint Hill and his father, George Elam Scruggs, was a farmer and a bookkeeper who died of a protracted illness when Scruggs was four years old. Upon his death, Scruggs mother, Georgia Lula Rupee, was left to care of the farm and five children. The family members all played music, mr. Scruggs had played an open back banjo using the frailing technique, but Earl, as an adult had no recollection of his fathers playing. Mrs. Scruggs played the pump organ, earls siblings, older brothers Junie and Horace, and older sisters Eula Mae and Ruby, all played banjo and guitar. Scruggs recalls a visit to his uncles home at age six to hear a banjo player named Mack Woolbright. This made an impression on Scruggs, who said, Hed sit in the rocking chair, I couldnt imagine — he was the first, what I call a good banjo player. Scruggs then took up the instrument — he was too small to hold one at the start and he moved it around depending on what part of the neck he was playing
31.
Open G tuning
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Among alternative tunings for the guitar, an open G tuning is an open tuning that features the G-major chord, its open notes are selected from the notes of a G-major chord, such as the G-major triad. For example, a popular open-G tuning is D-G-D-G-B-D, an open-G tuning allows a G-major chord to be strummed on all six strings with neither fretting of the left hand nor a capo. Like other open tunings, it allows the eleven major chords besides G major each to be strummed by barring at most one finger on exactly one fret, open tunings are common in blues and folk music, and they are used in the playing of slide and bottleneck guitars. Repetitive open-G tunings are used by Russian guitars, Dobro guitars, the repetitive open-G tuning D-G-B-D-G-B-D is used by the Russian guitar, which has seven strings tuned mostly in major thirds. Dobros use a full six-string tuning with a bottom G, G-B-D-G-B-D, bad Company guitarist Mick Ralphs has used another open-G tuning, which listed the initial six overtones of the G note, G-G-D-G-B-D for Hey Hey and while writing the demo of Cant Get Enough. The overtones tuning G-G-D-G-B-D was used by Joni Mitchell for Electricity, For the Roses, truncating this tuning to G-D-G-B-D for his five-string guitar, Keith Richards plays this overtones-tuning on The Rolling Stones Honky Tonk Women, Brown Sugar and Start Me Up. American rock band, Eagles of Death Metal, uses this tuning for the majority of their songs, minor thirds tuning Scordatura, alternative tunings of stringed instruments Stringed instrument tunings Denyer, Ralph. Special contributors Isaac Guillory and Alastair M. Crawford, madison, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin, Department of Electrical Engineering. 2010 PDF version by Bill Sethares
32.
Open D
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Open D tuning is an open tuning for the acoustic or electric guitar. The open string notes in this tuning are, D A D F♯ A D and it uses the three notes that form the triad of a D major chord, D, the root note, A, the perfect fifth, and F♯, the major third. To tune a guitar from standard tuning to Open D tuning, Lower the 1st, 2nd, Lower the 3rd string down half a step to F♯. In this tuning, when the guitar is strummed without fretting any of the strings, Open D tuning is very popular with slide guitar players, as it allows them to play complete chords using the slide. This tuning is used in regular guitar playing. The full and vibrant sound it produces - particularly on an acoustic guitar - also makes it ideal for fingerstyle playing, many new chord shapes and sounds are available with open D tuning. It can offer a strong element that produces tonal qualities markedly different from standard tuning. The full range of major and minor chords, with all their extensions, are available to the player, many well-known guitarists have used this tuning at some point in their career. For example, Bob Dylans album Blood on the Tracks was first recorded entirely in open D tuning, neil Young, Richie Havens, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Cockburn, Barry Gibb, Jim ORourke and Jason Swain have all released recordings featuring this tuning as well. Elmore James used this tuning heavily, Stone Gossard from Pearl Jam uses this tuning when playing the rhythm guitar on Even Flow and Oceans, from their Ten album. Mumford & Sons also uses this tuning on their tracks The Cave, Awake My Soul, needtobreathe used it on some of their songs, most notably Something Beautiful from The Outsiders. Laura Marling uses the tuning on the track of her 2010 album. Kevin Shields of My bloody Valentine uses this tuning on many songs, also Alessio Frusta uses this tuning on the track Freedom Island from his 2015 album Pen Siero This variant is achieved lowering the high D string a half step to C♯ when tuned to open D. C♯ is the seventh of the D major scale, hence the name. It also can be used for both fingerstyle and slide guitar work and this variant uses an F natural, the minor third. Red Label Catharsis performs and records entirely in this tuning, More recently, this tuning has been used by Niko Wenner of Oxbow on the songs Angel, Cat and Mouse, by Ian Thornley of Big Wreck on Ladylike and Overemphasizing and by Owen Campbell on Sunshine Road. DADFAD tuning is ideal for guitarists who are accompanying instruments that are tuned to minor scales and this tuning was used by the progressive metal band Opeth on their album Ghost Reveries. This variant, called the Open D5 tuning, is used by Mark Tremonti of Alter Bridge, six of the songs in which it is used are Are You Ready
33.
Jerry Douglas
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Gerald Calvin Jerry Douglas is an American resonator guitar and lap steel player and record producer. In addition to his thirteen solo recordings, Douglas has played on more than 1,600 albums and he has collaborated with various groups including The Whites, New South, The Country Gentlemen, Strength in Numbers, and Elvis Costellos Sugar Canes. Douglas produced a number of records, including some at Sugar Hill Records and he oversaw albums by Alison Krauss, the Del McCoury Band, Maura OConnell, Jesse Winchester and the Nashville Bluegrass Band, The Earls of Leicester, The Steep Canyon Rangers. Along with Aly Bain, he serves as Music Director of the popular BBC Television series, since 1998, Douglas has been a member of Alison Krauss and Union Station, touring extensively and playing on a series of platinum-selling albums. Jerry Douglas appeared with Vince Gill on Eric Claptons Crossroads Guitar Festival 2004, Douglas also made a cameo in the third United Breaks Guitars consumer protest video, all of which went viral. Douglas lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife, Jill, Douglas has received fourteen Grammy Awards and has won the Country Music Associations Musician of the Year award three times, in 2002,2005 and 2007. In 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded Douglas a National Heritage Fellowship, Douglas was named Artist in Residence for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in 2008. Douglas was honored at the 36th annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado for his twenty-fifth consecutive year playing in, Douglas received the Bluegrass Star Award, presented by the Bluegrass Heritage Foundation of Dallas, Texas, on October 15,2016. The award is bestowed upon bluegrass artists who do a job of advancing traditional bluegrass music and bringing it to new audiences while preserving its character. The Americana Music Association honored Jerry Douglas with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011, Douglas received the key to the city of Manchester, Tennessee as well as to Coffee County during a performance at the 2015 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. In The Encyclopedia of Country Music, ISBN 978-0195176087 Jerry Douglas official website Alison Krauss and Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas official site Folk Radio UK review of Jerry Christmas
34.
Mike Auldridge
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Mike Auldridge was widely acknowledged as a premier Dobro player. He played with The Seldom Scene for many years, creating a fusion of bluegrass with jazz, folk, Auldridge started playing guitar at the age of 13. His main influence through his early years was Josh Graves who also sold him his first Dobro, a 1967 graduate of The University of Maryland, Auldridge worked as a graphic artist for a commercial art firm in Bethesda, Maryland and then for the now defunct Washington Star-News. He did not start playing music full-time until the Washington Star-News folded in 1981, Mike was also a member of the touring bands of Lyle Lovett and Emmylou Harris. Auldridge worked with Paul Beard to produce the Beard Mike Auldridge Models of square-neck resophonic guitars, just one day prior to his 74th birthday, he died on December 29,2012 at home under hospice care in Silver Spring, Maryland after a lengthy battle with prostate cancer. Mike Auldridge - Official website *No longer Mike Auldridges official website - this site now promotes health supplements
35.
Rob Ickes
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Rob Ickes is a dobro player. A Northern California native, Rob Ickes moved to Nashville in 1992, in addition to his work with Blue Highway, he also regularly performs with Three Ring Circle and his own jazz trio. In 2011, he was named Dobro Player of the Year for the time by the International Bluegrass Music Association. IBMA notes that he is the most awarded instrumentalist in the history of the IBMA Awards and he was also named the USA Peter Cummings Fellow in 2010 by United States Artists, an organization that annually honors 50 of America’s finest artists across eight disciplines. In 2009, Ickes released his solo album Road Song. He had previously released four albums on Rounder Records, Big Time, What It Is, Slide City. Ickes also performs and records with an acoustic power trio, Three Ring Circle, with Andy Leftwich. Three Ring Circle released a self-titled CD in 2006, followed by Brothership in 2010 and he has released a studio performance DVD+CD, Rob Ickes, Contemporary Dobro Artistry, featuring duos with mandolinist Andy Leftwich, solo performances, and duos with jazz pianist Michael Alvey. Ickes was the youngest dobro player on The Great Dobro Sessions, produced by Jerry Douglas and Tut Taylor and he was also on the Alison Krauss & The Cox Family album, I Know Who Holds Tomorrow, which won the 1994 Grammy for Best Southern Gospel. His work with Merle Haggard includes Haggards 2007 release, The Bluegrass Sessions, Ickes also played on Mark Twain, Words & Music in 2011, a benefit CD for the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum produced by Carl Jackson. The project featured Clint Eastwood, Jimmy Buffett, Garrison Keillor, Brad Paisley, Sheryl Crow, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, and others. He frequently serves as an instructor at music workshops and camps, including NashCamp, Sore Fingers Week, Rockygrass Academy, Wintergrass Academy, Rob Ickes Official site Blue Highway Official site ResoRevolution website NPR All Things Considered feature, Dobro Player Rob Ickes Takes A New Highway
36.
Country music
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Country music is a genre of United States popular music that originated in the southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from the genre of United States, such as folk music. Blues modes have been used throughout its recorded history. The term country music is used today to many styles and subgenres. In 2009 country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, immigrants to the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of Europe and Africa along with them for nearly 300 years. Country music was introduced to the world as a Southern phenomenon, Bristol, Tennessee, has been formally recognized by the U. S. Congress as the Birthplace of Country Music, based on the historic Bristol recording sessions of 1927. Since 2014, the city has been home to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, historians have also noted the influence of the less-known Johnson City sessions of 1928 and 1929, and the Knoxville sessions of 1929 and 1930. Prior to these, pioneer settlers, in the Great Smoky Mountains region, had developed a musical heritage. The first generation emerged in the early 1920s, with Atlantas music scene playing a role in launching countrys earliest recording artists. Okeh Records began issuing hillbilly music records by Fiddlin John Carson as early as 1923, followed by Columbia Records in 1924, many hillbilly musicians, such as Cliff Carlisle, recorded blues songs throughout the 1920s. The most important was the Grand Ole Opry, aired starting in 1925 by WSM in Nashville, during the 1930s and 1940s, cowboy songs, or Western music, which had been recorded since the 1920s, were popularized by films made in Hollywood. Bob Wills was another musician from the Lower Great Plains who had become very popular as the leader of a hot string band. His mix of country and jazz, which started out as dance hall music, Wills was one of the first country musicians known to have added an electric guitar to his band, in 1938. Country musicians began recording boogie in 1939, shortly after it had played at Carnegie Hall. Gospel music remained a component of country music. It became known as honky tonk, and had its roots in Western swing and the music of Mexico. By the early 1950s a blend of Western swing, country boogie, rockabilly was most popular with country fans in the 1950s, and 1956 could be called the year of rockabilly in country music. Beginning in the mid-1950s, and reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the late 1960s in American music produced a unique blend as a result of traditionalist backlash within separate genres
37.
Bashful Brother Oswald
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Beecher Ray Kirby, better known as Bashful Brother Oswald, was an American country musician who popularized the use of the resonator guitar and Dobro. He played with Roy Acuffs Smoky Mountain Boys and was a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Though he released only a few recordings as a solo artist, he played as a musician on numerous records, including the Nitty Gritty Dirt Bands 1972 triple album. Beecher Ray Kirby was born in rural Sevier County, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains and his father, G. W. Kirby, was an Appalachian folk musician who played fiddle and banjo. As a child, Kirby learned to play guitar and banjo, by his teens, he was playing for square dances. In the late 1920s, Kirby followed the path of many people from the Appalachian region and he went to Flint, Michigan and worked on the Buick assembly line. He lost his job, though, in the downturn of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Kirby then returned to music, playing at informal square dance parties held in the homes of other transplanted southerners and it was at one such party that Kirby met a Hawaiian guitarist named Rudy Waikiki. That was when I first heard someone play something like my style and he was a real Hawaiian boy, from over in the islands, and he was playing this way and I loved it. Id go to them parties just to him play, Kirby said. Then Id go home and get my guitar and try to do the same thing, I was just playing a straight guitar and I had to raise the strings up, put a nut under the strings. He visited the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1933, playing in clubs, some of the clubs he played in were owned by Al Capone. In a bid to find steady work, Kirby moved to Knoxville. Taking the stage name Pete Kirby, he played guitar with local bands, among them Roy Acuffs Crazy Tennesseans. Acuff joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1938, and Kirby joined the Opry with Acuffs band on New Years Day 1939. To fit his new persona, Kirby created the clownish Oswald character, wearing a floppy, wide-brimmed hat, tattered bib overalls, oversized work shoes and adopting a braying laugh. Featured on the broadcasts of the Opry, Oswald created a sensation playing his resonator guitar on such songs as Old Age Pension Check. The instrument, developed in the late 1920s, was relatively new
38.
Roy Acuff
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Roy Claxton Acuff was an American country music singer, fiddler, and promoter. In 1952 Hank Williams told Ralph Gleason, Hes the biggest singer this music ever knew and you booked him and you didnt worry about crowds. For drawing power in the South, it was Roy Acuff, Acuff began his music career in the 1930s and gained regional fame as the singer and fiddler for his group, the Smoky Mountain Boys. He joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1938, and although his popularity as a musician waned in the late 1940s, he remained one of the Oprys key figures and promoters for nearly four decades. In 1942, Acuff co-founded the first major Nashville-based country music publishing company—Acuff-Rose Music—which signed such artists as Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, in 1962, Acuff became the first living inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Acuff was born on September 15,1903 in Maynardville, Tennessee to Ida and Simon E. Neill Acuff, the Acuffs were a fairly prominent family in Union County. Roys paternal grandfather, Coram Acuff, had been a Tennessee state senator, Roys father was an accomplished fiddler and a Baptist preacher, his mother was proficient on the piano, and during Roys early years the Acuff house was a popular place for local gatherings. At such gatherings, Roy would often amuse people by balancing farm tools on his chin and he also learned to play the harmonica and jaw harp at a young age. In 1919, the Acuff family relocated to Fountain City, a few south of Maynardville. Roy attended Central High School, where he sang in the chapels choir. His primary passion, however, was athletics and he was a three-sport standout at Central and, after graduating in 1925, was offered a scholarship to Carson-Newman University but turned it down. He played with several baseball clubs around Knoxville, worked at odd jobs. In 1929, Acuff tried out for the Knoxville Smokies, a baseball team then affiliated with the New York Giants. A series of collapses in spring training following a sunstroke, however, the effects left him ill for several years, and he suffered a nervous breakdown in 1930. I couldnt stand any sunshine at all, he later recalled, while recovering, Acuff began to hone his fiddle skills, often playing on the familys front porch after the sun went down. His father gave him records of regionally renowned fiddlers, such as Fiddlin John Carson and Gid Tanner. In 1932, Dr. Hauers medicine show, which toured the southern Appalachian region, the purpose of the entertainers was to draw a large crowd to whom Hauer could sell medicines for various ailments. As the medicine show lacked microphones, Acuff learned to sing loud enough to be heard above the din, a skill that would later help him stand out on early radio broadcasts
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