The Early Design Of The Electric Guitar
Originally guitars were all acoustic, and the volume achievable by such guitars was quite enough for the environments in which they were played. However, as music developed and the locations in which it performed grew larger, and with the introduction of accompanying instruments, it became necessary to increase the volume and sound of the guitar. Especially with jazz gaining in popularity, the brass instruments would simply drown out the guitar, and so solutions had to be found.
It was Les Paul, a major innovator in the world of guitars, experimented with attaching microphones to guitars, and this led to some of the earliest electric guitars, although these were generally simply hollow acoustic guitars with tungsten pickups. In 1931 these were being manufactured by the Electro String Instrument Corporation, and the design of an acoustic guitar with a hollow body and a tungsten pickup was devised by Harry Watson, and this model was called the
