The Rickenbacker Electro A-22, nicknamed the "Frying Pan" is the first
electric
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...
lap steel guitar
The lap steel guitar, also known as a Hawaiian guitar, is a type of steel guitar without pedals that is typically played with the instrument in a horizontal position across the performer's lap. Unlike the usual manner of playing a traditional ...
. Developed in 1931/1932, it received its patent in August 1937.
[
]
A previous attempt, the
Stromberg company‘s transducer-based "Stromberg Electro", was introduced in 1928. It used a "vibration-transfer rod" from the instrument's sounding board attached to magnets inside the guitar, and was not successful.
[
] George Beauchamp created the "Fry-Pan" in 1931, and it was subsequently manufactured by
Rickenbacker Electro. The instrument gained its nickname because its circular body and long neck make it resemble a
frying pan
A frying pan, frypan, or skillet is a flat-bottomed pan used for frying, searing, and browning foods. It is typically in diameter with relatively low sides that flare outwards, a long handle, and no lid. Larger pans may have a small grab han ...
.
It was designed to capitalize on the popularity of
Hawaiian music
The music of Hawaii includes an array of traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Styles like slack-key guitar are well known worldwide, while Hawaiian-tinged music is a frequent part ...
in the 1930s. The instrument was made of cast
aluminum
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has ...
, and featured a
pickup that incorporated a pair of horseshoe
magnets
A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, steel, nickel, ...
that arched over the strings. Beauchamp and machinist
Adolph Rickenbacker
Adolph Rickenbacker (April 1, 1887 – March 21, 1976) was a Swiss-American electrical engineer who co-founded the Rickenbacker guitar company along with George Beauchamp and Paul Barth.
Rickenbacker was born in Basel, Switzerland as Adolf Ri ...
began selling the guitar in 1932, but Beauchamp was not awarded a patent
"ELECTRICAL STRINGED MUSICAL G. D. BEAUCHAMP et al"
Google Patents
Google Patents is a search engine from Google that indexes patents and patent applications.
Contents
Google Patents indexes more than 87 million patents and patent applications with full text from 17 patent offices, including:
* United States P ...
, accessed August 14, 2022. for his idea until 1937, which allowed other guitar companies to produce electric guitars in the same period.
Development
In the 1930s, Hawaiian music enjoyed widespread popularity in the United States. However, Hawaiian music featured the guitar as the main melodic
A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combinat ...
instrument, and the volume of acoustic guitars
An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...
was insufficient for large audiences. Beauchamp, an enthusiast and player of Hawaiian music, mounted a magnetic pickup on his acoustic steel guitar
A steel guitar ( haw, kīkākila) is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conve ...
to produce an electrical signal
In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...
that was electronically amplified to drive a loudspeaker
A loudspeaker (commonly referred to as a speaker or speaker driver) is an electroacoustic transducer that converts an electrical audio signal into a corresponding sound. A ''speaker system'', also often simply referred to as a "speaker" or " ...
, producing a much louder sound. After discovering that his system produced copious amounts of unwanted feedback
Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to ''feed back'' into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled ...
from sympathetic vibration of the guitar's body, Beauchamp reasoned that acoustic properties were actually undesirable in an electric instrument.
Beauchamp had helped develop the Dobro
Dobro is an American brand of resonator guitars, currently owned by Gibson and manufactured by its subsidiary Epiphone. The term "dobro" is also used as a generic term for any wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar.
The Dobro was originally ...
resonator guitar
A resonator guitar or resophonic guitar is an acoustic guitar that produces sound by conducting string vibrations through the bridge to one or more spun metal cones (resonators), instead of to the guitar's sounding board (top). Resonator gui ...
, and co-founded the National String Instrument Corporation. Through these businesses, he was acquainted with Rickenbacker, who owned the machine company that manufactured the aluminum resonators and brass
Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other with ...
bodies for the instruments. With Rickenbacker's help, Beauchamp designed a lap steel guitar with a solid aluminum body and neck. Rickenbacker produced the instruments from 1932 to 1939.
Gallery
File:Flying Pan prototype (1931) using one-piece maple.jpg, 1931 prototype
(one-piece maple,
25" scale, 25 fret)
File:Elektrofryingpan.jpg, 1932 Ro-Pat-In Elektro A25 (one-piece aluminum cast, same size as prototype)
File:Rickenback Frying Pan aluminum-cast guitar (1934).jpg, 1934 Rickenbacker Electro A22 (22.5" scale, 23 fret)
File:RickenbackerFryingpanPatentDiagram.png, 1934 (filed 1934, issued 1937, 24 fret)
References
External links
National Public Radio: The Electric Guitar - Present at the CreationRickenbacker: The Earliest Days of the Electric Guitar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frying Pan (Guitar)
Electric guitars