Resonator guitars are acoustic instruments that can be quite varied in their appearance. While some are metal-bodied, others are wood-bodied with a metal plate on the front. On some models, the neck can be fretted into chord shapes, while others have high action and a square neck too wide for the hand to wrap around...
One family resemblance that makes these instruments special is their resonator cones, from which they get their name. These cones, or resonators, play a key role in boosting the volume of the instrument. When plucking a string, it vibrates against the bridge, which is seated atop the resonator cone(s), which amplify the sound in much the way a gramophone amplifies the vibration of a needle on an old record.
A BIT OF RESOPHONIC GUITAR HISTORY
When the resonator guitar was first developed in the early 1920s, horns and percussion instruments were very popular for dance music, and electric amplification had not yet come into vogue. Guitars couldn't compete with the volume of a larger band. Banjos, while loud enough to be heard in such an ensemble, didn't quite fill the same niche as a guitar... So it was that lap steel guitar player George Beauchamp sought out the help of John Dopyera to create a guitar loud enough to play with a full orchestra (read more here).
Dopyera answered the call, creating the first resonator guitar under the brand name National in Los Angeles, CA – with the first Tricone guitar. This first resonator guitar had all-metal, three-cone resonators attached by a metal bridge. Only 12 wooden-bodied Triolian models in the tricone system were made, before National switched to a single-cone model for wood-bodied models. The single cone helped to keep costs down and boost the popularity of the resophonic guitar. The Duolian was another model with a metal and/or wood body, designed as another cost-affective alternative (hear a comparison of these here).
John Dopyera left National and teamed up with his brothers Rudy, Emile, Robert, and Louis to form the Dobro Manufacturing Company in 1928. The name, meaning "good" in their native Slovak language, also happened to be a contraction of DOpyera BROthers, and has become synonymous with "resonator guitars" over the years (listen to more on this here).
While Dopyera continued to produce single-cone models with Dobro, these were a different variety. National had been using a "biscuit" resonator, whereas Dobro used a "spider" resonator, which was cheaper to produce and created more volume than the National's Tricone. The single-cone biscuit style resonator was convex with a wooden saddle and disk, focusing sound into the center of the instrument for a barky and thumpy sound with good projection but rapid decay. The concave bowl-shaped spider cone would project the sound outward for longer sustain, clear articulation, and a lush sound (click here for tonal comparisons).
After a series of legal battles between National and Dobro, the Dopyera brothers took over both companies and merged them into the National Dobro Corporation in 1932, and then ceased production when the United States entered World War II in 1941. From 1967-1970, brothers Rudy and Emile Dopyera started the Original Musical Instrument (OMI) Company, subsequently acquired by Gibson in 1993.
Meanwhile, National came to be known for their non-inverted single-cone biscuit designs. Since the 1980s, the company has come to be known as National Reso-Phonic Guitars, with all three traditional resonator types. Other guitar companies around the world have since picked up on the design and produced their own iterations of the resonator guitar...
PLAYING THE RESONATOR GUITAR
While bluegrass players often prefer the square-necked wooden-bodied Dobro lap steel guitars, blues players tend to play the round-necked metal-body National guitars, often played with a bottleneck slide on one of the fretting fingers.
While the round necks can be fretted (and can be set up to play on the lap), the square necks are set up with high action (and sometimes higher tension), designed for playing as a lap steel guitar. Wood bodied resonator guitars can be more mellow and less assertive, while metal (such as brass/nickel/chrome-plated) can be warm with more punch and sustain.
Between single cones varieties, the biscuit style of a National guitar has a full, plucky, assertive sound. The spider cones of single-cone Dobros can really bark, which often combines nicely with a wood body for a more balanced and slightly mellower tone (listen to more comparisons here).
If you're looking to get started and find your very own resonator guitar, many excellent makers exist today, all around the world! The design can be modified in so many ways, creating a vast array of different sounds... So listening to many different varieties is a great way to get acquainted with the instrument...
SOME RESOPHONIC GUITAR RECORDINGS:
- Josh Graves, Mike Auldridge, and Jerry Douglas – Dobro Summit
- Bukka White – "Aberdeen Mississippi Blues"
- Son House – Live performance 1969
- Taj Mahal – "Queen Bee"
- Alvin Youngbood Hart - "If Blues Was Money"
- Roy Rogers – "Walkin Blues" (slide guitar)
Explore our collection of Resonator Guitars online today!