4.1 Innovation patterns
In the innovation of products, stringed instruments take an unusual position. Most products follow a path of market penetration that is synchronous with product innovations. After the introduction the product matures and in small steps reaches its final form, optimizing function, production methods, materials, cost and design. In the final days competing new technologies (often called disruptive) prove to be more successful and the old technology is replaced. Examples are the use of aluminum instead of steel in aircraft or the replacement of the Otto-motor with electro-motors in cars. In the case of bicycles, maturing took nearly 200 years and the product changed dramatically over the first half century to arrive more or less at the modern design with the Starley safety bicycle. Since then, it evolved and branched out in specialized bicycles for many purposes, while adopting new materials and technologies (carbon, electric propulsion, continuous transmission, LED lights, hydraulic brakes etc) up to the current day. Cars follow a similar path and currently merit from the merger with computing and sensors to increase ease of use, safety, comfort and to reduce environmental footprint. These are fairly typical values for many users for any product. And yes: styling is also. With styling we define ourselves, the maker and the owner alike. We bond with people with the same values and show it off (Hoyer and McInnes, 2008).
4.2 Guitar innovation time path
Studying acoustic guitar innovation, it appears rather atypical. The many precursors of the modern guitar evolved since the 13th century and changed shape and number of strings till the design of Antonio de Torres, which is still the standard since the second half of the 19th century. De Torres’ design included 6 single gut strings in the E2 to E4 range, scale length around 63 cm, 8-like shape (with flat top and back) and the fan bracing system. Since then, a host of variations has been proposed, but few got serious market penetration, such as steel strings (early 1900s) and electrical amplification (Lloyd Loar, 1924). These concepts were adopted in the never ending quest for loudness. The thirties were productive years for renewals, such as a longer neck and replacement of gut by nylon. Steel strings married X-braced soundboards (developed and marketed by Martin) to create loud, non-cracking guitars. Loudness was a huge driver for acoustic guitar innovation, resulting in larger bodies (the Jumbo and Dreadnought), heavier strings, resonators, archtops, 12 string guitars and many other. Up to the current time, loudness is perceived by musicians as a prime quality of an acoustic guitar.
The concept of electrical amplification is the single example of a disruptive technology in the acoustic guitar’s history, leading in the end to the abandonment of the soundbox altogether and to electronic sound generation. From there on the innovation pattern of the electric guitars continues fairly typical. The design of Lloyd Loar was initially abandoned by Gibson but revived by Adolph Rickenbacker with his Frying Pan. Gibson and Fender took it from there, building solid bodied guitars with pickups and amplifiers, eliminating all loudness barriers, including the damage threshold of the human ear. In the early ‘60s, with the advent of synthesizers, signal processing eliminated another barrier: the typical guitar sound. Guitars thus separated in two dynasties, the acoustic, in which the soundbox interacts with air and string action to create voices, and the electric, which depends on string vibration and signal processing. It took the outsider Casio to introduce in 1987 the ultimate form of electric guitar where the string only delivers pitch, attack and timing, reduced to a Midi signal. The rest was prerecorded voice. However, the synthesizer technology is fighting back by expanding the repertoire of player controlled parameters in tone generation (Lee and Smith III, 2010). The guitar sound disappeared over time and was replaced with generated sound, much enhanced by digital techniques which expanded the analogue tricks from the seventies to countless digital options. The current status of the electrical guitar is that it is one of the many interfaces to control generated sound and rhythms.
Acoustic guitars, in the meantime, are basically the same since Martin’s and Gibson’s designs in the ‘30s, known as concert, archtop, Jumbo, Dreadnought, etc. That is where innovation becomes atypical. De Torres’ guitars split after 70 years in a couple of specializations and these remained thereafter. The admiration for vintage guitars (and even more so vintage bowed instruments) is a symptom of conservatism, in which sound and looks are good as they are, for 80 years now. The new technologies which came available, such as different materials, were not or only reluctantly adopted. This is not completely fair to all those who tried new ways of lutherism but in essence true: new designs did not disturb the market, except for acoustic pickup. Companies like LR Baggs and Fishman successfully apply sensors that pick up the best of the sound, while the player on stage is largely independent of the sound engineer. The classical guitar kept true to itself and changed only very subtly. Materials other than wood are rejected and only a limited range of wood species have been adopted. The most shocking innovations were the lattice bracing and double tops.
Many luthiers will disagree with the statement that guitars remained the same. Luthier Ervin Somogyi gives an interesting account of cultures around the classical and steel string guitar (https://esomogyi.com/articles/on-the-challenges-to-the-lutheir-in-mastering-both-steel-string-and-a-classical-guitar-making/), where the classical guitar is the formal, elitist, expensive, handmade instrument for written music and the steel string guitar the freestyle, commercial, factory made instrument for folk and popular music. Understandably the classical guitar is heavily bound to a confined design space, while the steel string guitar is accepted in many forms and features. The perception of the innovations depends completely on the magnifying glass that one is using. There is no scale for evaluation of taste and neither for significance of improvement. What helps one player, may be insignificant for another. But invisible boundaries of acoustic guitar innovations are in place and those boundaries are narrower than in many other products. Preferences within those boundaries are up to each individual.
4.3 Involvement and role
Acoustic guitars are being built by craftsmen and factories. For a factory the efficiency of the production process is a prime consideration and nowadays for a few hundred euros or dollars one can buy a very acceptable guitar. Craftsmen build guitars with a specific character, either by own motivation or on request. Often these guitars need to offer some visual specials which further increase the labour and price. Both luthiers and corporations operate often closely with great musicians. Commercially, endorsement by a famous player is the strongest marketing argument. But that is not the only purpose of the cooperation. For a luthier the gained insight in fine functional details of the instrument that the unique player techniques require is valuable. This is actually the field of ergonomics: how are these techniques enabled with minimal effort? Human factors experts tend to add to that: how can you make excessively repetitive moves and stay healthy in the long run?
The luthier has the design and making of the guitar as core business. Luthiers build on a long tradition, craftsmanship, knowledge of materials and a repertoire of variations on the basic design. The margins are narrow, not only bound by tradition, but also by limitations of player skills. Many luthiers develop their own tone signature by bracing designs. The variations in tone are subtle, like the tone variations by different tone woods, but musicians do hear the differences, learn to exploit them and may develop preferences. There is abundant evidence that the build of the guitar does more to the tone than the wood. It is the realm of acoustic researchers to find the physical characteristics of the guitar responsible for the psycho-acoustic perception.
Physicists tend to be more liberal towards materials and design, if the physical characteristics are right. That is different from many musicians and luthiers. The use of alternative materials is reluctantly accepted (carbon fibre is making a case though) and the typical tonal variations are politely qualified as “different” (modern acoustic) or straight away rejected (classical). There is a series of preferred woods and also a hang towards rare woods. It is still unclear if rare woods are really desirable or that luthiers compete for the best of the best, which is rare by definition. A direct relationship between scarcity and tonal quality would be hard to understand. Fortunately, there is a move towards a wider wood selection as a means to give a guitar the desired character and expand classics like spruce/rosewood to many other combinations.
4.4 Styling
Much cost and effort is put into the looks. Understandably, it is important for performing artists to look good on stage and carefully built guitars are invariably decorated with bindings and inlays which objectively increase the exclusivity but not the tone. Some decorations extend over the whole soundboard and one has to fear for the integrity of the carefully selected wood. Subjectively, however, the instrument radiates a message: I am exceptional (exciting, expensive, exclusive, exhilarating) and thus this is a good concert. Folk and classical stages follow this principle, including the role of distinguished appearance of the instrument in the personal image. The interesting aspect is the cross-over of seeing and hearing: beauty sounds good, uplifting sound looks good. Behavioral scientists are familiar with this intricacy, which is based on positive evaluation, also expressed in the accumbens, a spot in the brain which is known for its ‘common currency of evaluation’. The same cross-over is found in other perceptions, attributing the positive evaluation to all underlying factors. A random example is that workers tend to be more satisfied with their office furniture when they are happy with their manager.
This has been exploited to great length on the pop stage, where it has evolved into overwhelming visual shows, up tempo songs, identification with the performer, participation through dancing and a full register of emotions. It is no surprise that the unlimited power of solid body guitars, their few restrictions on appearance and the wide variation of sound effects help to extend the musician’s act. Fortunately, the time that wrecking the guitar after the show was a proper expression of freedom lies behind us. The last famous guitar smasher was Gibson’s chairman Juskiewicz, who announced the reinvention of the electric guitar in 2010, with the public destruction of a traditional Gibson. His reinvention was not appreciated by the customers and Gibson entered a Chapter 11 procedure in 2018. Juskiewicz was replaced by Levis’ James Curleigh. The irony is that Gibson is for now saved by someone who has likely learned from the same mistake at Levis, before Curleigh’s time. Levis tried to educate the customer to wear jeans suits, against all marketing warning flags, and went nearly broke in the nineties. The morality of the story is: never smash a good guitar.
4.5 Values
For many products the drivers for innovation are values. These are culture bound and within a (sub)culture the same for many products, but the order of impact is depending on the specific item. For guitars no validated list exists and priority depends on the type of user, but a rough estimate is the following:
- Styling and tone: guitar model, exclusivity, image, wood type, finish
- Functionality: tonal range, voice change while playing (as compared to guitar change), tremolo, sound pickup
- Ease of use: playability, adoption of hand size and flexibility, access to high frets, leg support, weight balance, action, string gauge, string mounting, tuning
- Reliability: tuning stability during climatic changes or power play, independence of posture, feedback suppression
- User control: tone and volume, noise (squeaking, buzzing)
- Health: stress free joint movements
- Cost effective production: reproducibility of properties, series production: few production steps, labour reducing finish, CNC manufacturing, simplicity, minimum cost materials
- Product life time: break strength, neck and top stability, surface damage, casing
- Environmental footprint: material availability and transport, low waste, production energy, battery use, solvents in glue and finish.
These values may lead to user satisfaction, but not necessarily to monetary value. Although guitar buyers will pay more for quality and beauty, the value of the most expensive instruments is not based on tone or playability, but on age and authenticity. The market leading violin auction house Tarisio would only accept instruments that are more than fifty years old and have an impeccable record of build, sales and ownership. There is only limited opportunity to play the violins before the auction. Musical instrument funds, in contrast, which buy to lend instruments to top players, tend to focus on sound and organize side by side comparisons of sometimes tens of instruments to choose from. The potential user may select the best match with his physical capabilities and playing style. Here the split between musical value and monetary value is visible. For the most expensive instruments counts the celebrity maker and the previous ownership, but much less the sound. The fund, however, may buy relatively cheap instruments with an exquisite tone.
In guitar land this is not different. From the 10 most expensive guitars ever sold (order of magnitude a million dollar) three belonged to Eric Clapton. The key is that these guitars were used in world famous concerts, albums or video clips. The parallel with great paintings is striking: the history of the painter is more important than the painting. The painting increases in price when the painter doesn’t produce any more, or even more reassuring, is dead. Even if the painting is not so good, it may be valuable. In fact, it is valuable because the painter showed himself capable of making better paintings. For the same odd reason Clapton’s guitars are costly because he played so famously on it.
4.6 The role of patents
The number of patents regarding guitar construction is impressive and still growing at a constant rate. It seems that every detail is so well covered that patents have become a key element of the commercial position of guitar makers. Guitar patents are also seen as tradable commodity, being on offer at Ebay. Not all of these patents are essential. Some do simply not work, many violate the elementary conditions for acoustics, some apply common knowledge from other fields to a guitar, many are faintly different from previous patents, some have been abandoned by not paying the fees. Many describe a mechanical route to a supposed end, without much evidence of the success. Indeed the patent offices do not demand proof. They wait for legal objection against a patent. Such objections may come from parties who feel that their interests are threatened, but nobody will make the effort to challenge a faulty patent. In other words, the self-cleaning capability of the system is low. A significant portion of patents states the obvious or covers long existing features, such as the use of a sling, recess for a control panel, rounded corners, a hook, a pick guard and other trivial issues. Surprisingly, these may be fairly recent patents. Possibly these patents are legally novel, but hardly novel in content. They are probably filed to raise road blocks, with the intention to let others pass for a toll, or to bounce competition. Producers which are known for their exquisite wooden guitars hold patents on the use of materials they are never going to apply. The major guitar producers have protected their products with clouds of patents, which are still being refined, sometimes owned by a dedicated business unit. Corporate patents as defense weapons are not a recent phenomenon and are a sign of a mature market. Some will remember the bitter legal wars fought over the resonator guitar between Beauchamp, Dopya and National. In new markets, like online services, exchange of ideas is more productive than exclusiveness, since there are numerous possibilities and it is more important to discover these during discussions than to hold ideas back. In a mature market the number of options is narrowed down by long experience and bouncing the competition becomes commercially important.
What the effect of patents is on the innovation process is a study in itself. On one hand the evasion of patents may have stimulated the search for alternatives. But the impression remains of a field which is difficult to navigate due to commercial obstacles, discouraging new parties. For the luthier/craftsman negotiations on licenses are a mine field and he lacks the deep pockets required to legally defend his ideas. He may focus on rights free knowledge, which is often traditional or at least 17 years old. For protection, he may try to keep his signature designs under copy right, which is easier to get and also provides longer protection than a patent. This all is counterproductive to innovation and the balance may well be stagnation.