The Origins of the Talking Guitar

The "talking guitar" is an instrument that has made an appearance in many genres of music. Bands from Pink Floyd, Peter Frampton, Cher, and others have used the device to add character and personality to their music. Here, we will look at its origins and hope to gain a little insight as to how it came into the mainstream.

The abilities of vintage electronica (1930-1949) were far superior than we are often lead to understand. The vocoder appeared in the 1930's as a means to ensure accurate communication over telephone lines. It allows an encrypted code to be sent from sender to receiver and then entered into the machine manually. The machine would then voice the message with proper speech and inflection, allowing listener to understand intent and meaning in an otherwise vague context.

The following clip shows a vocoder demonstration from the 1930's...



By the early 1940's, musicians were able to incorporate this new technology with their compositions. Jazz, a genre dependant on personality and flair, used it a great deal. Big bands began to use the "sonovox" to help them give their trumpets, horns, and clarinets a literal voice.

See an example here...



Of all the intruments the were used with the sonovox, the most interesting became the slide guitar because of 1) polychromatic abilities (chords) as opposed to the monochromatic instruments also being used (trumpet, clarinet, etc.) and 2) the ability of the guitar to slide up the the next note, creating a natural blend with the human voice. Two main artisians of the talking slide guitar emerged in the 1930-40's, namely Alvino Rey and Pete Drake. As an interesting matter of note, Alvino Rey was both a Morman as well as the grandfather of William Butler, lead singer of Arcade Fire.

Alvino Rey - My Buddy



Alvino Rey - St. Louis Blues (featuring a creepy guitar puppet)



Pete Drake - "Hold Me" and "Sleepwalk"



Pete Drake - "I'm Sorry"


Stevie Wonder - "Close To You"

54-46 Was My Number

I had the opportunity last week to watch an amazing movie called This Is England. (2006). The opening credits blew me away. The movie is about a young boy in 1983 England who is trying to deal with bullys, fitting in, and the death of his father in the Faulklands War. So much of the movie is contingent on the viewer understanding both the setting and feeling of England during those years. To help set the exposition, a montage starts the movie with Toots and the Maytal's "54-46 Was My Number" playing over footage of events and happenings of the early eighties.

Toots and Company have a sound unique to themselves. They were around during the origins of reggae music and still have a good portion of early R&B in their sound.

Definately one of the coolest uses of music in cinema that I can remember.