Extreme Polka

Tonight's NYE Show

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Only $4.99 gets you 4 hours of eXtreme Polka and you may even win a brand new Epiphone Les Paul Jr. Guitar!

Merry Smoking X-Mas!

Santa knows what to give all of the boys and girls this year! Click the ad.

UPDATE: Who invented the electric guitar?

Way back in 2005 I submitted a post entitled "So Who Invented the Electric Guitar" after doing some research on the topic I was convinced it was Lloyd Loar.

This question (and topic) have since been discussed at length at the American Musical Instrument Society meeting at Yale University in 2007 as well as the “Rock Chic” exhibit at the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin in 2007 and countless papers and magazine articles.
(I especially owe thanks to Mathew Hill who is best suited to discuss this topic- thank you!)

After reading all of your replies and researching several of them I think that perhaps I should have asked a more direct question.
We all agree that a true electric guitar needs an amplifier in order to be heard, and we also agree that this distinction does indeed go to the Rickenbacker frying pan.

However none of you mentioned the little noted feature of the production model frying pan- the ¼ inch phone jack. The production Rickenbacker frying pan appears to have been the first electric instrument to use this connection which has become the standard method of connecting a guitar to an amp ever since.

Before you all say "AH_HA James, there is your answer!" In my original post I was concerned with any guitar that used electricity in some shape or form (hence "electric guitar") in order to make the instrument louder, and this had been experimented with some 50 years before the frying pan.
Several people have commented on this topic since that time (thank you!) and while most of the comments were either personal or had no factual information that could be substantiated a few readers of this blog did take the time to do some heavy duty research and send me their findings- and I want to thank all of you.

I was hell-bent on Lloyd Loar, however after doing some more digging it seems that all we know about him comes from an self-published book by Julius Bellson-a long-time Gibson guitar historian. His book may be 100% true- or it may be 100% false and I have not been able to verify all of the events mentioned in the book. IF it is all true then Loar and  his "pickup" did pave the way for Rickenbacker and everyone else.

I now know that Lloyd Loar was not the first person to use electricity on a guitar, and feel that this distinction should go to U.S. Navy officer George Breed- On September 2nd, 1890 George Breed was granted US Patent no 435679 for his “Method of and Apparatus for Producing Musical Sounds by Electricity”.

According to Matt Hill " Although not the very first example of an electrified instrument, predates any other documented American electrical musical instrument and appears to be the very first application of electricity to a fretted string instrument...... " however I must note that this is still not the first true "electric guitar" but he does seem to be the first person in documented history that used electricity with a guitar.

The following text has been complied from Mathew Hill:

The first documented attempt at the electrification of a fretted stringed instrument was an 1890 guitar patent by U.S. Navy officer George Breed. The Navy had great interest in the rapidly developing electrical technology and by the late 1880s the Navy Academy at Annapolis had begun offering classes in electrical engineering. Although Breed’s design had some superficial similarities to Beauchamp’s “Frying Pan” (both employed a large electromagnet encircling the strings), they functioned in very different ways. This was not an electric, but an electrified guitar. While the Breed guitar was sounded by an electric means, it was still an acoustic instrument, with a rough sound similar to a fast-picked mandolin or a hurdy-gurdy. It should be remembered to that Breed’s design did not produce a louder instrument (which was Beauchamp’s goal) but an instrument theoretically capable of infinite sustain.

The 1890 Patent

When considering Breed’s patent, it is it important to remember that Breed was not patenting so much a specific musical instrument design as he was a method of setting a string in constant vibration which could be applied to stringed instruments. So, before we can consider Breed’s guitar design we first must examine the electrical principles on which it is based.

In order to set the string in motion, Breed’s design makes use of an electromagnetic principle known as the Lorentz Force law. Simply put, the Lorentz Force law states that when an electric charge moves through a magnetic field, there is a force on the charge perpendicular to the direction of the charge and to the North-South axis of the magnetic field.

In Breed’s patent, a metal string is stretched through a strong magnetic field, provided by an electromagnet which encircles the string. It should be noted that the electromagnet is not in the same circuit as the string; in fact it is not necessary that the magnet be an electromagnet at all. However in Breed’s day permanent magnets were nowhere near strong enough and strong permanent magnets (such as the alnico type) were a number of years into the future.

The string has direct current passing through it and this electric current is interrupted in a rapid and random manner.

Breed likens this rapid making and breaking of the circuit as similar to the effect of a metal pin being drawn across a file. This rapid interruption of the string’s circuit creates a pulsed direct current which mimics some of the properties of alternating current (which was yet to be widely used). In the patent Breed creates the rapid making and breaking of the electrical circuit by the use of a rotating wheel with randomly spaced contact points on its outer edge which he calls a “break wheel”. Breed recommends that this break wheel be turned either by clockwork or alternatively powered by a small electric motor attached to the same battery as the electromagnet. Although this is not explained in the patent, the randomness of the pulsations in the string’s electrical circuit is an important factor in the performance of the instrument. Pulsations that are too regular would cause the instrument body to resonate in a much more pronounced manner at those frequencies that matched the rate of pulsation, thus producing prominent wolf tones.

In his patent, Breed states that his process for making a string vibrate by means of electromagnetism had applications beyond stringed instruments.

In fact, Breed suggests that the circuitry lends itself particularly well to telegraphy, in that it allows simultaneous transmission of multiple signals on the same circuit. This aspect of the patent is particularly far-sighted, as the technology to do this in a practicable manner would not be available for another forty years.

The greater part of the patent concerns the application of Breed’s method to musical instruments, and he gives examples of its application to the piano and the guitar.

Unlike the more detailed drawings of the guitar, the design for the piano as shown in the patent is more of an example of the possibilities of the circuit rather than an instrument design. It shows, for instance,

the use of multiple break wheels with different contact surfaces (smooth, medium, and rough) that can be controlled in combination in the manner of organ stops. Unfortunately for any would-be re-constructors, very few details of the mechanical mechanisms required to make the instrument work are shown.

The guitar depicted in Breed’s patent is far more detailed than the piano. Now at this point it should be made clear that this instrument, although powered by electricity, is not an electric guitar.  With an electric guitar, sound is created by means of an electromagnetic pickup, which is then amplified into a loudspeaker. Breed’s guitar is an acoustic instrument that is sounded by an electromagnetic means. Except for the presence of a very large electromagnet in its centre, the sound box of Breed’s design is essentially no different from any guitar of the period. However, other aspects of the guitar’s design make it very different indeed, one particularly noteworthy example being Breed’s specification of metal strings. While common on mandolins, wire strings were not commonly used on guitars until the 1920’s. Conductive metal strings are required because the guitar’s strings form part of the electrical circuit. The electrically charged strings run through the centre of the electromagnet to a metal bridge which is connected to the clockwork break wheel mechanism which is in turn connected to one terminal of the battery. The other terminal of the battery is connected to one of two rheostats, each controlled by a three position switch, which limits the current in the string circuit. The rheostats in turn are connected to the frets, which in effect become multiple contact points. The string is set in vibration by pressing the string against one of the frets, thus completing the electrical circuit.  The frets do not completely span the fingerboard but are divided between the third and fourth strings. This allows the treble and bass strings to be on two different circuits, each one controlled by one of the two rheostats. This allows for differing volumes between the two groups of strings.

Since this guitar can only be sounded in the manner intended when a string is pressed against a fret, it follows then that, unlike a conventional guitar, open strings cannot be utilised in playing. Breed however seems to have accounted for this in his design by the use of a neck which meets the body at the 13th fret rather than the 12th fret as was more typical of the guitars of his day. This 13 fret neck seems to imply an E-flat tuning to the instrument which would allow the pitches that would normally be open strings on the guitar to be played by playing the first fret.

Due to Breed’s obscurity today as an instrument designer and maker it seems readily apparent that Breed’s design failed to establish itself in the marketplace in any significant way. We must then consider what the probable reasons for its failure are.

A reconstruction of this guitar is currently being made. The process of reconstructing Breed’s guitar has pointed out many idiosyncrasies and issues with his design which may have contributed to its lack of commercial success. Probably the most conspicuous of these is the electromagnet. The electromagnets of Breed’s day simply were not capable of producing a magnetic field strong enough for an application like this without being large, heavy, and requiring copious amounts of power.

This reconstruction of Breed’s electromagnet weighs 13.8 lbs. This is more than an entire Gibson Les Paul model guitar, which is generally acknowledged to be one of the heaviest solid body electric guitars. Using automated computer-controlled milling, this took three days to produce.

The total weight of Breed’s guitar is estimated to be over 20lbs, making it an extremely heavy instrument. The position of the electromagnet in the body makes the guitar tilt away from the player, making holding the guitar difficult and awkward to play (although it does keep it from being neck heavy). On the guitar shown in the patent, the size of the electromagnet in comparison to the size of the instrument’s soundboard disallows the use of all but simple transverse bar soundboard barring, which has a negative impact on the sound.

In Breed’s day it is almost certain this guitar would have been powered from wet-cell batteries. As with the electromagnets available to Breed, so to the batteries of Breed’s day would have been large, cumbersome, and not particularly efficient. The inability of the batteries of the time to provide large amounts of current would have severely limited the guitar’s electrical efficiency and the length of time the guitar could be played for without recharging, The playing time of this guitar may have been as short as a few minutes. Also, it is not to be supposed that in the 1890s batteries were particularly inexpensive.

Irrespective of the problems with electromagnets and the power supply, the electrical circuit of Breed’s design has some quirks that also make it less practical as a performer’s instrument. The most noteworthy of these is the tendency for the guitar to go out of tune: A current in the string that is strong enough to react to the magnetic field also tends to heat the string which then makes the metal of the string expand, which makes the string go flat. This effect can be quite pronounced. Another idiosyncrasy inherent in the circuitry is that playing two or more strings on the same circuit (either the bass or treble) simultaneously results in an overall decrease in volume since the energy in the circuit is then divided between multiple strings.

From the foregoing, however, one should not assume that the science behind Breed’s design is unsound. It is probable that Breed’s design was not commercially successful not due to poor science but due to the inability of the insufficiently developed technology of the day to fully exploit Breed’s ideas.

Given all its problems the question has to be asked, “What Breed was trying to achieve with his design?” Unlike later attempts at guitar electrification, Breed’s design was not aimed at making a louder instrument. Nowhere in the patent does he claim that his design produces greater volume. In fact, it is doubtful that Breed was able to make his instrument anywhere near as loud as a conventional guitar. What Breed had developed was a stringed instrument that was capable of sustaining indefinitely, a kind of electromagnetic hurdy-gurdy.

It is hoped that the completion of the reconstruction of Breed’s guitar will give further insight into his electrical design. In addition, the question of how or indeed if, Breed tried to exploit his patent commercially is also worthy of further research.

The ultimate significance of Breed’s guitar is not in it’s functionality as a musical instrument but in its import both as the first known application of electricity to a fretted stringed instrument and a forerunner of the electrical technology that would be applied to stringed instruments, especially the guitar, forty years later; a technology that would radically and permanently change musical instrument design. 

FREE Polkaholics Christmas Show

Saturday - December 15th
Quenchers Saloon, 10pm til 1am, FREE
2401 N. Western (at Fullerton), Chicago,  773 276-9730

To ease the seasonal time demands, The Polkaholics are hosting their annual FREE holiday party - combining polka, beer drinking, and gift buying all into one special night! 
That's right - people can do their holiday shopping at the same time as they have a whole lotta fun!  How's that?  Well, besides being entertained by The Polkaholics (who will be playing some holiday chestnuts including "I'm Dreaming of a Polka Christmas," "Sausage and Sauerkraut for Santa," and "Yakov the Polka Reindeer"), Lake Claremont Press will be on hand to sell copies of their incredible books on all things Chicago at 10% off!

Lake Claremont Press is a local treasure that fosters and celebrates what's distinctive about
Chicago's history, culture, geography, spirit, and lore.  Some of the great books that they have published include "A Native's Guide to Chicago," "Wrigley Field's Last World Series: The Wartime Chicago Cubs and the Pennant of 1945," and "Graveyards of Chicago."  The Polkaholics will also be selling copies of CDs and t-shirts at the show.  So whether it's a gift of a book, CD, or t-shirt, we've got you covered!  What person wouldn't be super excited to find a copy of a Lake Claremont Press book or a Polkaholic CD in their Christmas stocking?  These fine gifts sure beat a partridge in a pear tree! So, c'mon out for this Special FREE Holiday show at a great Chicago neighorhood bar.

New Years Eve with the Polkaholics

Sam Falbo has done it again- check out this awesome poster for our NYE Show!! ONCE AGAIN IT'S ONLY $4.99 TO GET IN AND YOU COULD GO HOME WITH A FREE GUITAR.

Upcoming Polkaholics Show

Saturday 12/1 – FitzGerald’s – Opening for the AMAZING and SENSATIONAL Polka Grammy Award Winners BRAVE COMBO!! – 9pm, $15
This is Brave Combo’s Christmas Extravaganza, so you can count on a super festive atmosphere, and we’re opening this fun-tastic show at 9pm. Should be a TOTAL blast!!

Saturday 12/15 – Quenchers Saloon – THE POLKAHOLICS Christmas Party! – 10pm
2401 N. Western (at Fullerton), Chicago
Join us for our annual Christmas Party! This year we will be playing at our favorite bar Quenchers Saloon, where the number of beers available is only exceeded by the friendliness of Quenchers’ great staff. We’ll be in festive spirits and sure to play plenty of kamikaze polka all night long (i.e., three sets of people-pleasing-polka), including many of our favorite holiday chestnuts like “I'm Dreaming of a Polka Christmas,” “Sausage and Sauerkraut for Santa,” “Yakov the Polka Reindeer” and more. This is sure to be a Christmas party with Kreusening!

Monday 12/31 – New Year’s Eve party – DANK Haus – 9pm, $4.99
4740 N. Western Ave (near Lawrence), Chicago
Celebrate at our annual NEW YEAR'S EVE blowout at the swanky DANK HAUS in Lincoln Square! Specifically, we will be in the Marunde Grand Ballroom which can hold up to 500 people – so come one, come all! The cost will again be a mere $4.99 (that’s right – $4.99 – save the penny to ride the CTA home!), and, as in years past, we will be raffling off a BRAND NEW EPIPHONE ELECTRIC GUITAR!! That's right, while we play polkas on guitar, you could walk home with your very own brand new guitar! Where else can you go on New Year's Eve, spend less than $5 at the door, get a chance to win a new guitar, and dance the polka all night long? Nowhere but DANK HAUS! Plus there will be party favors galore, so don't miss this great party.

Who Invented Guitar Updates

Wow lots of people have responded to the post "So Who Invented The Electric Guitar" that I published back in 2005 and I wanted to thank all of you for responding.

While some of the "facts" are incorrect it is interesting to see all of the responses- thank you everyone for coming to eXtreme Polka!

eXtreme Polka Still Strong after 10 YEARS!

Thank you to PolkaSceneZine for these photos.

F*ck it Dude, Let's go Bowling

One of my favorite movies of all time! WARNING- if you are easily offended then I suggest you NOT watch this clip...otherwise poor yourself a Caucasian and enjoy!

Thank You Polka Fans!

Thank you to the 300+ polka crazy fans who came out on Friday to help us celebrate 10 years of Polkaholism!  I also want to thank WGN for having us on their Morning News Program last Wednesday, CBS News for interviewing Dandy Don and their great news segment than aired on Friday November 8th, WBEZ for playing our music on their radio progam, The Chicago Sun Times and Time Out Magazine, Chicago Magazine, and John Battles for your great art work, as well as Sam Falbo for the kick-ass posters and to ALL of the polka fans that supported Dandy Don and The Polkaholics for the past 10 years!

There are some great photos on Flickr (THANK YOU POLKASCENE ZINE) It truly was a night to remember!

I hope to see all of you at our next show Saturday 12/1 – FitzGerald’s – Opening for BRAVE COMBO!! – 9pm, $15