Talk:Resonator guitar

Assessment

I assessed the articles as having a high priority for Wikiproject Musical Instruments as it has become internationally noteable in North and South America, Australia and parts of Europe. Assessing it as C class; it needs more about its use internationally. Jacqke (talk) 20:23, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Comments

This should IMO be a temporary redirect, in that not all resonator guitars are dobros. But better than nothing for the moment. Andrewa 01:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Now expanded to a stub. Some of the material currently at Dobro and John Dopyera should probably be moved here. Andrewa 12:16, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Now expanded to a full article.

There's a lot of misinformation about! For example, http://memory.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/html/dollyparton/country-glossary.html is headed The Library of Congress (LC) Presents: Music, Theater and Dance and then asserts:

The Dobro (image, left), also known as the resonator guitar, is a precursor to the steel guitar and was developed in the late 1920s. It has one or more resonator discs - usually metal - mounted inside the body and connected to the bridge. It was developed in America by John Dopyera, son of a Czech violin maker, and first manufactured in 1927 by the National String Instrument Corporation. The Dobro was originally developed in response to a growing demand for a guitar that could produce a greater volume of sound than the conventional instrument. The Dobro is played face up with a series of finger picks and a metal bar to fret the strings.

That is to say, all resonator guitars are played in steel guitar fashion according to this glossary. This appears to be a very widely held myth, even believed by some prominent players. They're also wrong about the Dobro coming before the lap steel guitar, which was already highly developed by 1927. Andrewa 23:21, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Four resonators, or five?

An anon with no other contributions changed the maximum number of resonators that Dopyera used in his experiments from four to five. It may be merely a test, but if anyone has further information on the subject, please tell me. Andrewa 20:19, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

In The History & Artistry of National Resonator Instruments, LoCCCN: 92-75864, ISBN: 0-931759-65-X, page 22: "Dopyeta tried using from one to four resonators in his tests, concluding the best combination was three." GuitarTesseract (talk) 06:32, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Resonator players

Perhaps we should clean up this list? Understandably, gentlemen like Son House and Jerry Douglas have a prominent place on the list, but David Gilmore and Eric Clapton? They have at times incorporated resonators into their work, but the vast majority of their output is on Strats and dreadnaught acoustics, which are decidedly different instruments than resonators. I think only those who are known as career resonator players should be on the list. Otherwise, we'll have to include Lenny Kravitz on a list of drummers because although he has played drums on some of his recordings, is known primarily as a guitarist and singer. I'd make the necessary changes, but I'm not familiar enough with many of the people on the list. --buck 16:09, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I think the information that Gilmore and Clapton are competent players and have helped further popularise the instrument is encyclopedic, so we want to be very careful not to lose content here. Perhaps we should divide the list into people mainly notable for their resonator playing, and people mainly known for something else (such as electric guitarists) whose resonator playing is nevertheless notable? I think that's the position with Eric Clapton, many people would never have heard of the resonator guitar except for his use of it. There will be some line calls even then, for example Mark Knopfler.

The other thing is, it would be good to somehow note the style and instruments plated by these people. Some of them I guess played bluegrass on a lap steel Dobro, others bottleneck blues on a tricone. Probably again split the list up, with an others catchall, and allowing some players to be on several lists. Andrewa 00:01, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I find very long lists like this very distarcting in articles. I can't find the refrence at the moment but I think such long lists are discouraged in the wiki style guidelines. Would it be better to make a seperate "list" type article as has been done for other subjects? Better for the article might be a short list of those few players to first bring resonators of different types into the public eye.Darrell Wheeler 08:56, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

In my experience, "list" articles (i.e. List of Stratocaster players) have been controversial. I've largely stayed out of it, but it seems that there is a division between editors that consider lists to be acceptable articles and those that feel the content should be incorporated into the respective articles. Personally, I find the "List of..." articles exceptionally helpful for many reasons--in addition to providing a quick "reference" for their subject matter (though, admittedly, this is not necessarily wikipedia's purpose), such lists prevent excessive "clogging" of articles. That said, I still think this list should be limited to musicians who are primarily known as resonator players (Bukka White, Son House, John P. Hammond) rather than musicians who occasionally incorporate resonators into their work (Keith Richards, Eric Clapton), regardless of how versatile of a guitarist he/she is. Then someone could put together a separate "List of resonator guitar players" article that includes any and all players. But that's just me. Peace. --buck 19:59, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Seriosly, this list is getting too long. It seems, while many of the folks on the list are fine players, it is kind of just providing a forum for people to put in their personal favorites (mine's John Hammond)It's impracticle to have a list of this type here. The article would be better if it was formated more like other musical instrument articles. No one would try to put a list of guitar players in the guitar article I think. Unless there is great objection I propose a seperate list article with a link from this article and maybe just a few of the most historicaly important players with regard to the introduction of resonator guitar to a broader audience(Sol Hoopii, Tampa Red, Son House and Bukka White for example) mentioned here.Darrell Wheeler 02:33, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I've created a seperate list article, List of resonator guitar players, for the reasons stated above. I recognise that some players need to be mentioned in this article but I suggest that it be limited to those very few players who were instrumental in first popularising the resonator guitar. my suggestions would be Sol Hoopii (hawaiian music), Tampa Red (country blues), Oscar Aleman(jazz) and perhaps a few others who were realy among the first popular players of resonator in their respective genres. I will try to add a few but would'nt mind a bit of consensus as to who should be added here. Hopefully folks who want to add their personal favorites to the list will do it in the other article and not in this one.Darrell Wheeler (talk) 13:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Audio examples

The sound of the guitar being difficult to describe, short audio files of its play would be helpful. --69.237.113.185 21:40, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Would directions to recordings fill the same function? e.g. for the sound of a National style 0 listen to the introduction to Romeo and Juliet (song) Marza Tax 06:27, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

@MarzaTax: What Romeo and Juliet song? What's the artist on iTunes or Spotify? WorldQuestioneer (talk) 21:55, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree. References to recording also would be ok, but someoine has to put them in the article. RubenV (talk) 09:00, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Principle and basics?

Can somebody please explain what exactly a resonator is and how it is supposed to work?--Cancun771 20:49, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

A resonator on one of these guitars is usually a thin aluminium cone (similar to the cone on a loudspeaker) to which the vibrations of the strings are transferred mechanically, amplifying the volume and conferring a distinct tone. For example, the bridge of the guitar sits on the thin end of a cone. When the strings are plucked the vibrations of the bridge are transferred to the cone which then produces sound. Marza Tax 05:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

To see what a resonator looks like have a look at this page [1] Marza Tax 06:08, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

If someone could add a diagram showing how it works, that would be very helpful. Rodparkes 06:09, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

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Cites no sources

This page cites absolutely no sources. The same goes for the related page dobro, which I have also tagged. This problem needs to be fixed, and unfortunately, I am not capable of doing so. -- 2ReinreB2 (talk) 04:37, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Great dobro blues players.i

Can’t believe Johnny Winter was left out of great bloes dobro players. His technique, feel, and power are far superior to everyone on that list, not to mention he’s a dual threat being arguably the finest blues singer on the list.2603:8001:7001:4807:9947:651C:F71F:6577 (talk) 21:51, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

The paragraph lists players from the '20s and '30s then skips to blues players currently using a resonator guitar. Sadly, Johnny left us in 2014. He probably did have and play a dobro but I have only ever seen him with a national. In fact I remember seeing a cameo of him in a TV commercial playing a national tri-cone. GuitarTesseract (talk) 22:54, 30 May 2022 (UTC)