Misplaced Pages

This is the current revision of this page, as edited by TenPoundHammer (talk | contribs) at 19:53, 2 January 2025 (Added {{Notability}} tag). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this version.

The topic of this article may not meet Misplaced Pages's notability guideline for music. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. Find sources: "Gittler guitar" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

A Gittler Guitar is an experimental designed guitar created by Allan Gittler (1928–2002). Gittler felt that sentimental design references to acoustic guitars are unnecessary in an electronically amplified guitar, and designed his instrument with the objective of reducing the electric guitar to the most minimal functional form possible.

History

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

He made 60 guitars in New York in the mid-1970s to early 1980s (selling one to Andy Summers, which he plays in The Police's "Synchronicity II" video). In 1982, Gittler emigrated to Israel, settled in Hebron, changed his name to Avraham Bar Rashi, and licensed the design to a local company in Kiryat Bialik called Astron Engineer Enterprises LTD. They computer-machined around 300, Bar Rashi commented later to the effect that he was unhappy with the manufacturing. Astron, however, claims that their instruments are precisely manufactured copies of the original construction, and that the addition of a plastic body containing electronics for simplified handling, while arguably compromising the minimalism of the original idea, had no influence on the sound or the style of playing.

The first 60 are sometimes described as the Fishbone Gittler guitar. Three Gittler basses also exist, made in New York and numbered 1, 2, and 3.

During this period, he also made a portable, battery-powered amplifier, cylindrical in shape, with a long handle that allowed it to be rolled around like a grass-seed-roller. Rolling was necessary to transport it through the street, since it was quite heavy due to the large number of D batteries that powered it. He frequently used this set-up to play his guitar in a street adjoining Astor Place in lower Manhattan, where the reverberation from the surrounding buildings amplified the sound.

The Gittler guitar has six strings. Each string has its own pickup. Later versions have a plastic body. The steel frets, consisting of stainless steel bars pressure fitted into the stainless steel neck, give the instrument a sitar-like feel, as it is possible to bend the strings downward past where a wooden fretboard would prohibit the movement in a conventional guitar. However, this, depending on the thickness of the player's fingers, is not achievable on a few upper frets, from about 25 to 31. The six individual pickups can be routed to divided outputs via D-sub-9-pin. or be mixed to a 1/4" TS connector. The built in pre-amps are powered by a 9 V battery or via D-sub connector. The New York version came without a pre-amp section; the individual pickups' signals were led into single cables, which could then be plugged into a mixing box or each separately amplified.

The Museum of Modern Art, MOMA has one instrument in its collection, as does the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (which also has a later Bar Rashi wooden electric guitar). Gittler guitars can also be seen in several other museums and collections.

The only left-handed Gittler guitar known to exist was made by Bar Rashi himself in 1995 or 1996. It is a signed minimalist instrument, identical to the one he played in the later period of his life and made to order for a client in Jerusalem. There are only 12 separate parts in total and the frets are one long thread of nylon. This creates a unique sound.

Current production

After Bar Rashi's passing in 2003, his eldest son, Yonatan, became a partner in Gittler Instruments LLC. The company has returned to manufacturing the Gittler guitar and presently sells the instruments online. Gittler Instruments president Russ Rubman has extended the company's line to include upright basses and violins designed with the same principles of the original Gittler Guitar.

References

1. US Social Security Death Index: Avraham Bar-Rashi. Family Search. Retrieved 14 December 2014.
2. Gittler Instruments profile on Electric Herald
3. Gittler Instruments official press release - Dec 7, 2015.

External links

• Official website
• Site entirely dedicated Gittler guitars and their customization and repair
• MoMA, The Collection: Allan Gittler. Electric Guitar. 1975

• Experimental electric guitars
• Experimental string instruments