George Breed and his Electrified Guitar of 1890

The electrification of musical instruments is almost certainly the most important organological innovation of the last 100 years. In 1890, a United States Naval Officer named George Breed patented a design for an electrified guitar which, 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. Like the modern electric guitar, Breed’s patent was based on a vibrating string in an electro-magnetic field. However, Breed’s design worked on very different electrical and musical principles, resulting in a guitar with an exceptionally unusual sound and unconventional playing technique. As an instrument maker/designer, Breed is now almost completely unknown, and until now the significance of this instrument has remained unappreciated, and the circuitry involved unexamined.  This paper will outline what is known of Breed’s career, examine his 1890 patent, look at the issues and idiosyncrasies of Breed’s design and explore possible reasons why it was never brought to market.

George Breed's patents state no personal details other than his name and the fact that he was in the United States Navy in 1890 and resident in Philadelphia in 1896. However, some information on Breed's life can be found in his naval records.  In the 19th century, the Navy did not keep personnel files on naval officers but rather published a series of volumes called "Records of Officers" that gave brief summaries of service for naval officers. Breed is mentioned in these as well as being listed in the General Navy Register. These records show that Breed was originally from Kentucky and that he started his Navy career as a Cadet Midshipman at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland on the 17th of June 1882.

The 1880s were a time of change at the Academy. The incoming class of 1882 was the first to officially designate its student officers as naval cadets. Also, starting in this year, a distinction was no longer made between cadet engineers and naval cadets, all cadets now receiving fully comprehensive training in both seamanship and engineering.

As will be seen, Breed needed a working knowledge of both electricity and metallurgy to create his musical instrument design. Where then, might have Breed got his knowledge? It is known that the study of electricity and metallurgy at the Academy was begun in 1887, a year after Breed graduated. It is not too much of a speculation to surmise that cadets were exposed to these topics in some way before then. It is noteworthy that Breed's first assignment after graduation was to be sent to the Navy Yard in Washington, DC, for ordnance instruction. The Navy's Bureau of Ordnance was also responsible for the Navy’s research laboratories which conducted electrical as well as weapons research. It is not unreasonable to suppose that Breed might have received electrical training here as well. Breed’s next assignment offers a further clue to the gestation of his design. On October 12, 1888, he was sent to the West Point foundry in Cold Springs, New York on a temporary inspection duty, where he remained until January 4^th of the following year.

The West Point Foundry specialised in the making of large scale weaponry and armaments for the US Military. Here Breed almost certainly would have had access to the expertise and materials for creating the large electromagnet used in his instrument’s design.  After his tour of duty at West Point, Breed was then attached to cruiser USS Baltimore.

Within four weeks of joining the crew of the Baltimore, Breed had filed his patent application. Six months later, on July 5, 1890, George Breed resigned from the Navy, which became effective on January the 7^th 1891, with leave given until that date. On September 2^nd, 1890 George Breed was granted US Patent no 435679 for his “Method of and Apparatus for Producing Musical Sounds by Electricity”, just less than two months after his effective resignation from the Navy. It’s not known if these two events are related, but it is tempting to speculate that the reason George Breed left the Navy was to make and market his musical instrument designs. It is known that Breed continued to develop designs for musical instruments: Six years after his first patent, Breed patented another electromagnetic musical instrument design (US patent no. 560679) for a stringed keyboard instrument.  While it is unknown what Breed’s actual activities were in regards to musical instrument manufacture, it can be stated with some certainty that they were not successful, for by 1898 Breed was back in the Navy, now as a Lieutenant (junior grade). Breed’s second stint in the Navy, which coincided with the Spanish-American War, appears not to have been particularly successful either. After a short tour of duty as a watch and division officer on the USS Minneapolis,

Breed was transferred to the much less prestigious USS Sterling, a coal supply ship, where he narrowly avoided a court martial in January of 1889 by being absent without leave. Breed resigned from the Navy for the second time very soon after and there ends the known documentation of George Breed’s life. In addition to his Navy records, it may also be possible that aspects of Breed’s background can be gleaned from information in the patent documents. The fact that in the patent, he calls the body of a guitar the ‘head’ and the neck of the guitar the ‘stem’ suggests he was probably not a trained luthier. However, banjo players sometimes call the body of their instrument the ‘head’, and it is possible that this simply reflects Breed’s Kentucky origins.  

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 13^th fret rather than the 12^th 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. 

Copyright Matthew Hill 2008

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