What is "plectrum guitar" really?

[Vitellozzo]

I am a bit confused when people speak of "plectrum guitar".

My initial thought that "plectrum guitar" was a term invented about the 1920s for a 4 string guitar, a bit like a tenor guitar, but with a longer neck and tuned in Chicago style. In other words a standard guitar but with only 4 strings.

But in the here frequently cited and covered "Masters of the Plectrum Guitar", I see a 6 string archtop on the cover and score for a standard guitar.

I also see " © 1936" at the bottom of the page, so I wonder if the terminology changed from the 1920s to the 1930s. (I wasn't around so bear with me)

[AllanAllen]

It’s a highfalutin way of saying you play with a pick.

[John A.]

I am a bit confused when people speak of "plectrum guitar".

My initial thought that "plectrum guitar" was a term invented about the 1920s for a 4 string guitar, a bit like a tenor guitar, but with a longer neck and tuned in Chicago style. In other words a standard guitar but with only 4 strings.

But in the here frequently cited and covered "Masters of the Plectrum Guitar", I see a 6 string archtop on the cover and score for a standard guitar.

I also see " © 1936" at the bottom of the page, so I wonder if the terminology changed from the 1920s to the 1930s. (I wasn't around so bear with me)

"Plectrum" means "thing you strike or pluck with" in Latin. "Plectrum guitar" can mean either that type of 4-string guitar, or it can mean playing a regular guitar with a flat pick as opposed to fingers. Most of the time, it means the latter since "plectrum guitars" are extremely uncommon (even more so than tenor guitars). I think (not 100% sure) that "plectrum" is the older term (applied to older instruments than the guitar), which I think would explain why it was used on older method books.

[Rob MacKillop]

Plectrum is a noun, pick is a verb that Americans have mistaken for a noun I'll see myself out...

[mr. beaumont]

A "plectrum guitar" is a thing, I suppose. Maybe better called a tenor...banjos, you have both, and they're different.

But "plectrum guitar" is also a style of music...basically worked out pieces for steel string guitar, played with a pick...er...plectrum. Kind of a bridge between jazz and classical, really.

[kris]

look at this;

[AllanAllen]

Such a wonderful album

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

I don't really know but have an impression of it. I'm sure I'm off base, but here goes anyway:

• Mid-century style,
• I agree that it sits between jazz and classical, or popular/folk/classical/jazz,
• Advanced harmonies, but not really jazz style,
• Players were technically strong,
• The style was not very gritty, bluesy, or sexy,
• The general air was kind of... square (lol),
• More Caucasion than African American

[TheGrandWazoo]

I believe it was used by some music publishers and marketing people in the 20s/30s as a way to differentiate (what we now call) "classical" guitar from steel string guitars and guitar players. The 30s saw improvements in guitar making and the invention of electric guitar which allowed guitars to move from purely rhythm roles to being able to play lines while competing with horns and fiddles.

[Litterick]

A classical guitar with a body strengthened for steel strings:

Beginners should leave the flamenco guitar to more experienced players, and only consider getting a folk or plectrum guitar because a pick, or plectrum, is employed to pluck the steel strings—if their sights are set exclusively on pop or folk music.

Looking and Listening: Let your child play the guitar, by Roland Gelatt.
House & Garden 1969-06: Vol 135 Iss 6, p42.

The plectrum guitar, like jazz, is a product of this century, and the electric guitar is so recent an innovation that we're only beginning to recognize its possibilities as a legitimate instrument. The early guitar players combined elements of the classic style with banjo or mandolin picking techniques to form a sort of guitar method.

Joe Pass, introduction to Joe Pass Guitar Style, by Joe Pass, Bill Thrasher, Alfred Music Publishing Company, Inc 1985

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

Hmmm.

Well, instrument wise, is a "plectrum guitar" necessarily an archtop guitar, or can it be an acoustic cowboy guitar or even a Les Paul? (i.e. as long as the intended/typical technique involves a pick).

At this point in history, I automatically think of a big archtop when I hear "plectrum guitar".

[Peter C]

"Plectrum" means "thing you strike or pluck with" in Latin. "Plectrum guitar" can mean either that type of 4-string guitar, or it can mean playing a regular guitar with a flat pick as opposed to fingers. Most of the time, it means the latter since "plectrum guitars" are extremely uncommon (even more so than tenor guitars). I think (not 100% sure) that "plectrum" is the older term (applied to older instruments than the guitar), which I think would explain why it was used on older method books.

This seems right.

Back in the day in England, Hendrix "plucked his strings with a plectrum". A pick I think, generally referred to the thumb type. Nobody was using those.

"Flat pick" = plectrum.

[RLetson]

When I started buying guitar instruction books in the 1950s, the title would often include "Spanish" or "plectrum." The former was to distinguish the kind of guitar from its Hawaiian (that is, lap or pedal steel) cousin. The latter was to distinguish the playing technique from classical technique (and the kind of guitar used for it). If I ran across a four-string guitar back then, it was almost inevitably a tenor, and probably a Martin, like the one Nick Reynolds played in the Kingston Trio.

"Plectrum" did get applied to a kind of guitar in the 20s and 30s, echoing the terminology of the banjo realm, where the plectrum and tenor are distinguished by scale length. Here's a George Gruhn explainer:

Martin OM-18P Plectrum Guitar | Vintage Guitar(R) magazine

And a really interesting example--a 1950s Hofner:

Hofner 463 Plectrum Guitar

[Dave70]

Man that Billy Bauer album is tasty. I've never listened to that one before, thanks to kris for posting it here!

I googled him and found this website: http://www.billybauersmusic.com/index.htm

[Vitellozzo]

Thanks for all the answers. If I have to summarise all of them, I'd say "any early acoustic guitar that wasn't a classical guitar". Would that be correct?

Funny thing is, when I started playing guitar (It was actually a classical guitar incorrectly strung with metal strings) in Italy circa 1979, I followed a "Chitarra a plettro" class. I knew what a "plettro" was but I still asked the teacher what that meant, and he said "It's just American guitar". So I said, wow, I'm in.

[st.bede]

Plectrum is a noun, pick is a verb that Americans have mistaken for a noun I'll see myself out...

OMG, you are so right… I myself think we should rejoin the mother country for the primary education and health care, but I am in a very small minority of thought. There are many days were I wonder, why such a literate country can make such strange decisions… then I remember I am American and well you know…

[SandChannel]

OMG, you are so right… I myself think we should rejoin the mother country for the primary education and health care, but I am in a very small minority of thought. There are many days were I wonder, why such a literate country can make such strange decisions… then I remember I am American and well you know…

Yeah, nah.

[StringNavigator]

plectrum | Etymology, origin and meaning of plectrum by etymonline

• plectrum (n.)

• small instrument used to pluck the strings of a lyre or other stringed musical instrument, late 14c., from Latin plectrum (plural plectra), from Greek pl?ktron "thing to strike with" (pick for a lyre, cock's spur, spear point, etc.), from pl?k-, root of pl?ssein "to strike" (from PIE root *plak- (2) "to strike").

Entries linking to plectrum
*plak- (2)
*pl?k-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to strike."
It forms all or part of: apoplexy; cataplexy; complain; fling; paraplegia; plaint; plangent; plankton; planxty; plague; plectrum; quadriplegia.
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Greek plazein "to drive away," pl?ssein "to beat, strike;" Latin plangere "to strike, lament;" Old English flocan "to strike, beat;" Gothic flokan "to bewail;" German fluchen, Old Frisian floka "to curse."

(Goes to show... No one can swear like a Dutchman!)

In 1896, a Cincinnati man (Frederick Wahl) affixed two rubber disks to either side of a mandolin pick, which made it the first popular solution to the problem.


The modern guitar pick traces its roots to the D'Andrea company, which introduced picks made from celluloid—an early thermoplastic—in early 1922.

In a harpsichord, there is a separate plectrum for each string.

[Litterick]

5-string plectrum guitar and custom banjos. Write for our new catalogue. Ode Co., 1575 Mariposa, Boulder, Colorado.
Sing Out, Summer 1961: Vol 11 Issue 3, p60.


Wanted: High Grade four string long neck plectrum guitar having long neck banjo tuning. H.P. Ware, 605 N. Ervay St. Dallas, Texas.
Down Beat, 8th April 1949: Vol 16 Issue 6, p19

'My instrument is a plectrum guitar (means you pick it), a long-necked item with a big box and four strings, tuned like an old five-string banjo without the fifth peg.'

Eddie Condon
What Jazz Means to Me
American Mercury
February 1952: Vol 74 Issue 338, p69






Down Beat 4th May 1951: Vol 18 Issue 9, p4

[StringNavigator]

OMG, you are so right… I myself think we should rejoin the mother country for the primary education and health care, but I am in a very small minority of thought. There are many days were I wonder, why such a literate country can make such strange decisions… then I remember I am American and well you know…

No need to worry about it, much. The West Side Story is done. We're into the Epilogue.
There's no more money... NaDa...!
(Luckily I'm 70. I won't be around for the weeping and gnashing of teeth. That's your chapter.)
Time enough for me to play a few tunes and that's it!

::

[Doctor Jeff]

Unless I'm mistaken, it seems there are 2 ways to define "plectrum" guitar:

--An early small-bodied, long-scale, 4-stringed guitar designed to allow banjo players to adapt to a different instrument, often tuned to banjo tuning. Made in 20's-30's. (Tenor guitars were based on the smaller tenor banjo and were shorter scale.)

Or

--Any guitar played with a pick as opposed to fingerpicked; generic term for steel string guitar played with a pick.

So the name of a specific kind of guitar came to mean a generic type of guitar.

Synecdoche--use of a part of something to mean a whole. Happens a lot with instruments, especially guitars--steel guitar, slide guitar, Hawaiian guitar, etc.--sometimes not even a certain instrument, just a way of playing.

[Litterick]

The meaning seemed to have slipped or spread from the specific guitar that Eddie Condon played to anything played with a plectrum on metal strings. In 1979, Robert Fripp told the Boston Phoenix:

There are, I think three different approaches to the guitar, or there are three kinds of electric guitar. And the difficulty in working, and the difficulty in tceaching guitar, is that the three categories are not generally recognized. The first kind of electric guitar is simply the plectrum guitar amplified, something like the Barney Kessel approach. Next category of electric guitar is where the electric guitar is given a validity all of its own, and could be used with accessories such as Hendrix used — wah-wah, fuzz, feedback with the amplifier and so on. And the third category is where the guitar is just used as a keyboard for the synthesizer.

[pauln]

The plectrum guitar, like jazz, is a product of this century, and is so recent an innovation that we're only beginning to recognize its possibilities as a legitimate instrument. The early guitar players combined elements of the classic style with banjo or mandolin picking techniques to form a sort of guitar method.

Joe Pass, introduction to Joe Pass Guitar Style, by Joe Pass, Bill Thrasher, Alfred Music Publishing Company, Inc 1985

So let's see now, as late as 1985 they were only beginning to recognize the electric guitar's possibilities as
a legitimate instrument? I recognized the electric guitar as a legitimate instrument in the 1950s as a child!

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

So let's see now, as late as 1985 they were only beginning to recognize the electric guitar's possibilities as
a legitimate instrument? I recognized the electric guitar as a legitimate instrument in the 1950s as a child!

Yep, and Benny Goodman recognized it about a decade prior to that.

[Litterick]

They? That is Joe Pass.