Waverly dance
Saturday, March 10, 2007
The Fender Telecaster Guitar Story

Popularly known as Tele, this variety of electric guitar is known worldwide for its efficient design and ground breaking sound, which has made it a very popular choice among musicians. The sale of Fender Telecaster can be traced back to the era of 1950 when the single and dual pickup Esquire models were being commercially produced. This is what makes Fender Telecaster one of the world's highest ranking solid body electric guitar.

The first form of Fender Telecaster was known as the Esquire and there were about fifty guitars that were produced originally. In about 1950, Esquire, which was a one-pickup model was replaced with a two-pickup model and was named Broadcaster. There was a legal threat from a company known as Gretsch, which was already producing guitars and drums and said that Broadcaster was violating its trademark Broadkaster, which was the trademark of its drums. Therefore, Fender changed the name from Broadcaster to Telecaster.

The design of Fender Telecaster was very simple and it was made in such a way that servicing the guitar or repairing the broken ones was made very easy. The guitars were produced on a large scale in an assembly line and were not made as an individual piece. The bodies of the guitars were band-sawed and the necks of the guitars were bolt-on because of making the repair and service really easy. There was a removable control plate, which could be removed easily and the electronics could be accessed with great ease. This feature gave it a hook and gained attention of a lot of musicians because in the standard make of guitars one had to take the strings off and then remove the pickguard to get to electronics.

The classic form of Fender Telecaster was a very simple framework, which had a neck and fingerboard including a single piece of maple, which was bolted to an ash or alder body with both sides flat, the front and back. The hardware included the two single coil pickups, which were controlled by a three-way selector switch with volume and tone controls. Earlier, the pickguard was made of bakelite, which was later made with plastic and was fixed on the body with five screws at first but later on with eight screws. The bridge had three saddles, which were adjustable with the strings doubled up on each. This became a thrilling addition in the world if guitars and soon different companies followed its lead.

The modern Telecaster is a lot different from the standard. They have 22 frets rather than 21 and at the headstock is present the truss rod adjustment rather than the body end. It has a six saddle bridge that allows the adjustment for length and height for individual string. It has a plain flat plate and the bridge cover has been discontinued for most models. The wiring of the modern Fender Telecaster is also different from the classic one, which is a 3-way toggle switch, which selects neck pickup in the first position, neck and bridge pickups together in the second position and in the third position is the bridge pickup. The volume control for all pickups is in the first knob and the second knob controls the tone for all pickups. The Fender Telecaster is made up of a solid body, which allows it to give a clean and crisp sound quality, which resulted in other leading companies to follow the trend.

With this magnificent equipment a lot of new genres have evolved such as country, electric blues, rock and roll and it is because of its solid construction that lets the guitar to be played as a lead instrument with a long sustain as an awesome effect. One of the musicians that have made Telecaster their signature include Elvis Presley, Merle Haggard, Danny Gatton, Roy Buchanan, Albert Collins who played the blues with the Telecaster, Muddy Waters as well as a long list of musicians who when played the guitar just touched the hearts of millions.

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