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Thread: What if Gibson had not existed?

  1. #26

    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Before Loar came up with the idea, Shutt had already built mandolins with ff holes and an elevated fingerboard. The evolution would have happened in a different way, but it would have happened.
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  3. #27
    Registered User Ivan Kelsall's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    ''Gibson'' is simply a 'brand'. As we know,there were other mandolin makers around,so maybe their models of mandolin might have ended up in the hands of Bill Monroe,or maybe he'd have taken up playing the Trumpet !. We simply don't know,& while understanding David's speculative question,Gibson do exist,& we can't go back on the past.

    We can speculate all we want, but that's all it'll ever be - speculation,& ultimately,it's futile (IMHO),
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  5. #28
    NY Naturalist BradKlein's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Or are the A-5 and L-5 - like the paper clip, or the violin, or the violin bow - inevitable designs based on their near perfection?

    Much of the variation on classic designs are struggles to differ from the classic. Not efforts to get closer. Novel headstocks, et c. Just as in electric guitars, the few really satisfactory designs were worked out by the first generation, and almost all that's come after is superficial tinkering in search of an identity or some subtle distinguishing aspect.

    The L&H carved mandolins, for example, are essentially the same design as the oval hole A Gibsons - I suppose they were based on the existing Gibson designs - with cosmetic differences (headstock shape, the two point body option, tailpiece cover) added to give them some distinguishing identity. They or someone, would have eventually come up with ff-holes, tone bars, elevated fretboard (all features that originated outside of Gibson anyway!).

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    Nah.

    The perception of their "perfection" is an after the fact illusion, based on the comparison not being a linear bar graph of alternatives, but instead the concentric circles of a target, with these Gibson designs at the center. They cannot be improved upon because they are perceived as the goal.

    It is like taking the Gettysburg Address as the model to which all speeches should aspire, and then commenting later, as if it hadn't become the model, on how perfect it is and how it is unlikely to be improved upon.
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  7. #29

    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Quote Originally Posted by fscotte View Post
    Who cares about Gibson.

    What if Shatner mandolins never existed..
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  9. #30
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Well since nobody wouldn't know about it, it wouldn't be missed and someone would've came up with something great that evolved from bowl backs/flat backs etc. Eventually. Gibson really did shape a whole eclectic range of musical styles with their instruments. Someone would've filled the niche.

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  11. #31
    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Let's send Will Smith back in time and make the correction to find out.
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  12. #32
    Registered User Timbofood's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    I probably would not have gotten hooked on this site and might have followed a different path to a better job and not be unemployed.
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  14. #33
    Registered User DavidKOS's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Quote Originally Posted by Don Grieser View Post
    Before Loar came up with the idea, Shutt had already built mandolins with ff holes and an elevated fingerboard. The evolution would have happened in a different way, but it would have happened.
    Like these?


  15. #34
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    I can see carved A style mandolins with O or F holes being invented and becoming standard. I don't know about the scroll. That scroll took Orville, a unique combination of artistic and acoustical genius, funding and popularity to become a standard.

    Edit: ... And we'd all have strap buttons installed on our neck heels.
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  17. #35
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    If Gibson hadn't come along, I suspect that bowlbacks would not have gone out of favor. Someone might have championed a flat back mandolin, with or without arch tops, but who knows.

    To my mind Bill Monroe had at least as significant an historical impact on the modern mandolin as Gibson. I am very sure that if Bill Monroe had picked up a bowlback, we would all be chasing that design and that sound, and whether Gibson existed or not.
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  19. #36
    NY Naturalist BradKlein's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Nope. That mandolin has an unbraced pressed top and back.

    Quote Originally Posted by DavidKOS View Post
    Like these?

    The real innovations were in the models produced by and/or for Albert Shutt, like the black-top one pictured here. Carved top and back, elevated fretboard, and what we now call parallel tone bar bracing. However both instruments lack the 'modern' internal head block that Gibson adopted on the post Orville instruments. Rather, they use the 'through' head block design best known from Vega's mandolin family instruments including their cylinder-backs.

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  21. #37
    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    1. Concur that someone would have built a carved-top-and-back, f-hole, raised-fingerboard, mandolin, based on the violin template. Would it have become popular without Gibson's extensive marketing? Would that "violin-esque" construction have been extended to guitars as well? Remember, the carved-top, f-hole "jazz guitar' is as important a musical innovation as the carved-top mandolin. Let's assume that Lloyd Loar would have gone to work for Martin, Lyon & Healy, Weymann, somebody, and his ideas would have entered the marketplace somewhere. But Gibson was a "big dog" in instrument production, and Loar's ideas got widely distributed -- maybe not so much by another company.

    2. No scroll and points; that was Orville G's idea, not patterned on any other instrument of the period. We might have two-points, or the Regal reverse scroll, or the "shoulders" of some of the Vega an Shutt instruments, but no F-models. Bill Monroe would have to hook his strap elsewhere.

    3. A facet of Gibson's influence not often mentioned, was the company's marketing, setting up mandolin orchestras furnished with Gibson instruments by working with local music stores and teachers. I'm not aware that other manufacturers adopted that strategy, and it sure succeeded in sending Gibson instruments far and wide in the US. Not all of Gibson's status was based on the design of their instruments; quite a bit came from the way they were sold.

    4. On the other hand, we might have been spared some of the dumb decisions Gibson's made over the years: their Kasha-braced guitars, the plastic guitar bridge bolted to the top, the lump-scroll mandolins, the pot-metal banjo parts that cracked and broke, the SG-bodied Les Pauls, and the heavy-handed control of Gibson dealers that made it harder and harder to get their best acoustic instruments. The destruction of Dobro has been mentioned by foldedpath above, and we're lucky that a few small builders have kept spider-bridge resonators alive, with high-end US production plus Asian licensing.

    A world without Gibson? You could have a world without Ford, or General Electric -- Standard Oil, US Steel, Nabisco or even Apple. Some developments and changes seem inevitable, some are very much artifacts of particular personalities, whether individual or corporate. Gibson has frustrated the crap out of many of us, even as we enjoy their past (and current) products. It is what it is, but we shouldn't confuse the history, popularity and status of a single company, no matter how influential, with the history, popularity and status of the mandolin. Mandolin's bigger than Gibson, thankfully.
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  23. #38
    Registered User Timbofood's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Without Nabisco!!!!?????
    The milk industry would collapse, dental science wouldn’t have advanced, teachers would not have the disciplinary problems due to sugar consumption the HORROR!
    Yeah, I know...
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  25. #39
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Quote Originally Posted by BradKlein View Post
    Or are the A-5 and L-5 - like the paper clip, or the violin, or the violin bow - inevitable designs based on their near perfection?
    Who says the paper clip is inevitable or near perfect. I think it just stopped developing when staples came around.

    The violin's design, I believe, is an even stronger example of confusing the model with the particular example. Especially when it comes to the Stradivarius sound. While it is distinct, and discernible, and among the best, the cult of the Strad has established the concentric circles of the a target, where no violin can ever exceed it. I believe the luthiers of today can make violins every bit as good as a Strad, and maybe even better, that will never be recognized as such, as long as the Strad is the goal, and not just an example.

    In our world, its the same with the 1923 signed Loar Gibson F5. I think more than a few mandolins made today are as good, or possibly even better, and certainly more repeatably made, but will not be acknowledged as such by the way the sycophants of the Loar conceive of the universe. For clarification, I am not saying they aren't great. Gigantically great. But of course they can be improved on, in theory if not in fact all ready. But you have to define what improved means, and if it means more Loar like, then we have a philosophy problem, not a luthiery problem.
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  27. #40

    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Arch top F hole instruments came into being for projection, both guitars and mandolins. Those were invented in the day before electric amplification was used. I doubt the bowl back would have filled that niche of being heard over banjos, fiddles and basses. Just like the archtop guitar was made to be heard somewhat among horns, woodwinds, drums, bass and piano. A lot of ingenuity was applied in those days to solve it. Resonator instruments, banjos, Selmer Macaferris, etc. were all ways of trying to solve that problem. Either someone else would probably have come up with the archtop F hole design or Loar would have found another manufacturer.

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  29. #41
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    I’m not sure I would buy a “Shatner.” However, I would buy a mandolin called “The Captain.”

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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Mandolin's bigger than Gibson, thankfully.
    Mandolin is bigger than Gibson today. But isn't that all due to Gibson. 99% of all mandolins discussed here on the cafe are mandolins that share considerable if not complete Gibson design DNA. Nothing else from that era, that I've seen, suggest that mandolin was heading towards some foregone conclusion and design that would capture the imagination of mandolin players worldwide. Take away Gibson and Bill Monroe and mandolin would still be thought of as a taterbug oddity. imo

    The world needed a car and a computer. The world didn't need an F5. That was a gift from Gibson. Sometimes lighting strikes just once.

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  32. #43
    Registered User DavidKOS's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Wilson View Post
    Take away Gibson and Bill Monroe and mandolin would still be thought of as a taterbug oddity. imo
    How do you say "taterbug" in Sicilian dialect?

    Just a note - some bowl and flat mandolins I've played (and owned) are LOUD. Loud enough to be heard over an accordion or two.

  33. #44
    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Someone out of six billion people would have put the known violin scroll someplace else on the instrument *. Ideas are just possibilities out there, they're not a product tied to one brain.

    If Shakespeare hadn't written Hamlet **, one of those infinite number of monkeys with typewriters would have taken care of it.

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  34. #45
    Registered User jim simpson's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Oh Shutt up!
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  36. #46
    NY Naturalist BradKlein's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Nice illustration, Jim. I understand that everyone's having fun here, but I do want to make a point.

    Bill Monroe would never have been satisfied with the two shouldered Harmony built, Shutt designed mandolin pictured in the illustration. They are very cool instruments, and I've owned and played quite a few good ones. But they're lightly built with a pressed unbraced top that won't handle heavy strings. No adjustable bridge. No reinforcement in the long neck. Materials not up to Gibson level (remember they sold for a fraction of the price of an A-4 or F-5)

    He'd have beat the thing to pieces, and gone back to an A style instrument. Or he'd have brought the remains of his Harmony built Shutt to a luthier, who might have figured out how to make it much closer to an F-5 - truss rod, tone bars, internal head block, carved plates with recurve, adjustable bridge - keep the long neck, keep the ff-holes, keep the elevated fretboard.
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    Unfamous String Buster Beanzy's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Nah, we all know what Gibson saved us from......

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  39. #48

    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Things would be different.

    Im thinking, and not too deeply, that like dna and evolution, there have been homonid branches that were close, but did not survive.

    Only retrospectively, but, particularly F5s, les pauls, d28s, and strats, teles, fender basses, have all been adopted by use by a few iconic , successes, musically. Likely, because they wre available, or rather, accesible, offered some functionality that was unique and needed, higher fret access, cut, greater volume, anti feedback properties, transport, etc.

    I think most of us then follow these players that find that new functionality. Charlie Christian and an electric guitar to be heard over a big band, a 14 fret guitar in order to play more jazz banjo like solos and higher range parts.


    So i too think we would have muddled by.
    But, the point of gibson nuturing mandolin bands may indeed be huge, as planting a seed in musical culture that went from a very popular trend to almost dead, but for hillbillies being so un- hip, and barefooted......and, finding their way into radio......


    Jimi hendrix mighta used a melotron or moog equipped bagpipe.....
    Something would have found use among creative and talented musicians.

    It seems likely to me, that eventually guitar and violin designs , if only for ergonomics, would have replaced those awkward bowl backs. It happened with lutes....

    Musicians are so traditional that, imho, many new innovtions fail simply because they are rejected BECAUSE they are not familiar, not because they arent improvements.

    There might be a better Loar design. It wouldnt be a Loar, but it might be a better mandolin. Doooooooooooooooood!!!!Lol

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  41. #49

    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    What if they never existed? Well, soon we will find out what happens if they stop existing.
    http://www.daytondailynews.com/busin...4O9RXfuraMQeJ/

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  43. #50

    Default Re: What if Gibson had not existed?

    Quote Originally Posted by allenhopkins View Post
    ... A facet of Gibson's influence not often mentioned, was the company's marketing, setting up mandolin orchestras furnished with Gibson instruments by working with local music stores and teachers. I'm not aware that other manufacturers adopted that strategy, and it sure succeeded in sending Gibson instruments far and wide in the US. Not all of Gibson's status was based on the design of their instruments; quite a bit came from the way they were sold.
    That's a good point. Without all the mandolin orchestras that Gibson started, would mandolins have ever really have caught on very much in the U.S., sufficient to justify the manufacture of zillions of mandolins by Gibson and other manufacturers...

    Also, I was thinking I read in some old ad eons ago, that Gibson sold instruments to its mandolin orchestra members via the installment plan (monthly payments). Thus making it easier for more people to acquire and play a mandolin, instead of having to save up and buy one outright. Correct me if I'm wrong there.

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