The story behind the world`s most frequently copied guitar.

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FEBRUARY 2016 $3.00
The story behind the world’s most frequently copied
guitar.
MARTIN The MosT Copied GuiTar
How a battleship designed to project British Imperial might inspired a
Pennsylvania guitar maker, and why, a century later, his wood and steel
“Dreadnought” ranks as the world’s most copied guitar
F
The Dreadnought has evolved over the past century. The
contemporary D-28, at left, has a 14-fret neck and a solid
peg, unlike the original Ditson model, at right. However, the
basic dimensions, bracing, and body profile remain largely
unchanged.
MUSIC TRADES February 2016
aced with a growing military threat from
Germany at the beginning of the 20th
century, the British scrambled to develop
a new type of warship that would give its
Navy a decisive competitive advantage.
The result was the HMS Dreadnought.
Launched in 1906, the 18,000-ton behemoth was
equipped with the world’s first steam turbines, massive
12" turret-mounted cannons, and was described by
First Sea Lord Jacky Fisher as a “symbol of British Naval
supremacy and the indomitable spirit of the Empire.”
Today, Lord Fisher would no doubt be startled to find
that his massive battleship had all but faded from
memory, and the term Dreadnought had become synonymous with a large-bodied acoustic guitar. In an
equally unexpected historical turn, Dreadnought guitars also figured prominently in 1960s-era anti-war
protests. How a symbol of British military might was
co-opted by the guitar industry is a story of creative
design, good fortune, and 185 years of exceptional craftsmanship.
The large-bodied acoustic guitar that came
to be known as the Dreadnought, was first
developed 100 years ago by the Martin
Guitar Company. In addition to designing
the guitar, Martin also coined the
Dreadnought name, and made the instrument world famous. The Dreadnought was
introduced when the guitar industry was
small, and the thought of trademarking
designs or product names never
occurred to local craftsmen like C.F.
Martin. As a result, over the past five
decades, the design and nomenclature have been adopted by virtually
every other guitar maker in the
world. In acoustic guitar catalogs
from brand A through Z, you can find
faithful “dreadnought” reproductions, making Martin’s original design
the world’s most copied instrument,
with the possible exception of the
Stradivarius violin.
C.F. “Chris” Martin IV, the sixth generation to head his family’s
guitar business, is resigned to the fact that the rest of the
industry has adopted his great-grandfather’s design. “I guess
we’re flattered by all the copies,” he says. “But what really
amuses me is that there are Dreadnought copies at every price
point. You can buy a Dreadnought copy from China for $100,
and you can buy one that costs more than an original Martin.”
MARTIN The MosT Copied GuiTar
What accounts for the success of the
Dreadnought? Martin says, “It’s a combination of
things. Its size has a visual presence. When a performer straps one on it makes real statement.
Tonally, it really projects. And, the sound complements vocals well.” However, the attributes that
make Dreadnoughts of all brands in such demand
were not immediately apparent to the Martin
craftsmen working in Nazareth in 1915.
The first Christian Frederick Martin immigrated
to the U.S. in 1833 to escape an oppressive
German guild system. He had spent two years in
Austria apprenticing with noted guitar maker
Johann Stauffer and planned to practice his new
craft when he returned to his home town of
Markneukirchen, Germany. His plans were
dashed when the local instrument makers’ guild
dubbed him a “furniture maker” and prohibited
him from building guitars or any other musical
instruments. In frustration, he and his family
sailed for New York, where he established a retail
store and guitar workshop in lower Manhattan.
Martin’s initial business was reasonably successful, but having grown up in rural Germany, he and
his family couldn’t adjust to urban living. After a
particularly painful Christmas in their walk-up
apartment, in 1839, he packed up and moved
west to the rolling hills of Nazareth, Pennsylvania.
The company has been there ever since. Although
the current factory bears little outward similarity
to the original workshop, it’s separated by only a
few blocks, and in 183 years Martin has had only
three factories. The first C.F. Martin’s most
notable innovation was the now widely copied Xbracing pattern, first developed in 1843.
Books have been written about C.F. Martin’s
attention to detail, his fixation on quality, and the
company slogan, “Non Multa Sed Multum,” translated from the Latin to mean, “Not Many But
Much,” or colloquially, “not the biggest but the
best.” Less noted is the fact that he was a hardnosed businessman who was very attentive to the
needs of his customers. C.F. Martin passed on his
“serve the market” mantra to subsequent generations. By the early 20th century, his grandson,
Frank Henry Martin, was tailoring private label
models for leading retailers including Wurlitzer,
Southern California Music Company, and the
Ditson company. When Frank Martin received a
letter from Ditson store manager Harry Hunt with
a proposal for six different guitar shapes, including an extra-large model, he was quick to respond.
The recently concluded 1915 Panama-Pacific
Exposition in San Francisco had created a nationwide fascination with all things Hawaiian, and
Hunt wanted to capitalize on the fad with a line of
guitars suitable for Hawaiian music. He spec’ed
out a complete family of guitars that included an
“extra-large bass guitar” model that was bigger
MUSIC TRADES February 2016
Although the Dreadnought remains instantly recognizable, production
methods have evolved dramatically. Instruments are still assembled by
hand at Martin’s Nazareth plant, but some laborious tasks, like buffing, that
were once done by hand (below, circa 1912) have been handed over to
robots.
MARTIN The MosT Copied GuiTar
than anything Martin had ever built before. The “extra-large”
model was designed with a high nut and saddle and a fan bracing pattern, so it could be played in the Hawaiian slack key
style.
Roots In HawaII
Building Hawaiian-style instruments was nothing new for
Martin’s team of German immigrant craftsmen. Six months
before building the first 12-fret Dreadnought, Martin had built
a large-body custom guitar for the renowned Hawaiian musician Major Kealaka’i. This guitar shared many of the dimensions of the Dreadnought and could even be considered its
predecessor. The Major toured the world with his Martin, performing throughout Europe. With the Hawaiian craze in full
swing, Martin also produced thousands of ukuleles. It even
made a special line of koa wood guitars for the Southern
California Music Company. For Ditson’s “extra large” guitar,
Martin slightly modified the body shape of Major Kealaka’i’s
guitar, giving it a thicker waist.
The Ditson family of guitars made their debut in 1917. An avid
history buff who kept a copy of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire at his bedside, Frank Martin gets credit for
selecting the Dreadnought name. According to family lore,
thought the battleship designation conjured images of majestic size and power.
Despite the inspired name, response to
the Ditson line was tepid. By 1921 only
500 Ditson guitars had sold, and just 14 of
the Dreadnought models were built.
Results were sufficiently disappointing
that the following year Ditson shelved its
own product line and went back to selling
regular Martin branded guitars. The
Dreadnought model went out of regular
production, and between 1925 and 1930,
the company built only a handful for special orders.
The first C.F. Martin carried on the
Viennese guitar-building tradition he
learned from Johannes Stauffer and designed his guitars for gut
strings. From 1833 through the mid-1910s, gut strings were
standard on all Martin guitars, including the Ditson models.
Steel strings only began emerging in the teens to accommodate the slide-style playing of Hawaiian music and in response
to musicians who were clamoring for more volume on stage.
Andres Segovia’s historic 1928 U.S. concert tour accelerated
this shift. The virtuoso’s dazzling performances convinced audiences and guitarists that the Spanish style fan-brace pattern
was perhaps better suited for gut strings than the Martin Xbrace pattern. Although Martin had offered steel strings as an
option for several years prior, after the Segovia tour it began
transitioning all its standard instruments to steel strings.
The shift to steel strings coincided perfectly with a cuttingedge new technology: the radio. Affordable radios hit the market around 1925, and within a few years, there were radio stations playing music nationwide. Record companies initially
viewed broadcasters as a mortal threat to their business and
pushed for regulations prohibiting playing records on the air.
This led to live performance broadcasts, and musicians soon
MUSIC TRADES February 2016
The Dreadnought was inspired in part by Major Kealaka’i, the
Hawaiian virtuoso who place a special order for Martin’s first
large-bodied acoustic (inset). Subsequently, it found favor
with Gene Autry (top), the original singing cowboy; with
Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, on the stage at Woodstock;
and with contemporary artists such as the Avett Brothers.
MARTIN The MosT Copied GuiTar
discovered that nothing came across the airwaves better than a steel-string Martin.
PeRfect foR tHe RadIo
Sears Roebuck established the 50,000-watt WLS (for World’s Largest Store) station in Chicago,
and its most popular program was the Saturday night “Barn Dance,” which made Gene Autry a
star. In 1925, one of the WLS producers moved to Nashville and offered up similar programming
under the “Grand Ole Opry” banner. The Opry bills itself as “The Show that Made Country Music
Famous.” It can also take indirect credit for reviving interest in Martin’s Dreadnought. The growing interest in cowboy and country music, fueled by Opry broadcasts, led to demand for a larger,
louder guitar.
Initially the Martin company seemed uninterested in building bigger guitars. In a 1929 letter to
a dealer, Frank Martin said that anything larger than the 000 body style would upset the “tonal
balance” that had been the hallmark of Martin guitars for decades. The company archives contain
numerous other letters from Martin representatives denigrating the Dreadnought because it was
too “bass heavy,” “overpowering,” and “awkward.” By 1931, the company apparently had a
change of heart. Maybe it was because of growing demand. Or maybe it was because business
had gotten so bad during the Depression that the company was desperate for orders. Whatever
the reason, in early 1931, Martin re-introduced the D-1 and D-2, based on the original Ditson
Dreadnought body shape, but with X-bracing and steel strings. By year-end the instruments were
renamed the D-18 and the D-28.
A total of eight Dreadnoughts were sold in the first year. The next year was not much better, with
sales of just nine guitars. Dreadnought demand picked up markedly in 1933 when country star
Gene Autry ordered a custom Dreadnought, decked out with abalone trim and his name boldly
inlaid across the fingerboard. Autry was a top grossing movie and music star at the time, and
images of him with his guitar sparked demand for elaborate, abalone inlaid instruments. Martin
responded by introducing the D-45, its most ornate instrument. By 1941, the last year of production before the outbreak of World War II, Dreadnought sales topped 700 units. Pre-war D-45s are
among the most coveted vintage guitars today, as only 91 were built.
In the years following World War II, as the guitar became the focal point of popular music—first
with the folk music boom in the ’50s, and later with rock ’n’ roll—players gravitated towards the
Martin Dreadnought. They loved the way it complemented vocals, its tonal projection, and the
exceptional Martin build quality. The Woodstock Festival in 1969 effectively cemented the Martin
Dreadnought as the guitar to have. Over three days, performers including Joan Baez, The Band,
Canned Heat, Arlo Guthrie, John Sebastian, and most significantly, Crosby, Stills, and Nash dominated the stage with their Martins. Within a year, Martin annual production topped 20,000 units
for the first time in company history. Other guitar makers took note and soon began producing
copies. First it was U.S. makers such as Harmony and Kay that addressed the entry-level market.
Later, Asian manufacturers flooded the global market with their Dreadnought copies.
tHe Most coPIed GuItaR
Production methods have evolved considerably over a century of Dreadnought production.
Computer-controlled lathes and shaping devices are used throughout the Martin plant to produce
ribs, purfling, and other wood components. Robots are now used to buff guitars, replacing hours
of tedious physical labor. But, the selection of choice woods is still a process that requires a well
trained eye, and guitars are still meticulously assembled by hand. Contrary to purists, Chris Martin
says the introduction of contemporary production methods are in keeping with the Martin tradition. “We adopted steam driven machinery early on, and we have correspondence in the files
with auto makers asking about how we could speed up the finishing process.” He adds, “The
automation we use creates a more consistent product, and a much better working environment.”
For all the changes, however, the Martin dreadnought at 100, remains unmistakable. Current
production is at levels undreamed of only twenty years ago, reflecting a robust worldwide
demand. Apparently, there are guitarists around the world who agree with Stephen Stills, who
says, “Martin guitars are masterpieces of carefully chosen woods and handcrafted elegance…they
give voice to our very souls.” Chris Martin is a bit more prosaic. “They’ve copied our shape, which
is pretty easy, but I haven’t seen any guitar that matches our tone. That belongs to us.”
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MUSIC TRADES February 2016
MARTIN The MosT Copied GuiTar
Two famous
Dreadnoughts: The
British battleship of
the same name in
1906, and the Martin
D-45.
MUSIC TRADES February 2016
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