Fender Telecaster Guitar

By: Gareth Owen

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.

About the author:
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