Solid Body Electric Guitars

A solid body electric guitar is an electric guitar that, as the name suggests, is made of one or more solid pieces of wood. The name solid-body is a way to differentiate between semi-hollow and hollow-bodied guitars.

However, some solid body electric guitars are chambered (meaning some wood has been routed out of the body but covered with a solid top for weight relief) are generally still considered solid body electric guitars.

Though it’s most commonly stated that Les Paul invented the solid body electric guitar, there are doubts to those claims. In 1931, the Rickenbacker company released a solid body electric Spanish guitar, which would make it the first solid body electric guitar, and in 1940 it’s reported that Jamaican inventor and musician Hedley Jones made a solid body electric guitar.

Les Paul did create his own solid body electric guitar, which he called the “Log” and tried unsuccessfully to sell the design to companies. The first commercially-marketed solid body electric guitar is considered to be the Fender Telecaster, which was released in 1950.

Though weights for instruments vary, even among the same models, there are a few things to consider when looking for a lightweight guitar. First, you might want to look for any models that are “chambered” specifically for weight reduction. You also might look into guitars that were designed to be more ergonomic, like the Music Man St. Vincent model or some of Fender’s short scale instruments.

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