When you hear the word “guitar,” what image comes into your mind?
If you are thinking about an electric guitar, it’s likely you have an image of a Stratocaster in your mind’s eye. But if you thought about an acoustic guitar, you almost certainly imagined a dreadnaught.
Dreadnaughts are by far the most common size of guitar today. They feature a bigger body — bigger than all of the various acoustic sizes except jumbo — that offers an equally big sound. Dreadnaught guitars are usually louder and deeper in tone than 000, folk, or parlor body styles, and the large-bodied guitar has found a home across rock, country, and bluegrass genres.
But this wasn’t always the case. The guitar itself has a long and storied history, but the dreadnaught didn’t come about until the early 1900s.
C.F. Martin’s first dreadnaught
The man who is responsible for creating the dreadnaught is none other than C.F. Martin, founder of the company that bears his name. He envisioned a bigger, louder guitar and took inspiration for the name from the HMS Dreadnaught, a new British warship at the time. The Dreadnaught actually lent its name not just to the guitar but to the entire class of battleships of which it was a part.
The first dreadnaught guitar was released in 1916, but interestingly, it didn’t bear the Martin name. Rather, Martin built the guitars for the Oliver Ditson Company. The Ditson line of guitars sold dismally, however, and was eventually discontinued. Players were used to smaller guitar bodies and saw no reason to switch. To make matters worse, the Ditson company itself fell on hard times and was out of business by 1920.
If at first you don’t succeed, call the marketing department
Martin may have failed in his first attempt, but he felt the dreadnaught was still a solid concept. After improving the design, he released the first large-body guitars under his own name: the D-1 (later renamed the D-18) and the D-2 (later dubbed the D-28).
Even this second round of dreadnoughts did not initially fly off the shelves, so the Martin company had to resort to drastic measures: they called the marketing department.
The 1935 Martin catalogue attempted to shine the new guitars in a more positive light. They focused on the benefits of the bassy, deep tone and the features of the guitar that made it an ideal choice for playing with a plectrum (aka guitar pick).
The strategy paid off. Soon afterward, sales of the (now) D-28 took off, and Martin never looked back. The dreadnaught guitar, and the D-28 in particular, became the standard acoustic guitar for players all over the country. Demand was so great that during the 1950s, there was a two-year wait list for a new instrument.
From dismal sales to industry standard
The dreadnaught guitar that Martin pioneered eventually became the industry norm as well. The first serious challenger in the market was Gibson’s Hummingbird guitar, released in 1960, but today any guitar company worth its salt has a dreadnaught line (including my favorite brand of acoustics, Seagull, which I lovingly call “the poor man’s Martin”).
Martin’s D-series guitars continue to be ubiquitous today. Famous players such as Billy Strings, Seth Avett, and James Taylor all play Martin dreadnaughts, and they can be found across almost all genres of popular music.
With their loudness, deep lows, rich mids, and clarity of tone, they will likely continue to be the guitars against which all other acoustics will be compared for a long time to come.
Leave a Reply