From Medieval to Metal at Whirinaki Museum Upper Hutt Photo: Dianna Thomson
'The Warlock' during Medieval to Metal installation Photo: Mark Amery
From the ancient oud to the electric axe, the Martin acoustic to the Fender Stratocaster, American National Guitar Museum touring exhibition Medieval to Metal covers a whole lot of stage with 40 guitars. Believe it or not, there’s even an air guitar.
The story of how one of the quietest instruments became one of the loudest, has just opened at Whirinaki Museum in Upper Hutt - the only Aotearoa stop on its Australiasian tour.
Welcoming you to the exhibition is a metallers sought after prize: a ‘Warlock’ from California's BC Rich guitars. With its flame red, transparent acrylic body, in its look it’s got the lick of a devil’s tail.
The exhibit showcases centuries of design and craftsmanship of the popular instrument, from the most well known design to the truly strange and wonderful. We begin with an intricately inlaid oud - arguably the first guitar dating back to 3000 BC. It evolved into the European lute and the six-foot long Renaissance therobo, both featured in the exhibition.
From Medieval to Metal at Whirinaki Museum Upper Hutt Photo: Dianna Thomson
The evolution of the acoustic guitar from its 17th century Italian roots, brings us to 100 years ago to the invention of the electric guitar.
Things didn’t first go electric for rock, jazz or country players, as you might expect, but to make louder the lap steel guitar of then, hugely-popular Hawaian music. A classic, compact shiny steel example is in the show.
From Medieval to Metal at Whirinaki Museum Upper Hutt Photo: Dianna Thomson
Guitars tell stories. There are the well-known tales behind guitars here like the Rickenbacker, made famous by The Beatles and The Byrds, and the Ibanez Jem7V, first designed by museum advisor guitarist Steve Vai. Then there’s the SG donated by the Black Sabbath’s Tony Lommi after their last concert, the ugly Tonika EGS-650 made in the Soviet Union when American guitars were forbidden, and the Swedish Goya guitar, made in the late ‘60s from accordion parts.
There are also a few guitars that are actual art pieces. A guitar, for example, made out of car licence plates from the various American states.
From Medieval to Metal at Whirinaki Museum Upper Hutt Photo: Dianna Thomson
Guitar museum founder HP Newquist says when they established it in 2008, they found that while there were museums dedicated to teacups, ventriloquist dummies and barbed wire, there wasn’t one dedicated to the guitar.
It was the time of the global financial crisis, scuttling his plans for a brick and mortar museum at home in New York. Instead the museum has focussed on touring exhibitions, which continue to travel the world. Rather appropriate for this most portable of instruments.
Though that doesn’t count the museum’s holding of the world’s largest playable guitar: a 43 foot V-shaped monster. It sounds awful, says Newquist, - like UFOs crashing into a mountainside.
From Medieval to Metal at Whirinaki Museum Upper Hutt Photo: Dianna Thomson
Newquist began his career as a writer on artificial intelligence back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, before going on to be editor-in-chief of Guitar magazine. A guitar player himself (“hard rock” he says is his genre of choice), he was able to harness the networks he’d made at the magazine to create a board of guitarist advisors for the museum. It includes everyone from Vai to Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore.
Medieval to Metal: the Art and Evolution of the Guitar is at Whirinaki Museum in Upper Hutt until 1 September.
