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Guitars Featured In New Carnegie Science Center Exhibit

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Carnegie Science Center is setting up a show with strings attached.

Seventy guitars, about one-third of Connecticut resident H. P. Newquist's collection, will be on display until September 30.

"The first mass-produced electric guitar." He lifts a thin guitar from a display. "In the early 1900's, the most popular form of music was Hawaiian music, and Hawaiian music was played on lap steel guitars."

They were drowned out by other instruments, until a player devised an electric solution.

Newquist's first purchase was a Pipa guitar from China. Other instruments date back 3,000 years. It's a museum in search of a home.

"We'll go to about 20 different cities, and then, based on our experiences there, at the end of that time, we'll establish the first permanent home for a guitar museum. Pittsburgh is definitely in the running."

Exhibits director Dennis Bateman says guitars and science are clearly connected.

"It's everything from the acoustics of how sound waves travel and the pitch and resonance and tone, to the technology of an electric guitar."

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