John (Jan) Doper ( English John Dopyera , Slovak. Ján Dopjera June 6, 1893 - January 3, 1988) - American inventor and entrepreneur of Slovak origin. Among his inventions, a resonator guitar and other important developments at an early stage in the development of electric guitars .
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Biography
Jan Doper was born in a large family of ten children. His father Joseph Doper worked as a miner in Dolny Krup (now Trnava region of Slovakia ), where the family moved immediately after the birth of Jan. My father had a talent for music, so he played and designed the violins himself. It was under the guidance of his father that Jan made his first violin at a young age. In 1908, the Doper family, feeling the approaching great war in Europe, moved to the United States . In 1920, Jan opened his store in Los Angeles , where he made and repaired violins, banjos, and other wooden string instruments. During this period, Doper patented several banjo enhancements.
In 1925, Georges Bosch , a vaudeville promoter, asked Doper to create a louder guitar. Bocham needed a guitar that was heard while playing an orchestra. Doper developed a guitar with three aluminum cones (resonators) placed under the bridge, which made this guitar much louder than an ordinary acoustic one. The sound of the guitar was rich and metallic. After that, Ian, his brothers Rudy, Emil and other inventors founded the National String Instrument Corporation to manufacture and sell such guitars to musicians who worked in film and jazz clubs. A few years later, the brothers left the company to establish a new one called Dobro Manufacturing Company . The name itself was a pun - the first two letters corresponded to the first two letters of the surname of the brothers, and “bro” from English meant “brothers”, the whole word meant “good” in the Slovak language. The company's slogan was: " Dobro means good in any language ."
In 1932, while working with the master Art Stimson [1] , Doper invented a new type of guitar design, which later became known as the world's first industrial electric guitar [2] [3] . Doper also invented a device for clamping strings, the ancestor of modern devices of this type. Doper received patents for a number of inventions, including modifications of many stringed instruments, in particular improvements to banjo and violins, the invention of electro- violins and the like.
Subsequently, the Yang brothers moved to Chicago, earning a millionth fortune with Valco . Ian decided to stay in Los Angeles. He was never rich or famous. He was known in narrow circles as a talented inventor. He died at the age of 94 in 1988, registering about 40 patents in his lifetime.
Notes
- ↑ Tutmarc, Paul (1896-1972), and his Audiovox Electric Guitars - HistoryLink.org . www.historylink.org . Date of treatment March 23, 2017.
- ↑ US1962919A - Electrophonic stringed musical instrument - Google Patents
- ↑ US2078350A - Electrophonic stringed instrument - Google Patents