"Washington invents a lot of stuff. But some of our inventions are could-haves instead of should-haves. Such is the case with the electric bass guitar. While Fender likes to claim all the fame for inventing the bass guitar, the credit really goes to Paul Tutmarc, a Seattle native. He came up with the Adiovox Electric Bass guitar in 1936," the Choose Washington State says.

"Fender’s design came along 15 years later, for those keeping track of who thought up what, when. There are only four known copies of the Audiovox 736 left. And one of the last ones that weren’t already in collector’s hands or museums sold today for $23,850.09 on eBay.

"Inspired by the electronics in a telephone that turned voice into signals, Paul built his own horseshoe-shaped magnet and wrapped it around a grapefruit-sized contraction. The resulting bass and its new sound were too far ahead of its time, so sales were flat, and without a national level marketing strategy, the Audiovox 736 faded from the annals of music history."

"The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length.

"The bass guitar most commonly has four strings, though five- and six-stringed models are also relatively popular, and bass guitars with even more (or fewer) strings or courses have been built," the Wikipedia says.

"Since the mid-1950s, the bass guitar has largely come to replace the double bass in popular music due to its lighter weight, the inclusion of frets (for easier intonation) in most models, and, most importantly, its design for electric amplification."

"In the 1930s, musician and inventor Paul Tutmarc of Seattle, Washington, developed the first electric bass guitar in its modern form, a fretted instrument designed to be played horizontally.

"The 1935 sales catalog for Tutmarc's company Audiovox featured his "Model 736 Bass Fiddle", a solid-bodied electric bass guitar with four strings, a 30+1⁄2-inch (775-millimetre) scale length, and a single pickup.

"Around 100 were made during this period. Audiovox also sold their "Model 236" bass amplifier."  (Wikipedia)

"In 1935, after many years of successful pickup development and guitar manufacturing, Paul Tutmarc released a cello-sized solidbody bass instrument referred to as an “electric bull-fiddle”. Though a far cry from an electric bass guitar, it was proof that solidbody electric bass instruments were becoming a reality," the Sweetwater says.

"But many cite Tutmarc’s Audiovox 736 Bass Fiddle, released to market in 1936, as the first solidbody electric bass guitar ever made. Although previously obscured in the annals of history, Paul Tutmarc is now regarded as the inventor of the solidbody electric bass guitar in a form we recognize today.

"His Audiovox 736 Bass Fiddle was the first of its kind. Musicians could play this bass horizontally like a guitar, and it had frets for maximum note precision — this made it easy for non-bassists to pick up the instrument, too. Its solid body was carved from black walnut, and it featured a neck-through design and an ebony fingerboard. Its total length measured 42 inches, and it had a scale length of around 30 inches with 16 frets adorning the fingerboard. Of course, Tutmarc designed an amplifier to accompany the instrument: the Audiovox 936."

"But as historian and writer Peter Blecha found out, the first electric bass guitar actually appeared that same year, invented in ‘36 by “musician/instructor/basement tinkerer” Paul H. Tutmarc, “a pioneer in electric pickup design who marketed a line of electric lapsteel guitars under the Audiovox brand out of the unlikely town of Seattle,” the Open Culture says.

"Throughout the thirties and forties, notes Guitar World, Tutmarc “made a number of guitars and amplifiers under the Audiovox brand.” In 1935, he invented a “New Type Bull Fiddle,” an electric stand-up bass. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer announced it at the time as good news for the “poor bass-fiddler… who has to lug his big bull-fiddle home” at the end of the night.

"The following year, Tutmarc combined his instrument-making skills into the world’s first bass guitar, the Audiovox 736 Electric Bass Fiddle, a true original and a “radical design breakthrough,” Blecha writes. Tutmarc’s instrument solved the bassist’s problems of being inaudible in a big band setting and being barely able to carry one’s instrument to and from a gig. The 736 did not catch on outside Seattle, but it did get out a lot around the city."

"Paul Tutmarc (May 29, 1896 – September 25, 1972) was an American musician and musical instrument inventor. He was a tenor singer and a performer and teacher of the lap steel guitar and the ukulele.

"He developed a number of variant types of stringed musical instruments, such as electrically amplified double basses, bass guitar, and lap steel guitars. His second marriage was to his former student Bonnie Buckingham, known as Bonnie Guitar.

"Tutmarc's Audiovox Manufacturing Co. was one of the first firms to produce an electric lap steel guitar, and Tutmarc himself was often the demonstrator and promoter. He invented a solid-body electric upright "bull-fiddle" in 1935 but it mainly served as a publicity tool. He manufactured lap steel guitars with his own "blade" pickup, and accompanying amplifiers.

"His real claim-to-fame was the development and marketing of the fretted and solid-body Audiovox Model 736 Bass Fiddle, from 1936, which was designed to be used in a horizontal position. That then-radical instrument is considered to be history's earliest electric bass guitar—and one that preceded the far more famous Fender Precision Bass by a decade and a half. Tutmarc also manufactured an accompanying bass amplifier, the Audiovox Model 936."  (Wikipedia)

"On eBay last week was one of those historical could-haves. It’s called the Audiovox 736 Electric Bass guitar, and it was made in the basement of the Roosevelt District home of Paul Tutmarc, along with other guitars that Tutmarc electrified. There is a photo showing him working on one on a band saw," The Spokesman-Review says.

"It was marketed beginning in 1936, with an early ad in a Seattle high-school yearbook. It was the world’s first electric bass guitar.  Now, only four copies of the Audiovox 736 are known to exist. The one on eBay is stored under the bed of a couple living in a Snohomish County mobile-home park. Dale and Bev McKnight, 85 and 79, respectively, have lugged it around for decades. Dale bought it in 1947 when he was in his teens and living in Seattle.

"Two of the other four Audiovox 736’s are with collectors and the third is a prized exhibit at Paul Allen’s Museum of Pop Culture, formerly known as EMP. By classic-guitar standards, the $20,000 bid for the Audiovox 736 is surpassed by bids asking at least $46,000 or $60,000 for electric guitars that are part of the lead section. Bass guitars are considered part of the rhythm section and don’t get as much glory or money at auction."

"The Audiovox 736, also known as the first electric bass guitar ever made, was sold today (March 6) via eBay for $23,850," the Ultimate Guitar says.

Crafted by Paul Tutmarc, the instrument was introduced was back in 1936, 15 years before Fender Precision Bass came to be, considered by many the beginning of electric of electric bass guitar as we know it.

""Of the three Model 736s known to exist, the one in the EMP museum is a painted model, the one held by the collector is finished, 'unpainted' varnished wood as this one is. The wood appears to be black walnut. Original guitar case is in good condition and is included."

"Once this was ready, my dad starting working with an old round hole, flat top guitar and discovered the pickup would pick up the sound from a plucked string and carry it through to the "adapted" radio," the Paul Tutmarc, Inventor of the First Electric Guitar, says.

"So, this large pickup was eventually installed INSIDE the guitar with a polepiece sticking up through a slot he cut in the top of the guitar near the bridge, and the electric guitar was on its way. Being an ambitious woodworker, he decided to make a solid body for his electric guitar idea and his first one was octagon shaped at the bridge end, containing the pickup and then a long, slender square cornered neck out to the patent heads.

"Before he actually made this solid body guitar, he electrified every instrument he could get his hands on. He electrified zithers and pianos and spanish guitars. He would break up two guitars, just to get the necks and fretboards and glue them on to a flat top guitar, having three necks with three different tunings. He made a solid body (black walnut) guitar with FIVE sets of strings. The guitar was about 24 inches wide and the neck about 20 inches wide. He had a full, six string major chord, six string seventh chord, six string diminished chord, six string augmented chord and six string ninth chord. I can remember his demonstrating this "out of this world" guitar at the local Sears-Roebuck store in South Seattle.

"He began to receive much interest concerning this new invention from his students. He began to see the possibilities on manufacturing these guitars for sale. He did send in to the U.S. Patent office for information regarding any type of electric, stringed instruments. A complete search was made, which I recall cost him $300.00 which in the time of the great depression, was a LOT OF MONEY. There were NO types, whatsoever, presented to the U.S. Patent office, so my dad knew he was the FIRST. However, the chances of patenting an electric pickup would be nil as Bell & Company had long since covered that."

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