Father of the electric guitar never learned to play!

August 10, 2011 11:15 AM

I just read this bio on Wired of Leo Fender and I was struck by the last line: "He never learned how to play the guitar." What other inventors, designers, or other people heavily involved in a specific product or industry never used their own products? I'm thinking of auto designers that didn't know how to drive, illiterate linguists, anything like that.
posted by backseatpilot to Grab Bag (27 answers total)

Panty hose and IUDs?
posted by gurple at 11:17 AM on August 10, 2011

Best answer: Edison, who invented the phonograph, was mostly deaf.
posted by novalis_dt at 11:22 AM on August 10, 2011

I'm not sure this is all that uncommon. I know a guy who makes beautiful handmade guitars and cigar-box mandolins who doesn't know a single chord. But of course he's got a whole passel of musician friends eager to take his creations for test spins.
posted by aught at 11:24 AM on August 10, 2011

I think it was one of the Gershwin brothers who couldn't read music.
posted by Melismata at 11:25 AM on August 10, 2011

Best answer: Pretty sure tampons were invented by a man. (checks) Yeah, a Dr. Earle Haas.

PS: thank you, Dr. Haas.
posted by stennieville at 11:46 AM on August 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Robert Moses, who is responsible for so many of the highways in NYC area, never had a driver's license.
posted by mlle valentine at 11:46 AM on August 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

Da Vinci, who invented a sort of helicopterish thing, was certainly not a pilot.
posted by elizardbits at 11:50 AM on August 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Anybody who every invented anything used by an animal.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 12:03 PM on August 10, 2011

The reading music thing was discussed here recently, wasn't it? It has almost nothing to do with the ability to be a good songwriter or blues/rock/folk player, but, it always seems to surprise people to learn that x famous musician couldn't do it.
posted by thelonius at 12:24 PM on August 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Benjamin Franklin. Although he discovered the relation between lightening and electricity, his invention of the lightening rod took hold primarily in Europe, in which bell-ringing in church towers was still practiced (!) as a means of warding off lightening. Improved the catheter, though I'm unsure as to the degree he used it. The Franklin stove mostly benefited residences simpler than the grand houses in Franklin's circle. Invented the armonica (a type of glass harmonica), though he wasn't a musical virtuoso.
posted by Gordion Knott at 12:26 PM on August 10, 2011

I'm not sure that there's any evidence that any of the big three violin makers (Amatia, Guarnieri and Stradivarius) could play the violin. Could be wrong but they were mostly craftsmen.

I would say that the musicianship skills of most instrument makers are fairly mediocre. Sample size of like 25.
posted by sully75 at 12:31 PM on August 10, 2011

Yeah, Tori Amos is another musician who can't read music.

Many people make tools for crafts they don't practice. I can name half a dozen professional and hobby woodworkers who make knitting, spinning, and weaving tools for, or with, their spouses who knit, spin, or weave.
posted by clavicle at 12:35 PM on August 10, 2011

Best answer: The writers of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" didn't go to a baseball game until decades later, long after it had become the unofficial anthem of the sport.
posted by Etrigan at 12:44 PM on August 10, 2011

Hendrix couldn't read or write music either.
posted by dbiedny at 12:48 PM on August 10, 2011

And I'm pretty that most guitar slingers will tell you that Les Paul "invented" the electric guitar, while Leo Fender figured out how to mass produce them.
posted by dbiedny at 12:49 PM on August 10, 2011

A very small minority of pop/rock musicians can read/write musical notation.
posted by tremspeed at 12:51 PM on August 10, 2011

Hendrix couldn't read or write music either.

Wasn't even sure which side was up on his guitar, but boy could he make the darn thing sing.
posted by AugustWest at 12:58 PM on August 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

A lot of luthiers (guitar and violin builders) are not musicians themselves. But the best of them know how to listen, both to the instruments themselves and the people who play them.
posted by tommasz at 12:59 PM on August 10, 2011

Anyone who ever worked at NASA or any of the contractors who designed the rockets and space vehicles.
posted by scolbath at 1:46 PM on August 10, 2011

Best answer: There's a great This American Life segment by John Hodgman about Cuervo Man, the spokesperson/"party facilitator" for Jose Cuervo tequila, who doesn't drink.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:59 PM on August 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Best answer: This might just be legend, but my understanding is that Sequoyah, who invented the written form of Cherokee, was illiterate. He understood the concept of writing (marks on paper = words. Somehow) but didn't know the specifics.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 3:10 PM on August 10, 2011

Dave Monette, designer of very high end brass instruments, supposedly doesn't play trumpet.
posted by mullicious at 3:27 PM on August 10, 2011

Robert Moses not knowing how to drive is blowing my mind.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 5:26 PM on August 10, 2011

What other inventors, designers, or other people heavily involved in a specific product or industry never used their own products?

Umm ... not any of these folk?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inventors_killed_by_their_own_inventions (via)
posted by sebastienbailard at 7:48 PM on August 10, 2011

Eric Schmidt apparently uses a Blackberry phone.
posted by anildash at 9:22 PM on August 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Paul Klipsch, inventor of the Klipschorn speaker and a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society, couldn't carry a tune in a basket. He was tone-deaf.
posted by drhydro at 10:54 PM on August 10, 2011

Evelyn Glennie is a deaf musician.

It's Never Lurgi is right about Sequoya. He borrowed some letter forms from the Latin alphabet, but the sound values are unrelated. The writing system is similar to Japanese hiragana, not an alphabet. (It's also apparently really easy to learn if you know Cherokee.)
posted by nangar at 2:01 AM on August 11, 2011