Fender Musicmaster Guitar

The Fender Duosonic had a one pickup version known as the Musicmaster. This guitar actually was made available before the Duosonic by a few months. It was the first guitar of Fender's student guitar line. As with the Duosonic, the original versions of this guitar are great examples of the Golden age of Fender guitars.

The body style and other appointments were the same as the Duosonic. In fact, the body rout on the original Musicmaster would allow it to be converted to a Duosonic with a pickguard group upgrade. This was somewhat similar to how an Esquire could be converted to a Telecaster.

The Fender Musicmaster had a one pickup, a single coil, in the neck/middle position. As you might expect, this limited the tonal variety that the guitar was capable of.

Like the Duosonic, the Musicmaster had a 22.5 inch scale length neck with 21 frets and a 1 5/8 inch nut. On the early models, produced from 1956 to 1959, you would find a truss rod skunk stripe of walnut on the back of the neck. The profile of the neck was of the 'V' profile and generally varied between the soft and hard 'V' as did its full sized cousins.

Later changes to the Musicmaster were the same as those on the Duo-sonic, including the available colors and fingerboard wood.

In late 1964 the 24 inch scale version, the Musicmaster II, was introduced. Both the Duosonic and Musicmaster were available in red, white and blue colors at this point. The body of both guitars was also restyle to make it like the Mustang.

In 1969 the Duosonic was discontinued but the Musicmaster continued to be in the Fender catalog, in both 22.5 inch scale and 24 inch scale models until 1982.

The Musicmaster was never reissued as a direct copy of the old guitar although there was a guitar by this name released as part of the Squier Vista series in the late 1990's. This guitar had a single bridge humbucker that could be split and no tone control. These guitars actually aren't bad so if you see one in a pawn shop or on eBay I would recommend snagging it if you can. With a better pickup and a little TLC this Squier version of the Fender Musicmaster guitar is a great player.