The Fender Musicmaster was a single pickup companion to the Fender Duosonic. It actually was shipped to stores a few months before the Duo-sonic back in 1956. Word has it that the reason for this was a shortage of pickups and, as a single pickup model, more units of the Musicmaster could be shipped in time for the Christmas  buying season. This guitar, along with the Duosonic, was the first guitar of Fender’s student guitar line.

In these years, the body style and other appointments were the same as the Duosonic with the exception of the single pickup based electronics. The body rout on the original Musicmaster would allow it to be converted to a Duosonic if one replaced the pickguard and electronics. This was somewhat like how an Esquire could be converted to a Telecaster with a simple upgrade.

Unlike the Esquire, Fender’s other single pickup model, the Fender Musicmaster had its one single coil pickup in the neck to middle position. This position was kind of limited tonally as you might expect. It lacks the spank of the bridge pickup and the tonality of a neck pickup making it a bit of a compromise.

As with the Duosonic, the Musicmaster originally was equipped with a 22.5 inch scale length neck with 21 frets and a 1 5/8 inch nut. Early models that were made between 1956 to 1959 had a truss rod skunk stripe of walnut down the back of the neck. The neck profile was the standard Fender ‘V’ profile and, as is the case with other Fender guitars of this era, it varied between a soft and hard ‘V’.

Changes to the Musicmaster over the years followed the changes to the Duosonic, both in color and fretboard wood.

In 1964 the Musicmaster II was introduced at the same time as the Duo-Sonic II and Mustang. The red, white and blue colors and the 24 inch scale length along with a restyling of the body were introduced at this time. In 1969, the Duosonic was discontinued. However, the Musicmaster continued to be listed in the Fender product catalog, in both 22.5 inch scale and 24 inch scale models until 1982. Availability of this guitar was limited and it only saw a few actual production runs between 1969 and 1982.

The Musicmaster hasn’t yet been reissued as a direct copy of the vintage guitar. However, a guitar by this name was released in the late 1990’s in the Squier Vista series. This guitar featured a single, splitable, bridge humbucker and it did not have tone control.

Related posts:

1. Fender Swinger
2. Fender Mustang
3. Fender Duosonic II