Guitar

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For other uses, see Guitar (disambiguation).

Guitar

A classical guitar with nylon strings

String instrument

Classification String instrument

Hornbostel–Sachs classification 321.322

(Composite chordophone)

Playing range

(a standard tuned guitar)

Related instruments
  Bowed and plucked string instruments

The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that usually has six strings.[1] It is typically

played with both hands by strumming or plucking the strings with either a guitar pick or
the fingers/fingernails of one hand, while simultaneously fretting (pressing the strings
against the frets) with the fingers of the other hand. The sound of the vibrating strings is
projected either acoustically, by means of the hollow chamber of the guitar (for
an acoustic guitar), or through an electrical amplifier and a speaker.
The guitar is a type of chordophone, traditionally constructed from wood and strung with
either gut, nylon or steel strings and distinguished from other chordophones by its
construction and tuning. The modern guitar was preceded by the gittern, the vihuela, the
four-course Renaissance guitar, and the five-course baroque guitar, all of which
contributed to the development of the modern six-string instrument.
There are three main types of modern acoustic guitar: the classical guitar (Spanish
guitar/nylon-string guitar), the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar, which
is sometimes called a "jazz guitar". The tone of an acoustic guitar is produced by the
strings' vibration, amplified by the hollow body of the guitar, which acts as a resonating
chamber. The classical guitar is often played as a solo instrument using a
comprehensive finger-picking technique where each string is plucked individually by the
player's fingers, as opposed to being strummed. The term "finger-picking" can also refer
to a specific tradition of folk, blues, bluegrass, and country guitar playing in the United
States. The acoustic bass guitar is a low-pitched instrument that is one octave below a
regular guitar.
Electric guitars, introduced in the 1930s, use an amplifier and a loudspeaker that both
makes the sound of the instrument loud enough for the performers and audience to
hear, and, given that it produces an electric signal when played, that can electronically
manipulate and shape the tone using an equalizer (e.g., bass and treble tone controls)
and a huge variety of electronic effects units, the most commonly used ones
being distortion (or "overdrive") and reverb. Early amplified guitars employed a hollow
body, but solid wood guitars began to dominate during the 1960s and 1970s, as they
are less prone to unwanted acoustic feedback "howls". As with acoustic guitars, there
are a number of types of electric guitars, including hollowbody guitars, archtop
guitars (used in jazz guitar, blues and rockabilly) and solid-body guitars, which are
widely used in rock music.
The loud, amplified sound and sonic power of the electric guitar played through a guitar
amp has played a key role in the development of blues and rock music, both as
an accompaniment instrument (playing riffs and chords) and performing guitar solos,
and in many rock subgenres, notably heavy metal music and punk rock. The electric
guitar has had a major influence on popular culture. The guitar is used in a wide variety
of musical genres worldwide. It is recognized as a primary instrument in genres such
as blues, bluegrass, country, flamenco, folk, jazz, jota, mariachi, metal, punk, reggae, ro
ck, soul, and pop.
 Contents

 1History
 2Types
o 2.1Acoustic
o 2.2Electric
 3Construction
o 3.1Handedness
o 3.2Components
 4Tuning
o 4.1Standard
o 4.2Alternative
o 4.3Scordatura
 5Accessories
o 5.1Capotasto
o 5.2Slides
o 5.3Plectrum
o 5.4Straps
o 5.5Amplifiers, effects and speakers
 6See also
 7Notes and references
o 7.1Notes
o 7.2Citations
o 7.3Sources
 8External links

History
See also: Lute §  History and evolution of the lute, Gittern, Citole §  Origins,
and Classical guitar §  History
Illustration labeled "cythara" in the Stuttgart Psalter, a Carolingian psalter from the 9th century. The instrument
shown is of the chordophone family, possibly an early citole or lute

Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar
was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat
wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides." [2] The term is
used to refer to a number of chordophones that were developed and used across
Europe, beginning in the 12th century and, later, in the Americas. [3] A 3,300-year-old
stone carving of a Hittite bard playing a stringed instrument is the oldest iconographic
representation of a chordophone and clay plaques from Babylonia show people playing
an instrument that has a strong resemblance to the guitar, indicating a
possible Babylonian origin for the guitar.[2]
The modern word guitar, and its antecedents, has been applied to a wide variety of
chordophones since classical times and as such causes confusion. The English
word guitar, the German Gitarre, and the French guitare were all adopted from the
Spanish guitarra, which comes from the Andalusian Arabic ‫قيثارة‬ (qīthārah)[4] and the
Latin cithara, which in turn came from the Ancient Greek κιθάρα. Kithara appears in the
Bible four times (1 Cor. 14:7, Rev. 5:8, 14:2 and 15:2), and is usually translated into
English as harp.
Many influences are cited as antecedents to the modern guitar. Although the
development of the earliest "guitars" is lost in the history of medieval Spain, two
instruments are commonly cited as their most influential predecessors, the
European lute and its cousin, the four-string oud; the latter was brought to Iberia by
the Moors in the 8th century.[5]
At least two instruments called "guitars" were in use in Spain by 1200: the guitarra
latina (Latin guitar) and the so-called guitarra morisca (Moorish guitar). The guitarra
morisca had a rounded back, wide fingerboard, and several sound holes. The guitarra
Latina had a single sound hole and a narrower neck. By the 14th century the qualifiers
"moresca" or "morisca" and "latina" had been dropped, and these two cordophones
were simply referred to as guitars.[6]
The Spanish vihuela, called in Italian the "viola da mano", a guitar-like instrument of the
15th and 16th centuries, is widely considered to have been the single most important
influence in the development of the baroque guitar. It had six courses (usually), lute-
like tuning in fourths and a guitar-like body, although early representations reveal an
instrument with a sharply cut waist. It was also larger than the contemporary four-course
guitars. By the 16th century, the vihuela's construction had more in common with the
modern guitar, with its curved one-piece ribs, than with the viols, and more like a larger
version of the contemporary four-course guitars. The vihuela enjoyed only a relatively
short period of popularity in Spain and Italy during an era dominated elsewhere in
Europe by the lute; the last surviving published music for the instrument appeared in
1576.[7]
Meanwhile, the five-course baroque guitar, which was documented in Spain from the
middle of the 16th century, enjoyed popularity, especially in Spain, Italy and France
from the late 16th century to the mid-18th century. [A][B] In Portugal, the word viola referred
to the guitar, as guitarra meant the "Portuguese guitar", a variety of cittern.
There were many different plucked instruments [8] that were being invented and used in
Europe, during the Middle Ages. By the 16th century, most of the forms of guitar had
fallen off, to never be seen again. However, midway through the 16th century, the five-
course guitar [9] was established. It was not a straightforward process. There were two
types of five-course guitars, they differed in the location of the major third and in the
interval pattern. The fifth course can be placed on the instrument, because it was known
to play seventeen notes or more. Because the guitar had a fifth string, it was capable of
playing that amount of notes. The guitars strings were tuned in unison, so, in other
words, it was tuned by placing a finger on the second fret of the thinnest string and
tuning the guitar [10] bottom to top. The strings were a whole octave apart from one
another, which is the reason for the different method of tuning. Because it was such so
different, there was major controversy as to who created the five course guitar. A literary
source, Lope de Vega's Dorotea, gives the credit to the poet and musician Vicente
Espinel. This claim was also repeated by Nicolas Doizi de Velasco in 1640, however
this claim has been refuted by others who state that Espinel's birth year (1550) make it
impossible for him to be responsible for the tradition. [11] He believed that the tuning was
the reason the instrument became known as the Spanish guitar in Italy. Even later, in
the same century, Gaspar Sanz wrote that other nations such as Italy or France added
to the Spanish guitar. All of these nations even imitated the five-course guitar by
"recreating" their own.[12]
Finally, circa 1850, the form and structure of the modern guitar is credited to Spanish
guitar maker Antonio Torres Jurado, who increased the size of the guitar body, altered
its proportions, and invented the breakthrough fan-braced pattern. Bracing, which refers
to the internal pattern of wood reinforcements used to secure the guitar's top and back
and prevent the instrument from collapsing under tension, is an important factor in how
the guitar sounds. Torres' design greatly improved the volume, tone, and projection of
the instrument, and it has remained essentially unchanged since.

Types

Guitar collection in Museu de la Música de Barcelona

The Guitar Player (c. 1672), by Johannes Vermeer

Guitars can be divided into two broad categories, acoustic and electric guitars. Within
each of these categories, there are also further sub-categories. For example, an electric
guitar can be purchased in a six-string model (the most common model) or in seven- or
twelve-string models.
Acoustic
Main article: Acoustic guitar
See also: Extended-range classical guitar, Flamenco guitar, Guitar battente, Guitarrón
mexicano, Harp guitar, Russian guitar, Selmer guitar, and Tenor guitar
 Classical Guitar Sample
Spanish Romance.

Problems playing this file? See media

help.

Acoustic guitars form several notable subcategories within the acoustic guitar group:
classical and flamenco guitars; steel-string guitars, which include the flat-topped, or
"folk", guitar; twelve-string guitars; and the arched-top guitar. The acoustic guitar group
also includes unamplified guitars designed to play in different registers, such as the
acoustic bass guitar, which has a similar tuning to that of the electric bass guitar.