Guitar Background

A member of the family of musical instruments called chordophones, the guitar is a stringed instrument with which sound is produced by "plucking" a series of strings running along the instrument's body. While the strings are plucked with one hand, they are simultaneously fingered with the other hand against frets, which are metal strips located on the instrument's neck. The subsequent sound is amplified through a resonating body. There are four general categories of acoustic (non-electric) guitars: flat-top steel-stringed, arched top, classic, and flamenco.

References to guitar-like instruments date back many centuries, and virtually every society throughout history has been found to have used a variation of the instrument. The forerunner of today's guitars were single-string bows developed during early human history. In sections of Asia and Africa, bows of this type have been unearthed in archaeological digs of ancient civilizations. Interestingly, one of these discoveries included an ancient Hittite carving—dating back more than 3,000 years—that depicted an instrument bearing many of the same features of today's guitar: the curves of the body, a flat top with an incurred arc of five sound holes on either side, and a long fretted neck that ran the entire length of the body.

As music technology developed, more strings were added to the early guitars. A four-string variety (named guitarra latina) existed in Spain in the late thirteenth century. The guitarra latina closely resembled the ancient Hittite carving except that the instrument now included a bridge that held the strings as they passed over the soundhole. When a fifth string was added in the early sixteenth century, the guitar's popularity exploded. A sixth string (bass E) was added near the end of 1700s, an evolution that brought the instrument closer to its present day functioning. The Carulli guitar of 1810 was one of the first to have six single strings tuned to notes in the present arrangement: E A D G B E.

Guitar technology finally made its way to the United States in the early nineteenth century, with Charles Friedrich Martin, a German guitar maker who emigrated to New York in 1833, leading the way. In the early 1900s, the Martin Company—now located in Nazareth, Pennsylvania—produced larger guitars that still adhered to the design of the classic models, especially the Spanish guitar. Another company, the Gibson company, followed suit and began to produce large steel-string guitars with arched fronts and backs. Known as the cello guitar, this brand of instrument produced a sound more suited for jazz and dance clubs. Another major innovation of the early 1900s was the use of magnetic pickups fitted beneath the strings by which sound traveled through a wire into an amplifier. These instruments would later evolve into electric guitars.

Raw Materials

The guitar industry is in virtual agreement on the woods used for the various parts of the instrument. The

Quick Facts About Guitars

Did you know that…..

The origins of the guitar can be traced back as much as 4000 years.
The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying the essential features of a guitar is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard.

The modern word, guitar, was adopted into English from Spanish guitarra.
The guitar is descended from the Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD.
The 12 string guitar usually has steel strings and rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has six courses made up of two strings each. The highest two courses are tuned in unison, while the others are tuned in octaves.

The guitarrón is a very large, deep-bodied Mexican 6-string acoustic bass played in mariachi bands. It is fretless with heavy gauge nylon strings.
Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies.
The first guitarist of note to use a seven-string guitar was jazz guitarist George Van Eps, and that Solid body seven-strings were popularized when Ibanez Guitars released the Ibanez Universe guitar, endorsed by Steve Vai.

In 1982 Uli Jon Roth (Original guitarist for the Scorpion’s) developed the “Sky Guitar”, with a vastly extended amount of frets. It was the first guitar to venture into the upper registers of the violin. Roth’s 7-string and 33 fret “Mighty Wing” guitar features an altogether 6-octave range!

The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds one octave lower than it is notated on a score.
Eric Clapton’s favorite guitar (named “Blackie) was at one time the most expensive guitar ever sold. It was bought for $950,000 USD in 2004 by a guitar archaeologist. It became the 2nd most expensive guitar in the world when its predecessor sold at an auction in Doha, Qatar on November 16th, 2005 for $1 million dollars! The Strat was signed by several rock musicians to benefit a tsunami charity, ‘Reach out to Asia’. It was bought by Qatar’s royal family for a million US dollars and donated back to the Asia Program, bringing in $2.7 million US dollars at the more recent auction. In all, the guitar has generated a total of $3.7 million US dollars, making it the most expensive guitar yet.

So after all this, I must ask….. Why haven’t YOU decided to get started playing guitar!?
Are you going to wait for another 4,000 years to pass before fulfilling that desire you have had to learn how to play this awesome instrument?