Guitar

Side and front view of a classic guitar

The guitar is a musical instrument of the chordophone family, that is, the instruments that produce their sound by making the strings vibrate. It is a plucked string instrument, made up of a sound box, a mast on which the fingerboard or storage room is attached —generally with an acoustic hole in the center of the top (mouth)— and six strings. The frets are embedded on the fingerboard, which allow dividing the continuum of sounds into the 12 notes of the tonal system, making it possible to interpret them more easily.

The guitar is the fruit of centuries of evolution of these chordophones. The origins of the instrument come from Asia Minor civilizations (Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians...) from. 2500 BCE C. Since then, chordophones have developed in many different ways over time with different numbers of strings and shapes. Some instruments of the family are the cuatro, the ukulele, the requinto, the charango and different types of guitarrón, such as the Mexican guitarrón, frequently used by mariachis.

The guitar as we know it today is the heir to the instrument devised by Antonio de Torres, a builder from Almeria who set current canons and proportions. The guitar is today a multifaceted instrument that is used both in classical music and in popular music. In its electrified version, it is the most widely used instrument in genres such as blues, rock and heavy metal. It is also the protagonist in the popular roots music of Spain and Latin America. It is worth noting the importance that the guitar has in flamenco, a musical genre that was born in Spain during the XVIII century. Currently, flamenco guitarists usually use a guitar with slight variations in construction, known as a flamenco guitar. The classical guitar is also quite common among singer-songwriters.

Guitar Parts

Parts of a classical guitar

The guitar has undergone variations in its shape over the centuries. In addition to the number of strings, variations of the instrument have arisen to adapt it to the needs of the performer until it adopts its current form. This instrument is made of almost entirely wood. Today many different types are used, although the most commonly used are mainly rosewood from India and others: spruce, mahogany, Canadian cedar, pine, cypress (very popular among the guitars used among flamenco guitarists).) and ebony. Today the builders differentiate between the construction of a classical or flamenco instrument. This is due to the historical evolution that these two instruments have had in relation not only to the sound issue, but also to the social origin of their performers. Cypress was an abundant and more accessible wood in the XIX century than jacaranda, which influenced the final price of the instrument making it more accessible for performers of rural and humble origin who were dedicated to flamenco. On the other hand, the percussive sound with great attack was sufficient and appropriate to accompany the cante in the bustling Madrid cafes where flamenco began to spread. The truth is that, as the flamenco guitar began to assume a leading role as a solo instrument, it moved closer to the classical guitar, in search of a more full-bodied sound and using other woods besides cypress (black flamenco guitars), although They have retained certain aesthetic characteristics such as the wooden pegs, and mechanical ones such as the low action of the strings.

Basically, it is made up of the soundboard, the neck, the bridge, the fingerboard, the frets, the strings and the headstock. However, some guitarists have customized their guitars and may have more than one fingerboard or exceed 6 strings. The most popular 7-strings are used in Brazilian popular music, the 8-string popularized by the great José Tomás, or the 10-string by Narciso Yepes. However, it is not a general issue. During the 19th century there were guitars of many different types, such as harp-guitars with many strings.

Even recently and with sonority and volume criteria, the Uruguayan guitarist Abel Carlevaro patented a model in which the volume of the body was increased by eliminating the upper oval of the guitar, and the hole of the soundboard was dispensed with, to that it had a larger vibration surface, and therefore better sound and higher volume. However, the model that has always prevailed over the last two centuries is still the conventional 6-string guitar and the 8-string that we all recognise.

After all the elements that make up the sound box have been glued together, it is joined to the handle and reinforcements are included around the two covers (valances), in the center of the bottom and in the lower and upper joints of the hoops. Subsequently the fingerboard adheres. Between the neck and the pegbox is placed the nut that serves to support and separate the strings. The capo is usually made of ivory, bone, plastic or even metal, depending on the quality of the instrument.

Once all the elements that form it have been joined, it is varnished. There are two ways to carry out this process, a more expensive and laborious one that consists of varnishing the instrument by hand with shellac; and the other to varnish it with a polyurethane-based gun that dries quickly. The drawback of the latter method is that the varnish forms a plate on the soundboard that dulls the sound of the instrument.

Later, the fingerboard is flattened and the frets are placed, which are usually made of nickel silver or brass. It is extremely important that the fretting is perfect since the tuning of the guitar depends on it. Then, in the lower part of the soundboard, the pegs and strings are placed. In the old days the strings were made of animal gut but on modern guitars they are made of nylon.

Strings

Classical guitar strings vary in materials and tension level providing different qualities to the sound. As for the materials, there are several variants, but the most frequent are: Clean nylon, which is the most common and has a good sustain (which maintains the sound), a rich and balanced sound, and easy vibrato; and those made of carbon fiber (it is usually widely used by concert guitarists), which provides a strong and bright sound, good duration, stable tuning, although resistance and sustain are low and the sound is less rich. On the other hand, in terms of voltage level, the most common are low, medium and high. In the past, strings made with animal gut were common, but today they are in disuse due to the better performance and lower price offered by nylon. The lower strings also have a wound usually made of bronze or nickel.

Other guitars, such as acoustic or electric, usually have strings made entirely of metal, also wound on the lowest.

Soundboard

The soundboard is made up of the back, the soundboard and the side rings. The first two are flat. The back can be made of rosewood (there are many varieties such as Indian or Bahia), walnut, and even local woods are currently used. While the top can be made of pine, fir, cedar or, sometimes, cypress. The soundboard has a perforation in its intermediate part, called "mouth", adorned with the so-called "rosette" which can be built by the luthier himself (and, in fact, many times the drawings made on the rosette act as a hallmark of each luthier) or mass-produced. The top is reinforced by between five to nine thin wooden bars that are called "spinets". These spinets are arranged on the inside and are fan-shaped (although luthiers have now begun to experiment with other arrangements, combining the use of balsa wood with synthetic materials in order to achieve better sound distribution and vibration on the top).. The number of double crochet inside a guitar depends on the maker of the guitar. The sides are two long, narrow pieces made of the same wood as the back, fire-curved and joined at the top and bottom ends of the box. Its union is secured inside with two wooden blocks, one at the base of the handle and the other on the opposite side. The rings are reinforced along their internal part with two strips of wood that are called "contrafajas".

Neck

The neck is made of cedar or walnut or pine wood and is made up of the headstock, the neck and the keel or sock. In modern guitars the tuning pegs are enclosed within metal machine heads, unlike the method used in earlier guitars which consisted of inserting the tuning pegs directly into the wood of the headstock. The headstock is located at the end of the fingerboard. Modern machine heads have two vertical cuts and are prepared to receive the bones, which are the small pieces on which the strings are wound. The metal pegs are on the outside of the headstock and are used to tune the instrument through the tension they exert on the strings. Its tension can be modified for tuning by means of a system of endless screws driven by the pegs, which involve small rollers on which the strings are wrapped. These then pass through the upper bridge, in which small grooves are dug that guide each string towards the fingerboard until it reaches the headstock. The pegbox can also be called headstock or machinery; the tuning of the guitar strings depends on this mechanism.

The longest part of the neck is called the neck and is covered with the fingerboard, which is a piece of wood, usually rosewood or ebony, on which the fingers press the guitar strings. The keel or sock is the base of the neck that is fixed to the soundboard.

History

Collection of guitars of the Museum of Music of Barcelona.

Illustration of a perndola rap, instrument of a century caroling salterIX.

Origin

The origins and evolution of the guitar and its family are not very clear, since numerous similar instruments were used in antiquity, so it is usual to follow the trajectory of this instrument through pictorial and sculptural representations found throughout throughout history. There is archaeological evidence in bas-reliefs found in Alaça Hüyük (north of present-day Turkey) that around the year 1000 B.C. C. the Hittites and Assyrians created stringed instruments similar to the lyre (the simplest and oldest multi-stringed instrument in the world) but with the addition of a sound box, so they would be predecessors of the guitar. Depictions resembling the guitar have also been found in ancient Egyptian drawings.

There are several hypotheses about its origins. One of them gives him a Greco-Latin origin and affirms that he is a descendant of the fidicula. Another of the most popular considers that the guitar is an instrument introduced by the Arabs during the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula and that later evolved in Spain.

Both hypotheses have their etymological reason. Apparently the first chordophones reached the Greeks, who slightly distorted their name, kithára or kettarah. According to Corominas, the accentuation reveals the origin of the word in Greek kithára. The word cíthara that would later derive in zither and finally cedra in Spanish seems to be used for the instrument without a handle (more similar to the lyre), while it is supposed that the Greek word would have been used for the instrument to which a handle would have been added at the beginning of our era. Many scholars and musicologists attribute the arrival of the guitar to Spain through the Roman Empire in the year 400.

The other hypothesis has its etymological foundation in the Arabic word for guitar, qīṯārah, which, although equally originating from Greek, could have been introduced by the Arab conquerors and not by the Romans. There is also an Arabist hypothesis about the origin of the lute that maintains that the first instrument with a neck was the Arab ud, whose name the Spanish ended up erroneously fusing with its article: «la ud» feminine became the masculine "lute". It was precisely the Arabs who introduced the instrument to Spain, where it evolved according to the musical tastes of the mob under Arab domination.

In India these instruments were known in Sanskrit as the sitar (instrument descended from the vina), a word that comes from two Indo-European words that would give rise to the Spanish word "guitar": the root guīt (producing the Sanskrit words guitá: 'song' (as in the Bhagavad-guitá, the 'song of the Lord'), or sangīt: 'music') and the root tar, meaning 'string' or 'chord'.

Middle Ages

A Moorish guitar or handler.

In the 11th and XII two types of "guitars" or "guiternes". On the one hand, the Moorish or mandora, with an oval shape of half a pear and that resembles the Arab lute and the mandolin. On the other hand, the Latin guitar, an evolution of the old cedras, citolas and zithers, with a flat bottom, joined by rings with a long handle and whose headstock was similar to that of the violin. The first of them agrees with the hypothesis of the oriental origin of the guitar, a kind of Assyrian lute that would have spread through Persia and Arabia, until reaching Spain during the Islamic presence in the Iberian Peninsula. The second would reinforce the hypothesis of the Greco-Latin origin of the instrument. Both types are represented in the miniatures of the Cantigas de Santa María by Alfonso X el Sabio, from 1270, although one of the oldest surviving representations is in Western Europe, in a Passionary of the abbey from Zwiefalten, from the year 1180.

In the 14th century, French medieval poets Guillaume de Machaut and Eustache Deschamps name the &# 34;guiterna", without specifying the type.

The Latin guitar evolved to give rise to two different instruments: the vihuela, which had six courses (double strings) and was widely distributed among the aristocracy and troubadours and professional musicians; and the guitar, of four orders and of more popular use.

16th century

Three music books in figure for smallpox, published in 1546 by Alonso Mudarra, contains the first four-order guitar work.

In the XVI century, numerous compositions for guitar began to be written. This great production has Spain as its center.

The first known work for four-course guitar appears in the work Tres libros de música en cifra para vihuela, published in 1546 by Alonso Mudarra in Seville. At that time it was common to confuse the names of these instruments, and it was at the end of the century when they began to differentiate. The guitar was used mainly as an accompaniment instrument and mainly with the strumming technique.

17th century

The oldest treatise on the Spanish guitar was published in Barcelona in 1596 by Juan Carlos Amat under the title Five-order Spanish guitar... In 1606 Girolamo Montesardo published the first in Bologna great work for guitar entitled Nuova inventione d'involatura per sonare Il balletti sopra la chitarra espagnuola and G. A. Colonna Intavolatura di chitarra alla spagnuola in 1620.

Although all countries claim their involvement in the invention of the guitar (with special mention of France), aspects such as shape, structure and tuning derive directly from the guitar as the Iberian violeros designed it, without forgetting from Europeans such as Johan Stauffer, from whom the designs of his disciple C. F. Martin derive. The inclusion of the fifth string is attributed to the musician and poet from Málaga Vicente Espinel, (Ronda, 1550). Lope de Vega, but it was refuted by Nicolao Dolci de Velasco (1640) and by Gaspar Sanz (1684) in their treatises on the Spanish guitar. They support their affirmations in the fact that eleven years before the birth of Espinel, Bermudo mentioned a guitar with five courses. However, although Espinel was not the inventor of the Spanish guitar with five courses, he was probably the one who was most in charge of its popular dissemination in all social classes in Spain. Gaspar Sanz says about it in the prologue of his book Music instruction on the Spanish guitar:

The Italians, French and other nations, the Spanish gradúan to the guitar, the reason is because he had only four strings and in Madrid the master Espinel, Spanish, increased the fifth and for this, as from here, his perfection originated. The French, Italian and other nations in imitation of ours, also added to their guitar the fifth and for this they call it Spanish Guitar.

The New method by number for playing a five-string guitar published in 1630 Doici de Velasco is the oldest known and in it he states:

In France, Italy and other countries, the guitar is called Spanish since Espinel placed the fifth string, being as perfect as the laúd, the harp, the tiorba and the clavicordio and even more abundant than these.

Gaspar Sanz, Music instruction on the Spanish guitar1674.

Other authors contributed significantly to literature on the guitar, such as Luis de Briceño in 1626, Lucas Ruiz de Ribayaz and Francisco Guerau, among others. In the Iberian Peninsula the guitar was already widely used at the end of the XVII century, when Gaspar Sanz composed his Instruction of music on the Spanish guitar and method from its first rudiments, until playing it with skill. Previously there were nine-string guitars: a simple string and four "orders".

In any case, it seems clear that it was in Spain where it became natural, because unlike guitars built in other countries and places in Europe, where guitars were made overloaded with inlays and decorations that made it almost impossible to play, the Spanish guitar was made to be played and it was so popular that even Sebastián de Covarrubias, chaplain to Felipe II and a Spanish lexicographer, went so far as to say: "The guitar is not worth more than a cowbell, it is so easy to play that there is no peasant who is not a guitarist".

18th and 19th centuries

Start of the 18th century Jacob Otto adds the sixth string to the guitar and modern tuning is standardized, the biggest change significant suffered by this instrument. In the middle of the XIX century, the history of the modern guitar reached its peak with the Spanish Francisco Tárrega, creator of the modern school. and author of the change in the use of the positioning of the hands and the way of plucking the strings.

Romantic guitar. About 1830.

Late 18th century and early XIX, some guitars used six single strings and employed bracing under the soundboard. These bars were added to strengthen the structure and allowed the top to be thinned for greater resonance and better sound distribution along the soundboard. Other contemporary developments include the use of a raised, reinforced neck using ebony or rosewood, and the introduction of a metal screw mechanism in place of the wooden tuning pegs. It is important to note that the raised storage room has had a great impact on the technique of the instrument because the strings were too far from the soundboard in such a way that one of the fingers of the right hand had to be supported to support the others. These guitars would be unmistakably recognized as early classical guitars.

At the beginning of the XIX century, in the works of the Spaniards Agustín Caro, Manuel González, Antonio de Lorca, Manuel Gutiérrez and other European builders including René Lacote and the Viennese Johann Stauffer find the characteristics of the most direct precursors of the modern classical guitar. Johann Stauffer has a legendary reputation. In his shop, he learned to build guitars from C. F. Martin, who would later move to the United States and whose firm continues to build guitars today. He also developed the raised storage room, at the request of Luigi Legnani, the guitarist and first performer of the concertos of the Genoese violinist Niccolò Paganini. His other advancements in guitar construction include an adjustable, steel-reinforced neck and the worm-drive tuners still used on modern guitars.

In the XIX century, the guitar begins to approach the shape and dimensions of today. In the south of Spain, some builders such as Manuel Soto and Solares began to build instruments of great value and it was around 1850 when the work of Antonio de Torres began, who would eventually be the guitar maker who would set the standard measurements of the modern instrument. With the support of Julián Arcas, both from Almería, and his own brilliant intuitions, Antonio Torres Jurado refined the structural supports of the guitar, including seven extended rods under the soundboard. He also increased the size of the soundboard and the width of the neck. These innovations influenced the improvement of sound volume and bass response as well as the discovery of a technique for the left hand for the enrichment of the repertoire. Now the guitar was already prepared for both the demands of the soloist and for those of the instrumental ensemble. The construction tradition in Almería has been maintained to this day with builders such as Gerundino Fernández García and Juan Miguel González.

20th century

The Spanish luthier José Ramírez III together with the guitarist Narciso Yepes added four more strings in the bass, on a wide neck whose multiple frets allow to significantly expand the range of sounds of the left hand. Narciso Yepes played this ten-string guitar for the first time in Berlin in 1964 and, from that year on, it was his usual instrument in concerts, specializing in Renaissance and Baroque pieces.

Guitar, ukelele and charango.

Guitar Types

There are innumerable types of guitars, although today we could differentiate two basic types: the classical Spanish guitar and the flamenco Spanish guitar. The flamenco guitar as it is understood today, has a slightly smaller sound box than the classical one, and uses different woods in its construction (traditionally cypress) but both are Spanish guitars. There are a few other variations that make your playing more percussive.

A variety of the Spanish guitar is the acoustic guitar, whose main difference is the material of its strings, which is metal instead of gut or nylon and the size of the body that gives it better acoustics than the classic guitar. It comes from the United States.^{[citation needed]} It is usually larger and over time evolved to adopt a system powered by electricity (electrical pills), giving rise to the electric guitar.

Acoustic guitar

Saxon guitar.

Saxon Guitar

The Saxon guitar is a type of acoustic guitar with metal strings, whose sound is generated by the vibration of the strings that are amplified in a wooden or acrylic acoustic box. The adjective "Saxon" It is taken directly from the English steel-string acoustic guitar due to the use that Anglophones make of this adjective, to differentiate it from classical guitar. It is clearly redundant, since the guitar, by definition, is an acoustic instrument. The acoustic guitar derives from the designs of C. F. Martin and Orville Gibson, primarily American luthiers who were active primarily in the late 19th century span>. They are also known as western guitars (literally "western guitars"), which is closer to their nature and the kind of music that made them popular.

Like the Spanish ones, these guitars are so called because they emit their sound without any type of electrical amplification, only by transduction of mechanical force.

Flamenco guitar

Flamenco guitar with two beaters

In Spain there is a very widespread variant, similar to the classical guitar, which is difficult to distinguish with the naked eye, known as flamenco guitar or flamenco guitar. It varies its sound by a slightly different construction and the use of different types of wood. The flamenco guitar has a more percussive sound, its body is a little narrower, and generally the strings are closer to the fingerboard to facilitate its playing.

The flamenco guitar has less sound and offers less volume than a Spanish concert guitar, but its sound is brighter, and its playing is easier and faster, due to the shorter distance from the strings to the fingerboard, which allows that less pressure can be made with the fingers of the left hand on the fingerboard. Traditionally the tuning pegs were completely made of wood and were embedded in the head of the guitar perpendicular to it. Today some builders can use modern mechanical machine heads, but that imitate the old ones, thus combining the precision of modernity while keeping the traditional aesthetics. It usually has a pickguard, pickguard or protector (sometimes also a superior one) under the rosette or hole, to prevent the strumming and blows that occur on the soundboard, so typical in flamenco, from affecting the wood.

The flamenco guitar has traditionally had a clear function of accompanying singing and dancing. It was only in the 1970s that concert flamenco guitar was recognized, thanks to the guitarist from Algeciras Paco de Lucía.

Italian guitar

Battery cap

The Italian guitar (chitarra battente) is a type of traditional guitar from southern Italy (Calabria, Puglia, Basilicata, Abruzzo, Molise and Campania). It has been around since the XIV century and one of its distinctive characteristics is that it has the shape of an elongated eight.

Electric guitar

Electric Guitar Brand Epiphone Model Les Paul.

An electric guitar is a guitar with one or more electromagnetic transducers called pickups or microphones that convert the vibrations of the strings into electrical signals capable of being amplified and processed.

There are three fundamental types of electric guitars: those with a solid body, those with a semi-solid body and those with a hollow body. Historically, the first to be invented were those with a hollow body, as they were derived from box guitars to which a microphone was incorporated to be able to be heard in jazz bands.

Solid body guitars lack a soundboard, so the body is a solid piece (almost always made of wood, but there are some plastic or metal cases -especially experimental ones- in which the pickups are embedded.

Semi-solid body electric guitars are sometimes characterized by externally shaped "f' holes, similar to the soundboards of violins and other acoustic instruments. Semi-solid guitars have a center block to prevent feedback or feedback.

Some electric guitars also have a system that, by operating a lever on the bridge, generates a vibrato effect. The electric guitar always needs to be connected to an amplifier or amplification system, by means of a cable.

Among the recognized manufacturers of this type of guitar are brands such as Rickenbacker, Gibson, B. C. Rich, Fender, Epiphone, Squier, Ibanez, PRS, Jackson, Parker, Cort, Yamaha, Dean, ESP, Schecter, among others.

Electroacoustic guitar

An electro-acoustic guitar is an acoustic guitar to which pickups, microphones, or transducers have been added to amplify its sound. They are also called electrified guitars, a term that we must consider synonymous, and which highlights the fact that the preamp system may have been installed at the source or by the user himself.

The electrification of a body guitar makes the use of the external microphone unnecessary, since it is connected like an electric guitar to an amplifier. This greatly avoids feedback and makes recordings easier for the sound engineer. However, the sound is not exactly the same, since the microphone that picks up the sound is inside the box and not outside, which is where the actual sound of the guitar is heard.

The difference between an electroacoustic guitar with metal strings and an electric guitar with a box (which are the ones commonly used in jazz) is above all the type of transducer: in the first one It uses a piezoelectric transducer, which gives a more crystalline, sharp and natural sound; Electromagnetic transducers are incorporated into the electric guitar, which give a different sound, more loaded with medium frequencies.

MIDI Guitar

They are special guitars or adapters for conventional guitars that allow you to control a synthesizer via MIDI (data transmission protocol that allows you to send musical information between different devices connected by cables). In this way, a guitarist who has no ability to play a keyboard or electronic organ can trigger them from a MIDI guitar.

A basic technique is to use a monophonic audio-to-MIDI converter taking the guitar's audio signal by placing a microphone in the guitar's sound hole or through its audio output. More sophisticated bridges are also marketed that can detect the vibration of each string separately in such a way that they can play chords, that is, they have 6-voice polyphony or simultaneity of note firing.

Renaissance and Baroque Guitars

Detail The guitarist, by Johannes Vermeer (1672), where you can see a young man playing a baroque guitar.

The Renaissance guitar and the Baroque guitar are the instruments that were played during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. These are ancestors of classical guitars. In recent years, the construction of modern reproductions of these instruments with which music of the time is usually performed has proliferated. They are more delicate guitars and produce a weaker sound, because the construction techniques used did not allow the instrument to have the firmness of current guitars. The strings supported much less tension and therefore its volume is much smaller. They are easier to distinguish from other guitars, since their body is thinner and flatter and in many cases they usually have very profuse ornamentation, which often even covers the hole of the soundboard with decorative rosettes of great beauty.

Peasant guitar (viola caipira)

This guitar, common in Brazilian folklore, is smaller in size than a Spanish guitar, although its proportions are similar. It consists of five orders of metallic strings that, unlike acoustic guitars, are pressed with the fingernails. It can be tuned in numerous ways, open tunings being common.

Russian guitar

This guitar has seven strings instead of six. The tuning of this guitar is completely different from the Spanish one; traditionally, an open tuning in G major is used. Another popular Russian instrument is the balalaika, which, although it has a plucked string, is not very similar in shape or playing technique to the guitar, since it has three strings and two with the same tuning.

Variations on the traditional guitar

Electric guitarshorizontal

Since its beginnings, the guitar was the object of extensive experimentation, and only a part of these instruments are still used today, even marginally.

The first guitars had four strings as the instruments from which it came, then a fifth was added and later a sixth (the bass string), which ended up being the standard six-string model.

One of the most frequent variations is to increase the number of strings. For example, doubling their number, from six to twelve; the usual six, individually coupled to their respective octave (except for the two highest pitched ones, which are duplicated in unison). In addition to the twelve-string guitar, the four-string tenor guitar (used among others by jazz guitarist Tiny Grimes) is relatively important.

Narciso Yepes popularized a ten-string guitar, trying to add strings to be able to play the repertoire of the baroque lute, a multi-stringed instrument. Many of his disciples adopted his technique, although today there are not many, we can still find guitarists who play the guitar repertoire on this instrument.

It has nothing to do with the design issue that some players adjust their instrument to their playing, such as the members of the rock group The Presidents of the United States of America, who use a guitar on which three of the six strings have been removed, and a two-string bass. In the same way, Keith Richards (guitarist for The Rolling Stones), often removes the low E string from his guitars.

A man plays a dobro in Recife

You can also cite:

• The fretless guitar (without transts), whose mast is completely smooth, without frets, with which the notes are obtained in the form of a cello (the tuning is not given by the traste, but must be “searched”). Fretless bass are more common.
• The baritone guitar, which has six strings but a longer shot.
• The guitars for learning, of reduced dimensions (size 1/2 or 3/4), to facilitate their execution by children
• The guitar with double fingerboard. It allows to play with two different tunings (alternatively or even simultaneously) during the same work, without having to change guitar. Most of the Double guitars They have a guitar with twelve strings and the other with six strings. There are other versions like Mike Rutherford's instrument, Genesis bass player, which is a twelve guitar glued to a bass, or the case of the Argentine bass player Javier Malosetti who uses a five-string bass attached to a 6-string guitar.
• The electric guitar without a pin, built since the mid-1980s by Steinberger. The claw is on the guitar bridge, instead of being in the head.
• The guitar slides or horizontal guitar. It is used almost always with slide or metal or glass tube that covers the whole finger. Very used by David Gilmour, Pink Floyd guitarist.
• Silent Guitar. A bodyless guitar created by Yamaha designed to travel, which is also very silent; its models have nylon or steel strings.
• The seven-string guitar. In addition to the six guitar strings, a seventh string, more serious, is incorporated. The seventh string note is a SI. There are also eight-string guitars with the same idea. There are even guitars with other instruments incorporated in the guitar body as the Pikasso guitar that has 42 strings (from Pat Metheny).
• The Foldaxe, folding guitar invented by Roger Field for Chet Atkins to travel (in the book Me and My Guitars Atkins.
• The dinarra, a dynamic microtonal guitar.
• The guitar-lira, guitar of variable size with the shape of a Greek kithara, of 6 or 7 orders, simple or double. Very popular at the end of the centuryXIX.
• The guitar arpa (harp guitar), guitar with a claw added of five or six more strings to make the bass, and also another entry to the resonance box that, to which is also made an aggregate in the form of a wavy arm.
• The synthesizing guitar (guitar synth), which turns out to be a guitar with a built-in synthesizer.

The contemporary guitar

Currently the field of guitar luthiery has had a great development as a result of the various experiments carried out by different luthiers. This is partly due to the search for greater sound projection, but also to the search for a timbre more in keeping with contemporary guitar music (thus escaping the sweet and friendly sound of the traditional guitar). Some of the changes that it has undergone have occurred in the development of the neck, which began to have fixed tensioners (and in some cases adjustable), and even a slight inclination to improve the action of the strings. Also, in some cases, the return from the soundhole to the rim has been moved so that the player has a clearer idea of what is playing. The guitar tops also underwent changes in their construction, such as the use of "Nomex" epoxy bonded to achieve greater strength on soundboards (which are starting to get thinner and lighter) without losing flexibility. Regarding the sides and backs, work has been done on models with double sides and double back, as well as armrest systems in order to avoid the contact of the guitar with the body and thus achieve more sustain in the notes.

Tuning

The strings of the guitar are numbered from the bottom up - from the highest to the lowest, with ordinal numbers: first string or first string, second string, third string, etc. They are also named by their pitch note, just like the violin, viola, cello, and double bass:

1. the rope me (the first rope, tuned in my₄);
2. The rope Yeah. (the second string, tuned in Yeah.₃);
3. The rope Sun (the third string, tuned in Sun₃);
4. The rope re (the fourth string, tuned in re₃);
5. The rope the (the fifth string, tuned in the₂);
6. The rope my (the sixth string, tuned in my₂).

The same tuning of the four low strings lowered one octave (from the third to the sixth) is the corresponding one for the bass.

In some works, the composer asks the guitarist to lower the sixth string two semitones (that is, one tone) ―from e₂ to re i>₂―.

In sheet music, strings are named with the number of the string around a circle.

The three lowest strings ―the fourth, fifth and sixth strings and, particularly, the latter― are called “bordones”, because “bordonear” is the execution of a bass accompanying a piece of music.

You can also change the tonalities of the strings by placing a capo that is placed one fret higher for each semitone that you want to increase. For example, if a capo is placed on the first fret, the tuning would be as follows: fa₄, c₄, sol♯₃, re♯₃, the♯₂, and fa ₂.

The ten-string guitar is like the sum of a common six-string guitar and a double bass (usually tuned one low octave: sol₂, d ₂, the₁ and my₁).

Table showing the classical tempering E, B, G, D, A, E per string and on each of the first 12 frets:

Basic tuning method for 6-string guitars

The classic method for tuning a guitar is by ear. To do this, a series of rules must be followed:

• fits a string, preferably the 5.a, to our taste or with some reference if it is to be played accompanied (It is usually adjusted to 110 Hz);
• Now, the 6th string stepped on the 5th traste sounds just like the 5th string played in the air;
• the 5th string in the 5th fret sounds just like the 4th string in the air;
• the 4th string in the 5th fret sounds just like the 3rd string in the air;
• The 3rd string in the 4th traste sounds just like the 2nd rope in the air (it is important to remember this difference);
• The 2nd string in the 5th fret sounds just like the 1st string played in the air.

This way of tuning is called «by unisons» but it can also be tuned "by harmonics" or combine both methods.

Possible references to refine

The guitar can also be tuned with respect to:

• a fingerboard or whistle (acoustic tools that offer a the to guide the tuner;
• an electronic tuner or computer program;
• the sound of the phone signal (also a the);
• other instruments.

Mnemonics

When tuning the guitar, there are mnemonics that make it easier to remember which note is the one that sounds in the open on each guitar string. Three of them are the following phrases (starting with the lowest string, the sixth):

• «Myfrog, the reIna, Sunia Yeah.(for the five most severe ropes);
• «Myenter Laura reGaba, SunAge Yeah.Just myraba" (for the six strings).
• «Myra the restatus Sunar Yeah.n me.» (in the same way for the six strings)

Cut on the box for high notes

Hollow guitar for acute notes

The shape of guitars is not always symmetrical. Electric guitars and some acoustic and classical guitars usually have a kind of curve to facilitate access to the frets closest to the sound hole, to reach the highest notes. This cutaway in the box is often called a cutaway. Depending on whether the guitarist is right-handed or left-handed, the guitar will be built with the cutaway located on one side or the other of the soundboard.

Execution

Arbusto decorated with a guitar

Technical fret tapping: both hands write notes on the fingerboard. Van Halen popularized this technique in the 1970s.

The guitar is played with the sound box resting on the lap, with the neck or fingerboard to the left. This causes the lower strings to be on top and the higher strings to be on the bottom.

To play the guitar, place the fingers of the left hand (the right hand for left-handers) on the strings, pressing them against the fingerboard between the frets just after the one that will delimit the vibrating string segment, so that it remains free the length corresponding to the desired musical note.

Once the length of all the strings or the strings to be plucked has been set in this way, the right hand strums, plucks, or arpeggiates them, using the fingers or a pick, generating a melody if it plays a sound at a time, one chord if two or more sounds are played, or one harmony if that chord is arpeggiated.

A variety of techniques are often used on the electric guitar. These include tapping (popularized by Eddie Van Halen), sweep picking (Yngwie Malmsteen, Jason Becker), palm mute, etc

Guitars and lefties

Example of left hand movement

Illustration of the centuryXVIII by touching a sitar

Just as in some instruments, see the piano or the flute, they vary little depending on the laterality of the performer, others such as the guitar and the strings of the orchestra, violins, violas, cellos and double basses perform a task with each hand very different. On this subject there are conflicting positions without ever reaching an agreement regarding the advantage or disadvantage of changing the common way of playing with the guitar neck to the left.

With guitar for right-handers

A few examples of left-handed guitarists playing "right-handed" with normal guitars:

• Juanjo Domínguez (n. 1951), folk and Argentine tanguero.
• Noel Gallagher (n. 1967), British band lead guitarist rock Oasis.
• Charly García (n. 1951), Argentine Techlist and Guitarist rock.
• Mark Knopfler (n. 1949), British band guitarist rock Dire Straits.
• Gary Moore (1952-2011).
• Gustavo Cerati (1959-2014), guitarist of the Argentine band rock Soda Stereo
• Janick Gers (n. 1957), British band guitarist heavy metal Iron Maiden.

With left-handed guitar

There are also many left-handed guitarists who play with a "symmetrical" or sometimes "turned", with the neck on the right-hand side and placing the strings in such a way that the snares are on the treble.

In the event that the guitarist wants to use a guitar with a cutaway (a hole in the body that allows the highest notes to be played better), the construction of the instrument is usually special for lefties, with the controls, outputs, headstock and guitar shape cutouts and arrangements made as a mirror image of a common guitar. These guitarists are not usually able to play with ordinary guitars.

• Paul McCartney (n. 1942), bassist and composer of The Beatles.
• Atahualpa Yupanqui (1908-1992), Argentine folk singer.
• Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970)
• Kurt Cobain (1967-1994), leader, composer, vocalist and guitarist of the American band grunge Nirvana.
• Tony Iommi (n. 1948), guitarist and founder of the Black Sabbath heavy metal band
• Zacky Vengeance (n. 1981), rhythmic guitarist of the heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold
• Cameron Liddell (n. 1989), rhythmic guitarist of the metalcore band Asking Alexandria

With a right-handed guitar turned with the strings not reversed

There is a third option, although few left-handed guitarists—playing the guitar backwards (with the neck to the right)—keep the strings as they are in the normal order of the guitar, although the low strings are below the treble. This involves learning new finger positions to play the same chords and playing reversing the gesture of strumming and picking: instead of strumming normally down, they strum up. These guitarists can play on regular guitars.

Here is a list of guitarists who play that way:

• Albert King (1924-1992)
• Dick Dale (1937-2019)
• Otis Rush (1935-2018)
• Santiago Feliú (1963-2014)