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{gi-tar'}
The guitar is a chordophone (stringed musical instrument)
with a neck. Classified as a "short lute" (see STRINGED
INSTRUMENTS), the guitar is distinguished from other members
of this family (the LUTE proper, the MANDOLIN, etc.) by its
flat back, incurving sides, and flat peg disk with rear tuning
pegs. The modern guitar has six strings; the upper three are
made of gut or nylon, the lower three of silk overspun with
metal--or all may be of metal. The strings are stretched over
a fingerboard on the neck that has fixed metal frets; to the
end of the neck is attached the peg disc, or "tuning
head," which is fitted with mechanical tuning pins. The
body is composed of a spruce soundboard and parallel hardwood
back separated by curved hardwood ribs. A circular sound hole
pierces the soundboard between the end of the fingerboard
and the bridge to which the strings are fastened. Guitars
are traditionally played with the bare fingers, but those
strung in metal are usually played with a plectrum. The standard-size
modern guitar is approximately 90 cm (3 ft) in overall length
and is actually the bass member of a complete choir of variously
sized instruments that are still in use in Spain.
Although guitar-shaped lutes have been noted in iconography
and in examples from excavations in Egypt between the 4th
and 8th centuries AD, and even earlier in Western Asia, it
was in the late Middle Ages that the guitar emerged in Europe.
Cognate with the ancient Greek KITHARA through the Arabic
qitara, the word guitar was first used generically to refer
to a number of plucked chordophones. In Renaissance Spain,
where by the late 15th century the flat-backed, six-coursed
vihuela had displaced the lute as the dominant plucked instrument,
a smaller version of the vihuela with four courses (pairs
of strings tuned in unison) came to be referred to specifically
as the guitar. While the vihuela's popularity was limited
to Spain, the simpler guitar quickly gained acceptance all
over Europe as an accompanying instrument and as a more easily
played alternative to the lute. Late in the 16th century in
Spain a fifth course was added, and the five-course guitar
became widely popular in the rest of Europe during the 17th
and 18th centuries. These early guitars had somewhat smaller
bodies with less incurved waists than the modern instrument.
During the early 19th century in Spain the guitar underwent
a transformation that included the adoption of six single
strings, more pronounced "bouts" or bulges in the
sides of the larger body, and mechanical (geared) tuning pegs.
Antonio de Torres Jurado (1817-92) is credited with consolidating
these advances into the coherent and elegant design that has
been the basis for the sweetly voiced modern classical guitar,
as well as with establishing the modern form of the flamenco
guitar with its smaller, lighter body and more brilliant sound.
Variants of the guitar with metal strings passed in and out
of fashion during the instrument's long history in Europe,
but it was in the United States in the early 20th century
that the steel-strung guitar with its greater volume and "twangier"
sound came to be preferred as the favorite popular instrument.
The "arch-top" guitar developed by Orville Gibson
introduced a violin-type arched soundboard to withstand the
greater downbearing of the steel strings. This instrument
was particularly popular in bands and orchestras of the 1920s
and 1930s. The "flat-top" steel-strung guitar, as
developed especially by the Martin Company, of Nazareth, Pa.,
around the turn of the century, is a slightly larger, more
heavily built version of the classical guitar; it has become
the favorite instrument of folk and popular singers, particularly
since World War II.
Experimentation in the 1920s led to the development of the
electric guitar. As developed in the 1930s and '40s, this
instrument was a steel-strung acoustic guitar with an electromagnetic
pick-up connected to an electronic amplification system. Pioneered
by Les Paul in the 1940s, the solid-body electric guitar with
its limitless volume and great sustaining power became increasingly
popular from the 1950s with the advent of rock music.
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