Guitar

The classical guitar typically has nylon strings.

The acoustic guitar features steel strings and more guide dots on the fretboard.

A guitar is a stringed musical instrument played with the fingers or a plectrum (guitar pick). The sound is produced by vibrating strings.

Guitars have a body (which is hollow for acoustic guitars, and solid for most electric guitars) and a neck or fingerboard. At the extremity of the neck is generally a machine head for tuning.

Guitars may be acoustic, or electric (with electrical amplification), or a combination.

Guitars are used in a wide variety of musical styles. They are made and repaired by luthiers.

Contents

1 History

2 Parts of the guitar

2.1 Headstock
2.2 Machine head or tuners
2.3 Nut
2.4 Frets
2.5 Fingerboard
2.6 Truss rod
2.7 Inlays
2.8 Neck
2.9 Neck joint
2.10 Body (acoustic)
2.11 Body (electric)
2.12 Sound hole
2.13 Pickups
2.14 Electronics
2.15 Purfling
2.16 Bridge
2.17 Pickguard

3 Strings and tuning

4 Acoustic and electric guitar

5 External links

History

Instruments like the guitar have been popular for at least 5,000 years; murals in Egypt show women playing instruments like the guitar from the time of the Pharaohs, but the name "guitar" appears first in Spain in the 13th century. It was probably a deriviation of the Arabic word qitara, the name of an instrument that was brought into Spain by the Moors after the 10th Century.

The Spanish vihuela appears to be an intermediate form, with lute-style tuning and a small guitar-style body, but it is not clear whether this represents a transitional form or simply a design that combined features from the two families of instruments.

Parts of the guitar

Headstock

The headstock is located at the extreme end of the guitar, and often contains the tuners, the nut, and some kind of decoration. This decoration usually indicates the maker or model of the guitar.

Machine head or tuners

Tuners are sometimes gear driven and sometimes held in place by friction. Their function is to adjust the tension on each individual string, allowing the guitar to be tuned. These can be basic wood pegs as found on some classical guitars, and some can be very well engineered and ornate.

Nut

The nut is a small strip of ivory, plastic, graphite, or other medium-hard material. The nut maintains the spacing of the strings at the headstock end of the fretboard, and also helps determine the height of the strings above the fingerboard.

Frets

Frets are used to separate the neck into individual notes. They are made of metal, usually a nickel alloy, and imbedded into the fingerboard. Proper spacing and installation are critical to the intonation, playability, and quality of the guitar. Frets are usually the first part to wear out on an often played guitar. They can be re-shaped to a certain extent, but if they are too worn, they can be replaced.

Fingerboard

Sometimes called the fretboard, the finger board is the mostly flat surface that the hand selects notes and chords on, as seen by the audience when facing a guitar player. The predominant woods used in fingerboards are rosewood, ebony, and maple. The fingerboard is actually what allows the guitarist to play notes properly. On a correctly set up guitar, the string, once pressed down behind the fret, should touch the fingerboad, and play a tone that is in tune with the rest of the instrument.

Truss rod

The truss rod allows a slim piece of wood to be used as the neck. Steel strings exert a lot of pressure, and plain wood at the thickness used in necks would warp or even break without reinforcement. The truss rod is a threaded steel rod that runs from the body to or past the nut. On many guitars, these can be adjusted to straighten out the neck after minor damage or environmental changes.

Inlays

These dots, diamond shapes, or letters and numbers found on the neck of the guitar. They are often done in plastic on guitars of recent vintage, but many older and newer high end instruments can have inlays made of mother of pearl, abalone, ivory, or any number of exotic materials. On some low end guitars, they're just painted.

There are single inlays on 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 15th, 17th, 19th and 21st frets, and double inlays on 12th and (if present) 24th frets.

Neck

The neck consists of the frets, tuners, headstock, truss rod, and fingerboard. The assembly of all of these items is considered the neck.

Neck joint

This is the point at which the neck connects to the body of the guitar. Some instruments may not have a joint here, as they are carved out of a solid piece of wood, incuding the neck. This is usually found on high end instruments.

Body (acoustic)

The body of the instrument is a major determination of the overall sound for acoustic guitars. Often made of maple or spruce, the acoustic guitar top is a finely crafted and engineered element. The back and sides are made out of a variety of woods, each chosen for particular sound qualities desired by the player. It is strengthened by internal bracing, decorated with inlays and purfling, and subjected to a lot of abuse. The use of a rounded plastic back on the body of the instrument has been successfully introduced by the Ovation company.

Body (electric)

Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood. This wood is rarely one solid piece, as laminating hardwoods in the proper way can produce a body of exceptional strength and superior tone. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies will consist of good sounding but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components.

Sound hole

Usually on acoustics, the sound hole allows the acoustic guitar to be played without amplification. It is normally a round hole in the top of the guitar, though some may have different shapes or multiple holes. This allows the vibrations from the back and sides of the guitar to be pushed forward, toward the listener.

Pickups

Usually the electric guitar, when played without an amplifier, is not very loud. The pickups allow the vibrations of the string to be amplified. Some acoustic guitars have microphones or pickups built into them as well for stage work. See pickups for a full explanation.

Electronics

These components and the wires that connect them allow the player to control some aspects of the sound like volume or tone. These at their simplest consist of passive components such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for assistance in tuning. In many cases the electronics have some sort of magnetic shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise.

Purfling

This is the decorative edge found around the body of an acoustic guitar. It's purpose is not merely decorative, however. Because of the construction methods, the edges of the body are typically the weakest point of the acoustic guitar. There is not much wood there, as the sides have to be thin to allow for bending, and the top and back have to be thin to allow the string vibrations to resonate. Trying to connect two thin pieces of wood at a 90 degree angle is an engineering challenge. So to help, the purfling is used. The corners are overbuilt, using a triangular piece of scored wood (called a kerfed lining) on the interior of the instrument to allow it to follow the contours, and is glued in place. During final construction, a small section of the outside corners is carved or routed out and then filled in with the purfling material. Today, it is almost exclusively high quality plastic. Once the purfling is glued in place, it is an intregal part of the guitar, and contributes greatly to it's durability, since plastic tends not to split as wood does when impacted.

Bridge

The main goal of bridge is to hold the other end of the string. From there, the variations are astounding. There is usually some method of adjusting the height of the string, and also for fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some allow for different tunings, some allow the player to pull the strings completely slack, then back up (also known as tremolo), and some allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button. But at its basic, it holds the other end of the string.

Pickguard

Often a piece of plastic or other laminated material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar. In some electric guitars (i.e. Stratocasters), the pickups and most of the electronics are mounted on the pickguard itself.

Strings and tuning

Guitars have frets on the fingerboard to fix the positions of notes and scales, which gives them equal temperament. Consequently, the ratio of the widths of two consecutive frets is $\sqrt[12]{2}$ , whose numeric value is 1.059463. The twelfth fret divides the string in two exact halves and the 24th fret (if present) divides the string in half yet again. Every twelve frets represents one octave.

Guitars usually have six strings, although there are variations on this, the most common being a twelve-string guitar, the seven string guitar, the ukulele, which has four strings, and the bass guitar, which usually has four strings but also exists in five, six, eight, and twelve-string versions. There are also more exotic models involving multiple necks and pickups. The vihuela was a guitar variation with six double strings made of gut, which emerged in 16th century Spain.

A variety of different tunings are used. The most common by far, known as "standard tuning", is (low to high) 'E-A-D-G-B-E'. Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise of both simple fingering for many chords, and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement.

Additionally, the separation of all adjacent string pairs, except one (g-b), by the same interval: a perfect fourth (equivalent to 5 frets' distance), yields a symmetry and intelligibility to fingering patterns in this tuning. The major third (four frets' distance) between the g and b strings, though undermining this clarity, facilitates the playing of many chords and scales as mentioned above, and, more generally, provides some diversity in fingering possibilities: many figures which are difficult to play on strings tuned a fourth apart are easy to play on strings tuned a third apart and vice versa.

Some common alternate tunings

E-A-d-f#-b-e which provides the same intervals as for a renaissance lute and so you can play with your guitar directly from tablature.
D-G-d-g-b-d, open g tuning commonly used for blues or slide guitar
D-A-d-f#-a-d, open d tuning commonly used in blues and folk
E-B-e-g#-b-e, open e tuning one step up from open D
D-A-d-g-b-e', the drop d tuning frequently used in folk music, and by metal and Alternative-rock bands
E-a-d-g-c'-f', all fourths tuning removes from the standard tuning the irregularity of the interval of a third between the fourth and fifth strings. The tuning is in fourths like that of the lowest four strings in standard tuning. With regular tunings like this, chords can simply be moved down or across the fretboard, dramatically reducing the number of different finger positions that need to be memorized. The disadvantage of all fourths is that not all major and minor chords can be played with all six strings at once.
C-G-d-a'-e'-b', all fifths tuning is in fifths like that of a mandolin or a violin and has a remarkably wide range.
C-G-d-a-e-g, the new standard tuning devised by Robert Fripp of King Crimson, used by most Guitar Craft students around the world. The tuning is like all fifths except the most treble string is dropped down from b' to g.
D-A-d-g-a-d' frequently used in Celtic music, and by artists such as Pierre Bensusan.

There are also tenor guitars, baritone guitars tuned ADGCEA (or GDGCDG, GDGCEA, GCGCEG, ...) a fifth lower than a normal guitar, treble guitars tuned a fourth higher than a standard (prime) guitar, and contrabass guitars, which are tuned one octave lower than prime guitars.

Acoustic and electric guitar

Broadly speaking, guitars can be divided into 2 categories:

Acoustic guitars: Unlike the electric guitar, the traditional guitar is not dependent on any external device for amplification. However, the unamplified guitar is not a loud instrument, that is, it cannot "compete" with other instruments commonly found in bands and orchestras, in terms of sheer audible volume. Many acoustic guitars are available today with built-in electronics to enable amplification. There are several subcategories within the acoustic guitar group: classical and flamenco guitars, both of which use nylon and composite strings, and steel string guitars, which includes the flat top, or "folk" guitar, the closely related twelve string guitar, and the arch top guitar. A recent arrival in the acoustic guitar group is the acoustic bass guitar, similar in tuning to the electric bass.
1. Renaissance and Baroque guitars: These are the gracile ancestors of the modern classical guitar. They are substantially smaller and more delicate than the classical guitar, and generate a much quieter sound. The strings are paired in courses as in a modern 12 string guitar, but they only have four or five courses of strings rather than six. They were more often used as rhythm instruments in ensembles than as solo instruments, and can often be seen in that role in early music performances. (Gaspar Sanz' Instrucción de Música sobre la Guitarra Española of 1674 constitutes the majority of the surviving solo corpus for the era.) Renaissance and Baroque guitars are easily distinguished because the Renaissance guitar is very plain and the Baroque guitar is very ornate, with inlays all over the neck and body, and a paper-cutout inverted "wedding cake" inside the hole.
2. Classical guitars: These are typically strung with nylon or gut, and amplification is provided by the resonant hollow body, and the vibration of the thin, pliant top. In all acoustic guitars, the strings, though vibrating with sufficient energy to produce a strong sound, can not do so by themselves because they are too small and thin: air merely slips around them rather than being projected outward. The joining of the strings to a large membrane, the top, which they pull back and forth where they connect to it at the bridge, creates an effective air-moving system because the top is large enough that the air can not readily side step its motion. Sound only travels at 330 meters per second -- somewhat quickly, perhaps -- but if we recall that a guitar string typically switches from backward motion to forward motion every 1/600th of a second, we see that the air only has a chance to go about 1/2 meter , and the approximately 1/2 meter dimensions of a guitar top are enough to thwart its attempted evasive rush.
  These guitars are normally played in a seated position and used to play classical music. Flamenco guitars are almost equal in construction, have a sharper sound, and are used in flamenco. In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the tiny requinto to the guitarron, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register.The father of the modern classical guitar was Antonio Torres Jurado.
3. Flat top guitars: Similar to the Classical guitar, but with a narrower, reinforced neck and stronger structural design, to sustain the extra tension of steel strings which produce a louder and brighter tone, the acoustic guitar is a staple in folk, Old-time music, traditional and blues music.
4. Resonator, resophonic or dobro guitars: Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, but with sound produced by a metal resonator mounted in the middle of the top rather than an open sound hole, so that the physical principle of the guitar is actually more similar to the banjo. The purpose of the resonator is to amplify the sound of the guitar; this purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator is still played by those desiring its distinctive sound. This type of guitar is more commonly played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide.
5. 12 string guitars usually have steel strings and are widely used in folk music and rock and roll. Rather than having only six strings, the 12-string guitar has pairs, like a mandolin. Each pair of strings is tuned either in unison (the two highest) or an octave apart (the others). They are made both in acoustic and electric forms.
6. Archtop guitars are steel string, acoustic instruments which feature a violin-inspired design in which the top and back of the instrument are carved in a curved rather than a flat shape. Lloyd Loar of the Gibson company invented this variation of guitar after designing a style of mandolin of the same type. They were immediately adopted by both jazz and country musicians, but fell out of style when rock and roll grew popular since their design is not capable of extreme amplification.
7. Acoustic bass guitars also have steel strings, and match the tuning of the electric bass, which is likewise similar to the traditional double bass viol, the "big bass", a staple of string orchestras and bluegrass bands alike.
Note on this Squier Stratocaster the features of most electric guitars: multiple pickups, a tremolo bar, volume and tone knobs.
Electric guitars: Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow or hollow bodies, and produce little or very low sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into electric signals which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio device. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. The electric guitar is used extensively in blues and rock and roll, and was commercialized by Gibson together with Les Paul and independently by Leo Fender. The electric bass is similar in tuning to the traditional double bass viol.

Hybrids of acoustic and electric guitars are also common. There are also more exotic varieties, such as double-necked guitars, all manner of alternate string arrangements, fretless fingerboards (almost always reserved for bass guitars, meant to emulate the sound of a stand-up bass), and such.

External links

Guitar.com (http://www.guitar.com/)
Photos of replica Renaissance and Baroque guitars can be found among the lutes at Wayne Cripps' lute pages (http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/new/new_lute.html).
The history of guitar-like instruments from 1900 B.C. through modern times is summarized at Classical Guitar Illustrated History (http://www.classicalguitarmidi.com/history/guitar_history.html)
A collection of fine classical guitars in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, is occasionally open for viewing and playing.[1] (http://www.granary-guitars.com)
Classic Cat (http://www.classiccat.net/) has on its Classical Guitar Mp3 Page (http://www.classiccat.net/guitar.htm) an overview of some 100 free guitar mp3s on the internet.
Guitar Noise (http://www.guitarnoise.com) Great articles on theory and practise of Guitar.
Guitar Tabs (http://www.axetopia.com/topics/guitar_tab.html) Axetopia has a good resource list and search .
Dansms (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~desmith/guitar/scales/) features guitar theory articles, including modes, scales, and keys.
Guitar Tuning Tips (http://www.guitartips.addr.com/guitar_tuning_tips.html) has information on basic tuning, along with alternative guitar tunings.
Guitar Catalog Online (http://www.samedaymusic.com/mc--518329/browse--Guitars-Amps-and-Effects--2543) A catalog of guitars, amplifiers and otherwise online.

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Categories: String instruments

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