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Interesting Facts about Guitars

Gaynor Borade
The guitar is a stringed musical instrument. Traditionally, it was strung with six flexible material lengths kept under tension. Today, this musical instrument not only comes in four, seven, eight, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, and eighteen string counts, but is also recognized as a primary instrument in various music styles such as Flamenco, Jazz, and Pop. Read on to know interesting facts and the history about guitar.
The guitar is a principle stringed instrument that is an integral part of various musical styles. It is a common sight in concerts promoting Blues, Country, Rock, and Mariachi performances across the globe.
This traditional solo classical instrument has ancient roots, dating as far back as 4,000 years ago! For those who came in late, a guitar is defined as a fretted neck instrument, fitted with a flat wooden soundboard, some ribs and a back with incurved sides.
The modern guitar can be played acoustically, or with the support of an amplifier. The musical tones are either produced by modulated string vibrations or electronic manipulation. Today, this musical instrument has a profound influence on music cultures around the world, especially since the introduction of the electric guitars in the 1930s.

Interesting Facts

  • The ancestors of the modern guitar can be traced back to the stringed instruments played across Central Asia and India, in ancient times.
  • The oldest iconographic representation of the strumming instrument is a 3,000-year-old carving of a Hittite or ancient Anatolian bard playing the instrument.
  • The instrument is believed to have descended from the cithara brought to Hispania by the Romans, in 40 CE.
  • The various references to the guitar in ancient times included guitarra, gitarre, guitare, qitara, cithara, kithara, and sihtar.
  • Traditionally, they were constructed with combinations of various woods. The strings were made of animal gut.
  • The musical instrument has a mention in records maintained by the Moors, Viking incursions, and in traditional Norse carvings.
  • Dimension standards of the modern stringed instrument were established by Antonio Torres Jurado, between 1817 and 1892.

Guitar Design Facts

  • The various brands of guitars comprise PRS, Dean, Gretsch, Gibson, Ibanez, Jackson, Schecter, and Fender and Martin.
  • Classical guitars are typically strung with nylon strings. They have a wide, flat neck for least string interference with scales and arpeggios.
  • The Yepes 10-string guitar flaunts four resonators that work in unison with all 12 chromatic notes, to enhance and balance sonority.
  • Archtop guitars are carved in a curve rather than the traditional flat shape. They are equipped with magnetic pickups and flat-wound strings.
  • Electric guitars are fitted with electromagnetic pickups to convert string vibrations into electrical signals. These are then fed into an amplifier and modified via vacuum tubes.
  • Guitars can be constructed for left- and right-handed players. The features are modified accordingly, to enhance the dynamics and tonal expressions.