History of Guitars
By TDF. Filed in Art |
The history of guitars traces back to India and Central Asia. It is
derived from the Sitara. The oldest known iconographic depiction of an
instrument displaying all the required features of a guitar is a 3300
year old stone carving of a Hittite bard. Earlier a guitar was known to
be an instrument with a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard,
ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides. The modern
guitar owes its origin from the Spanish guitarra derived from the Latin
word cithara. Cithara comes from the Greek word kithara, perhaps
derived from Persian sihtar, which in turn related to Indian Sitara.
Following the history of guitars the modern guitar comes from the
Roman cithara brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD. They
further modified and developed it with the entrance of the four string
oud, brought by the Moors. In other parts of Europe, the native six
strings Scandinavian lut (lute) had gained in reputation in areas of
Viking incursions across the continent.
The composers for the string instruments wrote mostly in tablature
notation. During the 17th century, Italy was said to be the capital of
the guitar world. In France, the guitar was considered to be the
instrument of the nobility. The Spanish school of guitar creation
flourished after the end of the eighteenth century. The works and
composition of the composers traveled widely including the Italians
composers who were involved in a number of substantial works.
One of the most vital factors in the history of guitars was the
addition of the sixth string during the middle of the eighteenth
century. The changes in social conditions and improvement in the mode
of transportation during the 19th Century contributed to the growing
understanding of the guitar and enabled performers to travel with their
composition. Guitar music thrived Spain more than others in the 19th
century.
The early 20th century saw the European emigrants coming to America
brought a number of highly skilled instrument makers among them,
including those who were expert in the manufacturing of steel stringed
acoustic guitar. Two types of construction evolved, the flat top guitar
and the arch top guitar. Martin and Gibson were two of the original and
most significant of all American acoustic guitar makers.
A well recognized name in the history of guitars, Antonio Torres
Jurado (1817 to1892), developed the modern feature of the guitar in
Seville during the 1850s. George Beauchamp in 1936 patented the
electric guitar, which used the horseshoe magnet pickup. However,
Danelectro was the first to produce electric guitars for the wider
public.
The requirement for something with an amplified sound became
noticeable during the big band era of history of guitars. Amplified
devices became necessary in order to fight with the loud volumes of the
large brass sections common to jazz orchestras of the thirties and
forties. To begin with the component of electric guitar, this consisted
primarily of hollow archtop acoustic guitar bodies to which
electromagnetic transducers had been fixed.
The original recognized use of the electric guitar in the history of
guitars was during October 1932 in Wichita, Kansas by guitarist and
bandleader Gage Brewer who acquired two instruments directly from
George Beauchamp of Los Angeles, California. The first recording of an
electric guitar was by jazz guitarist George Barnes. He recorded two
songs in Chicago on March 1st, 1938. These were Sweetheart Land and It
is a Low Down Dirty Shame.
