Adaptable and Popular Instruments: The Guitar

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Guitar has become one of the most adaptable and popular instruments; it can be used in most genres of music. Guitar has been around since the 15th century. An instrument in Spain called the vihuela is the first guitar but it only had four strings and were very small if we compared it to a modern day instrument it would closely resemble a ukelele. Since then the instrument has advanced. From Jazz, to rock 'n' roll, and country guitar has the biggest impact on how music is today. There is a lot of history from electric guitars to acoustic guitars. The ancestor to the guitar is the lute. The lute is like an older version of the guitar but is a lot more complex considering it had 25-35 strings. The lute is made up entirely of wood. The body of the instrument looks almost like a teardrop. The neck of the lute is made up of a light wood with a hardwood cover. The pegbox was angled at a 90 degrees to hold the low tension strings so they are firm against the nut. During the times of the Renaissance an instrument called the lute was very popular. They were so popular that people like Henry VIII, Francois I, and the Pope in Rome would hire lutenists as their own personal musicians and would have competitions against other player. It would help impact on the status of that ruler. During the 17th century the lute started to lose its popularity. Pianos became the most popular since it was hard to maintain and play the lute. In the 16h century there was a five stringed guitar. The guitars had frets, frets are strips made from nickel or brass and are inserted into the guitars fretboard where you play chords. Later in the 18th century the five stringed guitar was made into the very popular six-stringed guitar. One of the earliest six stringe... ... middle of paper ... ...paying for the name of the guitar. The amplifier affects the way the guitar sounds just as much s the guitar pickups do. If you are playing in front of a crowd with an amp that is $50 the guitar will also sound bad. If you play on an amp that is $600 there will be a huge difference in sound. So the price and equipment matter for the guitar because the more expensive the equipment is the better material it will be made out of. Another thing that can affect the sound of the guitar is what chemicals you use to customize it with. For instance paints and lacquers can affect the sound of the guitar. The lacquer and paint serves a lot of purposes : it will improve the tone, protects the wood, ages the wood well, and makes the guitar look nice overall. But the lacquer is the most important because it can damage the tone of the guitar since the tone is made by the wood.

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