The guitar is one of the most famous instruments worldwide. It has been used for almost all types of music. The guitar has made many cultural impacts on society. There have also been drastic changes over history. They have changed looks, sounds, and overall style. How have guitars evolved over time? Before the guitar was even thought of, there were instruments that showed some similarities. The first stringed instruments were around about 4000 years ago. The first few instruments were called tanburs and bowl harps. These instruments are made by taking a tortoise shell and attaching a stick to it, usually a bent one. After that, a few gut or silk strings were run from the stick to the middle of the shell. One of the oldest guitar-like instruments is about 3500 years old. This instrument belonged to an Egyptian singer named Har-Mose. He owned a tanbur, but his had three strings instead of just one or two. It was also made out of rawhide and cedar (Guy). After years, instruments started looking more and more like the guitar. The first instrument that started to look like the guitar was around in the 1200s-1300s. It was found in Mediterranean Europe. Sources refer to this as this as the guitarra latina. Two of the earliest forms after the guitarra latina are the lute and the vihuela. The lute is a small instrument that is shaped somewhat like a pair. It had twelve strings and a very short neck. The vihuela is shaped more like a guitar. It is larger and also has twelve strings (Chapman). The evolution finally progressed so far that the modern day guitar that we know came around. The first one was created from 1800-1850. It is called the Spanish Court Guitar. This was the first six-string guitar. The body was made of rosewood, the neck ... ... middle of paper ... ...e the same as guitars and are also amplified (Wade-Matthews). Guitars are very different instruments than they once were. They have had many changes in shape, sound, style, and how they are made. Starting out as tortoise shells with a stick and some strings, they have now developed into acoustics, spread from Europe to the rest of the world, and turned out to be the crazy shaped, cool designed electric guitars of today. Works Cited Chabot, Paul. “A History of the Guitar”. Guitarsite. 1999-2014. Web. 5 May 2014. Chapman, Richard. The New Complete Guitarist. London: DK Publishing, Inc., 1993. Print. Guy, Paul. “A Brief History of the Guitar”. Guyguitars. 2001-2007. Web. 4 Apr. 2014. Wade-Matthews, Max; Thompson, Wendy. The Encyclopedia of Music. London: Hermes House, 2002. Print. Wendkos, Zach. “The Evolution of the Electric Guitar”. 21 May 2010. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
According to Peter E , his original program included transcriptions from Tárrega , as well as his own transcriptions of Bach and others. However, based on Clinton, George , many "serious" musicians believed that Segovia would be laughed off of the stage, because the guitar could not play classical music at that time. In order to refute their argument, Segovia astounded the audience with his perfect techniques and impressive performing skills. After that, Segovia shared the view he had of the guitar being a concert instrument. "First, no string instrument offers such complete harmonic potential; second, it is light and can be transported effortlessly from one place to another; and thirdly, its sound is naturally melancholic and beautiful." From that concert, he also found out the only problem with the concert guitar performance, which is that the guitar could not produce enough sound to fill the hall. So over the coming years, Segovia would supervise luthiers to experiment through thousands of new woods and designs for the body of the guitar, thereby increasing its natural amplification, and do more practice simultaneously, to make his performing technique go further. With the advent of nylon strings during the World War II, the guitar could produce more consistent tones, and also being able to project the sound much farther. The range of the sound transmission problem was solved gradually. In 1928, Andrés Segovia’s first concert in New York had been a huge success, which also led him to more offers for appearances in America and Europe, from then on, the great, meaningful journey of Andrés Segovia and his guitar was
The next logical step in this evolutionary chain was as sure as a spoiled child’s demands. Now that I have what I want I want more of it. Thus came the psaltery (diagram 2). The psaltery was a great leap fourth from the monochord. It was a small trapezoid shaped box with many strings stretched over it. However unlike the monochord the psaltery did not have movable bridges to change the pitch while playing and furthermore these bridges were much more like the bridges of modern string instruments. The psaltery was played by picking the strings (which were obviously tuned to different pitches) with the fingers or with a pick. This was an extremely popular instrument in the Middle Ages but as the music got more complicated and simple accompaniment wasn’t enough it was soon swallowed by progress.
Aptly named the Rock & Roll Generation, the 1950's saw the birth and rise to prominence of rock-n-roll and rockabilly (an early style of rock-n-roll). However, this musical revolution would never have been possible without the invention of the electric guitar by Les Paul in 1952 (1). The solid-body electric guitar produced a distinct sound unlike any other instrument during that time; as a result, it was this unique sound that rock-n-roll music developed its entire foundation upon. Today, Les Paul’s guitar (now owned by the popular guitar company Gibson) remains one of the most famous electric guitars not just in the America, but also in the world, along with the Fender Stratocaster and Telecaster. With the advent of the electric guitar, Carl Perkins was a pioneer in the establishment of rock music, and his particular ...
It is believed that the Irish brought to the region the fiddle and the pipes. It is believed that the first stringed instrument, the dulcimer was brought by the Germans, Norwegians, Swedish and French. The dulcimer became known as the 1“Hog Fiddle” or “Music Box”.
The history of the guitar is very broad but certain individuals have made it a very popular instrument. These same people have brought the guitar into the spotlight by using their own special styles. Thanks to them, the guitar has a spot in every type of music; heavy metal too classical.
Before you can understand the physics of playing the guitar, you must first know the brief history of it. The guitars’ history can be traced back to over 4,000 years ago. This ancient instrument has many theories on how it came to be. The theory with the most evidence states that the guitar was a development from a Greek 4-stringed instrument, and then altered by the Romans to be called the cithara. Soon after, this cithara was then brought to Portugal and Spain where it was changed yet again to an instrument named the Oud. After this, it was combined with the vihuela. Throughout time, insignificant alterations where made to the vihuela. It was not until the end of the 1800’s that a man named Antonio Torres Jurado created what we known as the guitar. To start, he increased the size of the body and neck. He raised the neck and improved the fingerboard with ebony or rosewood. He replaced the tuning pegs with more efficient machine tuners. As a result, he made the guitar louder, more efficient, and he overall improved the sound (History of the Acoustic Guitar) (Guy).
Hanning, Barbara Russano, and Donald Jay Grout. Concise History Of Western Music. 4th. New York: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2010. print.
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace,” said legendary American rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In the 1960’s Jimi Hendrix, along with many other musical artists, greatly influenced numerous people. His unorthodox method of playing and how well he played the guitar would become his trademark for many years to come. Arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music, Hendrix expanded the range and vocabulary of the electric guitar and pioneered explosive possibilities of the instrument. His innovative style of combining fuzz, feedback, and controlled distortion created a new musical form.
When it comes to classic musical instrument, piano is definitely one of the names that pop up in your mind. Indeed, after its first appearance around the year of 1700, piano has never left the stage of high culture and top class performance. Till today, three hundred years have past since it was first invented. Surely, a lot of changes have been made during this long period of evolution, the designers learnt to utilize better materials but the basic inner mechanism have stayed the same. However, the outside appearance of piano did changed a few times throughout the course of time. The first piano borrowed quite a bit of its look and design from the harpsichord because it was invented by Bartolomeo di Francesco Cristofori, an Italian harpsichord maker. (Powers, W. 2008) Namely, a noticeable amount of improvements have been made during the evolution of the instrument base on the demand of the time and arena. In this essay, stringed instruments with keyboard which are in the
Many manufactures began making electric bass guitars in the 1960s due to the explosion of rock music. The Fender Jazz Bass, also known as the Deluxe Bass,...
As the increasing popularity of the guitar, guitar performance has been developed into a discipline, and is still being carried forward. At the beginning of the 1920s, a musician, a composer and the most important a guitarist, Andrés Segovia, was getting to be known as one of the greatest guitarists and the grandfather of the classical guitar. He spent his whole life learning, exploring and improving the classical guitar. Many people believe that, without his efforts, the charm of the guitar would still be covered, and the instrument would never appear in a concert stage.
Four hundred years ago the guitar was invented. Since then, guitar has been a great innovative instrument. It serves as the heart of a song, or sound. From Jazz, and Blues, to Heavy Metal, and punk music guitar has been perhaps the biggest factor in modern music. Between acoustic guitar, and electric guitar there is a lot of history.
Music is made with many different kinds of instruments and/or your voice. Some of those instruments are: guitars, violins, flutes, drums, and many new electrical instruments.
Widely recognized as one of the most creative and influential musicians of the 20th century, Jimi Hendrix pioneered the explosive possibilities of the electric guitar. Hendrix's innovative style of combining fuzz, feedback and controlled distortion created a new musical form. Because he was unable to read or write music, it is nothing short of remarkable that Jimi Hendrix's meteoric rise in the music took place in just four short years. His musical language continues to influence a host of modern musicians, from George Clinton to Miles Davis, and Steve Vai to Jonny Lang.
I previously thought that Les Paul was a brand of guitar, not an actual person. Les Paul had a knack for inventing when he built his first crystal radio at age nine; which was about the time he started playing guitar. By age 13 he was performing as a country music guitarist and working diligently on sound-related inventions. It is safe to say that rock and roll as we all know and love it today would not be the same if not so for the invention of the electric guitar. In 1941, Paul built his first solid body electric guitar, and he continued to make improvements to the guitar throughout the decade. Les Paul would go on to redefine the technology of sound recording. The guitar that bears his name the “Gibson Les Paul” was his crowning achievement. He experimented with different designs until he had his non-vibrating guitar body, which he called “The Log.” Gibson Guitars initially turned him down, calling his invention “a broomstick with pickups”. He was beaten to the marketplace by Leo Fender, whose Fender Broadcaster was introduced in 1948. Over the ensuing decades Les Paul has remained active on all fronts. He recorded a Grammy-winning album of instrumental duets with Chet Atkins, Chester and Lester, in 1976. Les Paul was finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in