A Short History Of Guitars

When you are looking to start taking some guitar lessons or when you are interested in buying a guitar then the best thing that you could do is to start by learning about the history of these musical instruments. If you are interested in specific dates then you should know that there aren’t any exact dates regarding the precise evolution of the guitar through history. So here is some basic information that you might find helpful when you are looking to have a broader image of the musical instrument that you are about to invest in.

Around 1400 B.C records show that the Hittites used to play music at a four string instrument that looked very much like the guitar we know today as it had the familiar soft curves. During this period also the Greeks also used a similar instrument which was later on modified by the Romans and called the “cithara”. Despite the fact that the instrument had strings, it looked more like a small harp or a Lyra. The name created confusion among the historians up to a point because of the similarity between “cithara” and “guitar”.

During the 1200 A.D there were two types of guitars that circulated around the world. One was known as the Moorish guitar, which had curved sides that looked very much like the ones the guitar has nowadays. The other type of guitar that circulated in this period is the Latin guitar which resembled our guitar even more because it had a narrow neck and a single hole.

By the late 1400’s the two types off guitars united and evolved into something called the “vihuela”. This was a larger instrument, preferred by the Spanish and Portuguese courts. It had double the strings of the Latin and Moorish guitars and even a bigger neck. The other instrument that was also popular those days was the lute. But eventually the ladder fell in popularity rankings as it had way to many strings and it was very complicated to use.

The man that completely changed the face of the guitar was Antonio Torres Jurado. What he did was to refine the strutting of the guitar allowing seven struts to be spread out like a fan. With these simple , yet innovative changes, the guitar was ready to be used by both solo artists and for concerts. The guitar that we have today is very similar to the one Antonio Jurado created back in the 1800’s. Therefore if you are interested in taking up guitar lessons then you will know now the basic facts about this musical instrument.

By: JacquelineBrewster

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