MUSIC INSTRUMENT
AUGUST 9, 2022
The Origin of Guitar : A True History
Guitar is one of the most important music instruments in today’s music. However, the origin of this gear starts long time ago.
Guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is played by plucking, generally using fingers or a plectrum. The guitar is made up of a main body part with a solid neck as a place for the six strings to be attached.
It may have originated in Spain in the early 16th century, derives from the guitarra latina, a medieval musical instrument with a waisted body with four strings.
The word ‘guitar’ or guitar in English, was originally taken from the name of an ancient stringed instrument in Persia around 1500 BC known as the citar or sehtar. This musical instrument later developed into various types of ancient guitar models known as the general term tanbur.
This musical instrument later developed into various types of ancient guitar models. In 300 BC Persian tanbur was developed by the Greeks and six centuries later by the Romans (Bellow, 1970:54-55). In 476M this instrument was brought by the Romans to Spain and transformed into: (1) guitarra Morisca which functions as a melody carrier, and (2) Guitarra Latina to play chords.
Today’s modern classical guitar was designed in the late 19th century by Spanish luthier Antonio Torres Jurado.
But although steel-stringed acoustic guitars are currently used worldwide, the person credited with creating the first guitar of this type is a German immigrant who moved to the United States named Christian Frederick Martin (1796-1867).
Guitars are traditionally made of various types of wood with strings made of nylon or steel. Some modern guitars are made of polycarbonate material. In general, guitars are divided into 2 types: acoustic and electric.
The guitar body consists of three main parts, namely the head, neck and body. On the head there is a string tuning machine. The six strings of the guitar are tied to six pegs that are part of the tuning machine. The neck is between the head and body.
Guitar sizes are usually between 165 cm for adult guitar sizes and 120cm for children. However, measuring the guitar in this way is less effective for comparing one guitar model to another. For children age 5-10 years old usually the size is between 80 – 125 cm or 3/4 size.
Guitars usually have six strings. Each string has a different thickness. Starting from the thinnest string, the strings are called string 1, string 2, and so on, until string 6. Strings 1 and 2 are called “plain strings” and strings are not closed (not wound).
The front of the neck that goes up to about a quarter of the faceboard of the guitar body, is a fingerboard that has 19 metal dividers known as frets. Its function is to produce different levels of pitch by placing the fingers in the spaces between the fret metals.
Generally the number of frets in an acoustic guitar is twelve to seventeen. Choose a guitar with a large number of frets so that the guitar can reach high notes.
Most guitars these days already have iron bars in their necks. This iron works to maintain the bend in the neck and reduce the bend if it is bent.
The body of the guitar acts as a resonator tube to amplify the sound produced by the vibration of the strings. The front board on the guitar body whose wood is thinner than the back and side boards is also known as the soundboard. On the soundboard there is an earpiece for sound production.
The quality of the wood on the guitar is a determining factor as to why the guitar is of good quality. Usually a good guitar is made of mahogany or teak wood. Usually a good guitar is neither too heavy nor too light, the weight is between heavy and light.
What makes a guitar expensive is the choice of wood material. The wood on the body and the neck is the main concern. Because consciously or not, several types of wood have their own character that affects the quality of the sound produced, and the comfort of playing.
Currently the world’s most expensive guitar is the Fender Stratocaster model. The white Stratocaster which initially only had a price of 17 thousand euros was successfully auctioned for 2.3 million euros making it the most expensive guitar ever sold.
This Fender Stratocaster was signed by many people, including Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Bryan Adams, Paul McCartney, and fifteen other rock stars.
This was to make the guitar a desirable and valuable item at auction. They did so to raise as much money as possible for the victims of the 2004 Tsunami in Asia.
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