GUITAR

IDENTIFICATION

The guitar is a string instrument of the chordophone family constructed from wood and strung with either nylon or steel strings. The modern guitar was preceded by the lute, vihuela, four-course renaissance guitar and five-course baroque guitar; all of which contributed to the development of the modern six-string instrument. There are three main types of modern acoustic guitar: the classical guitar (nylon-string guitar), the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar. The tone of an acoustic guitar is produced by the vibration of the strings, which is amplified by the body of the guitar, which acts as a resonating chamber. The classical guitar is often played as a solo instrument using a comprehensive fingerpicking technique. Electric guitars, introduced in the 1930s, rely on an amplifier that can electronically manipulate tone. Early amplified guitars employed a hollow body, but a solid body was found more suitable. Electric guitars have had a continuing profound influence on popular culture. Guitars are recognized as a primary instrument in genres such as blues, bluegrass, country, flamenco, folk, jazz, jota, mariachi, metal, punk, reggae, rock, soul, and many forms of pop. Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides". The term is used to refer to a number of instruments that were developed and used across Europe, beginning in the 12th century and, later, in the Americas. Modern chordophones are the descendants of long lines of instruments that go back several thousand years to those of ancient Central Asia and India. For this reason, modern western chordophones, like the guitar, the violin, the lute and others, are distantly related to the modern instruments of Central Asia and India, including the tanbur, the setar and the sitar. A 3,300-yearold stone carving of a Hittite bard playing a stringed instrument is the oldest iconographic representation of a chordophone. Although the word guitar is descended from the Latin word cithara, the modern guitar itself is not generally believed to have descended from the Roman instrument. Many influences are cited as antecedents to the modern guitar. One commonly cited influence is of the arrival of the four-string oud, which was introduced by the invading Moors in the 8th century.

DESCRIPTION

Rista Agustina Wibowo/ X4/25